The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  Holtzendorff rallied his shaken men for a further effort behind the village of Nerkwitz, but once again the French worked their way round his left and then charged frontally with their cavalry. This was too much for Prussian morale, and in no time Holtzendorff’s command had disintegrated into a horde of fugitives who, abandoning most of their remaining guns, made off for Apolda. Their general succeeded in rallying his cavalry and a single battery, which he forthwith ordered to join Hohenlohe’s advancing formations, before following his routed infantry to the north. The disaster might have been even more complete had St. Hilaire been permitted to pursue the enemy, but the growing new crisis in the center forced Soult to call off his men to make an attack against Hohenlohe’s left flank.

  The Battle of Jena-Auerstadt, October 14, 1806: Napoleon’s plan

  By 9:00 o’clock Prince Hohenlohe had come to realize that he faced more than a mere local attack by a French flank detachment. The arrival of the discomfited Tauenzien brought the point home with admirable clarity, and the Prince lost no time in dispatching an aide riding hell-for-leather for Weimar with a message requesting Ruchel to move to his immediate assistance. This done, he instructed Tauenzien to withdraw his survivors to the rear, there to reform and replenish their cartridges, while three Saxon brigades formed up along the Weimar road with orders to keep it clear of the enemy at all costs. Next, Hohenlohe ordered up the greater part of his Prussian infantry and one further Saxon brigade, and sent General GrĠwert off to the east to dispute with the French their possession of the plateau. The third phase of the battle of Jena was about to open.

  The Prussian column arrived on the scene of action in rather a piecemeal fashion. In front came a Saxon division, making for the west bank of the Mühlbach, followed by cavalry and horse artillery, GrĠwert’s Prussian troops bringing up the rear. By 11:00 o’clock, however, eleven battalions were deployed in line facing Lannes’ corps. The Saxon division was in support on the right, and the buildup of Prussian cavalry units was proceeding apace, when suddenly an unexpected struggle flared up to the south of Vierzehnheiligen village. This was the work of some impatient French newcomers, soon identified as the advance guard of Marshal Ney, comprising two regiments of light cavalry and five battalions of foot.

  After chafing for several hours in the vicinity of Jena, waiting for the rest of his corps to materialize, the fiery Ney’s impatience to get to grips with the foe had at length proved too much for his sense of duty, and without receiving any orders, he plunged headlong into the battle, moving into action in the interval between Lannes’ left and Augereau’s right, covered from everybody’s sight by the lingering remnants of the morning fog. Thinking nothing of accepting odds of two to one, Ney made straight for a powerful Prussian battery. At first, good fortune favored his boldness; the right of the Prussian line crumbled at his approach, the French drove the gunners from their pieces, and crowned their achievement by forcing a precipitate if temporary retreat on the 45 Prussian squadrons which had been, about to launch a charge against Lannes’ troops around Vierzehnheiligen. Ney’s success was, however, transitory. His rash advance had inevitably led to heavy casualties, and when the enemy cavalry recovered from its surprise and returned to the attack, Ney was compelled to, form square to withstand the onslaught. Worse still, the impetus of his advance had carried him beyond supporting distance of both Lannes and Augereau, and consequently he was soon cut off.

  Fortunately for Ney, the Emperor had by this time realized what was happening, and to rescue his insubordinate assistant from almost certain disaster he ordered Bertrand to gallop forward with the two regiments of horsemen which represented the army’s total cavalry reserve (Murat had not yet reached the field). At the same time, Lannes was told to press forward through the village and re-establish contact with the isolated force, while Augereau made haste to form a second line in rear of Ney. These moves succeeded in relieving the pressure on the Gascon, but otherwise were hardly crowned with success. As Lannes’ troops came pouring through Vierzehnheiligen they ran straight into Grawert’s line, now formed in oblique formation, advancing to meet them “as if on parade.” Although losses on both sides were severe, the incident ended in the repulse of the French, Lannes’ skirmishers falling back into the village, and Ney being forced to relinquish his grip on Isserstadt and its neighboring wood. General Savary wryly described Napoleon’s reaction to Ney taking the bull by the horns: “The Emperor was very much displeased at Marshal Ney’s obstinacy. He said a few words to him on the subject—but with delicacy.”32

  The crisis of the day had now come, and Hohenlohe was presented with the opportunity of making good much of the ground lost by the Prussians during the morning, but unfortunately his nerve failed him. Urged by his staff to storm Vierzehnheiligen and make the most of his advantage, he decided rather to halt GrĠwert’s troops within easy range of the village in an Entirely unprotected position, there to await the arrival of Ruchel’s corps from Weimar. Massenbach was sent back down the road to hasten this reinforcement, but the decision to halt GrĠwert represented a fatal mistake by Hohenlohe. In the famous words of Colonel Maude: “Now followed one of the most extraordinary and pitiful incidents in military history. This line of magnificent infantry, some 20,000 strong, stood out in the open for two whole hours while exposed to the merciless case and skirmishing fire of the French, who, behind the garden walls, offered no mark at all for their return fire. In places the fronts of the companies were only marked by individual files still loading and firing, while all their comrades lay dead and dying around them.”33 Nevertheless, Prussian howitzer fire succeeded in dismounting several French pieces, and the explosion of several artillery caissons caused heavy casualties.

  For a time, an impasse existed around this sector of the field, but Lannes soon attempted to resolve the situation by launching a simultaneous frontal and flank attack against the enemy left. Hohenlohe at once withdrew his left into a defensive formation, but the weight of the French attack bore the Prussians back until an opportune countercharge led by some freshly arrived Saxon squadrons reversed the situation and drove Lannes’ men back into their village in considerable disorder. Once again, Hohenlohe failed to follow up his success, but on this occasion his reasons were more substantial than formerly. On his right flank, Ney’s infantry and part of Marshal Lannes’ troops moved forward once more through Isserstadt wood and emerged onto the main Weimar road, cutting off the three Saxon brigades stationed there from the Prussian center, while away toward Jena the Prussian commander could see the dark masses of newly arrived formations moving toward the firing line. Under such circumstances any further advance appeared rash in the extreme, and Hohenlohe turned all his attention to the task of moving up his last reserves to fill the gap between his right and center. As a result, by 1:00 o’clock, every formation of the Prussian army—with the sole exception of Tauenzien’s shattered division—was committed to the line, and Hohenlohe was now left anxiously awaiting Rüchel’s anticipated arrival to form his reserve. Unfortunately, that officer had been seriously delayed on the road, and had taken two hours to cover three miles, and there was now no chance of his coming up before two or three in the afternoon.

  Meanwhile, French pressure was relentlessly increased as the Grande Armée’s summoned formations crossed over the Saale. By 12:30, Napoleon had 42,000 men in reserve (Murat’s cavalry together with the main bodies of Soult’s and Ney’s commands) in addition to the 54,000 troops already hotly engaged in the fray. A general attack was ordered against the whole Prussian line. On the French right, St. Hilaire’s division was to try consequences once more with Holtzendorff’s survivors, while on the left Augereau got to grips with the Saxons in the Schnecke, a narrow and winding pass through which ran the main Weimar-Jena highway. The central sector was to be attacked frontally by Ney and Lannes, supported by Murat, once the flank engagements had got well under way. Augereau was in action as early as 11:30

  A.M., but only at 1:00 o’clock was St. Hilaire in
position. Thereupon, Napoleon signaled the general advance by the center.

  To its chagrin, the élite troops of the Guard were not permitted to partake in this forward movement: “… the foot soldiers of the Imperial Guard watched everybody engaged while they stood idle with considerable bitterness. Some were heard to say ‘Forward’; ‘What is that?’ asked the Emperor. ‘Only a beardless youth would presume to judge in advance what I should do. Let him wait until he has commanded in thirty pitched battles before he dares to give me advice!’ It was the velités who were impatient to show off their courage.”34 Napoleon was decidedly reluctant about committing the Guard to battle, a trend that was to lose him a last chance of victory on the field of Waterloo nine years hence.

  Somewhat unwisely parts of the Prussian cavalry and artillery moved forward to meet the coming storm, but the eager French flowed round these obstructions and penetrated the gaps they had left in the main Prussian line. It was the moment of decision; Prussian fire began to slacken, and Hohenlohe accepted the inevitable and ordered a general retreat toward Gröss- and Klein-Romstedt. It was by no means an easy task to disengage his formations, for Lannes brought up his artillery at the gallop and opened a heavy harassing fire on the retiring columns. This notwithstanding, at first the withdrawal was executed in good order, but very soon panic began to spread as Murat’s cavalry came thundering forward, and the Prussian retreat rapidly disintegrated into a rout. Part fled westward toward Weimar in a torrent of men and horses, and the fact that they escaped Murat’s sabers in any number was largely due to the heroic action of a single Saxon grenadier battalion led by a Colonel Winkel, who formed square and retired in good order, covering the flight of part of their compatriots. Another section of Hohenlohe’s army made for the north and were rather more fortunate, for Tauenzien’s division was able to hold off the pursuers near Gross-Romstedt; even so, this hurrying column lost 2,500 prisoners, 16 guns and 8 colors to the implacable French.

  Despite the appearance of a major French victory, there was still a postscript to be fought out. The fugitives on the road for Weimar suddenly came up near Capellendorf with the 15,000 troops of the belated Rüchel, whose nonappearance on the main field of battle was largely to blame for the disaster. Under the present circumstances, his most sensible course would have been to take up a defensive position along the line of the River Sulbach and there attempt to cover the escape of his compatriots; this, however, was not to his taste. Instead he deployed his men halfway between Kotschau and Gröss-Romstedt. The appearance of the blue-coated masses of Lannes’ and Ney’s infantry to his front made the Prussian position untenable and the order to retreat was issued. At first this went smoothly enough, covered by squadrons of Prussian and Saxon cavalry, but the salvoes of a handful of French guns, rushed up on Napoleon’s order, and the later onset of the French infantry broke the cohesion of the covering force. Then it was the turn of Murat’s cuirassiers, and very soon battalion after battalion was being scattered in red ruin, and Rüchel’s fugitives in their turn poured down the Weimar road. The French took 4,000 more captives besides seizing 5 colors and standards.

  The Battle of Jena-Auerstadt, October 14, 1806: the main phases of the Battle of Jena

  This marked the end of cohesive resistance, and by 3:00 in the afternoon the victory was complete. Various detachments still required rounding up, but by 4:00 o’clock Murat’s pursuit was fully under way, and one hour later the dashing Gascon rode into the town of Weimar contemptuously wielding a riding whip instead of a saber. On the road to Apolda, Tauenzien continued to fall back in good order, keeping Soult at arm’s distance, but elsewhere it was only the early fall of the winter’s night that saved the survivors. For the loss of 5,000 men, the French had inflicted no less than 25,000 casualties (including 15,000 prisoners). Napoleon was confident that the morrow would vastly increase the number, for he believed that Davout and Bernadotte were moving as ordered on Apolda, directly across the line of retreat of at least half the Prussian survivors.

  The Emperor slowly wended his way back to his original bivouac on the Landgrafenberg, pausing on the main battlefield to organize the care of the wounded. It was dusk before he regained his headquarters at an auberge in Jena, now decorated with 30 captured enemy colors. He found one Captain Tobriant, an officer of Davout’s staff, waiting for him. At first he could hardly credit the news the captain revealed; Davout claimed to have fought and defeated the Prussian main body near Auerstadt, ten miles away. “Your marshal must be seeing double,” he somewhat ungraciously snapped at the emissary. Little by little, however, he came to realize that in fact he—the Emperor, with 96,000 men—had only been engaging the Prussian flank forces, jointly 55,000 strong, while Davout—the subordinate, a mere 26,000 troops under his command—had been locked in mortal conflict with Brunswick’s main body. Napoleon found it hard to swallow the magnitude of the calculational error under which he had labored, but next day he awarded Davout the unstinted praise he richly deserved. But what had happened to Bernadotte? The answer to that would have to wait until the morrow. Napoleon was so weary that he fell asleep while dictating the next day’s orders. At a sign from their commander, the Imperial Guard silently formed their square round their exhausted Emperor and guarded his slumbers through the night. Ten miles away, the survivors of Davout’s decimated but victorious corps shared his sleep of exhaustion.

  The complementary battle of Auerstadt, fought on the same day as Jena, had been a desperately hard-fought affair. In the Fifth Bulletin of the Grande Armée, issued next day, Napoleon paid tribute to his subordinate: “On our right, Marshal Davout’s corps performed wonders. Not only did he contain, but he pushed back, and defeated, for more than three leagues, the bulk of the enemy’s troops, which were to debouch through Kosen. This marshal displayed distinguished bravery and firmness of character, the first qualities in a warrior.”35 The generous statement stated no more than the truth; it should serve to disprove the assertions of some historians who claim that the Emperor never fully admitted his debt to Davout.

  On receipt of the Emperor’s orders for the IIIrd and Ist Corps (at 4:00

  A.M. on the 14th), Marshal Davout at once dispatched a copy to his colleague Bernadotte, and then set about preparing the 27,000 men of his own corps for the prescribed advance from Naumburg to Apolda. Owing to the dense fog, he had little exact idea of how many Prussians would be found to his front, but he was aware that troop movements of some magnitude were proceeding to the west, and Prussian prisoners revealed that they belonged to Brunswick’s main body. This activity was caused, of course, by the columns of Brunswick’s retreating army of 60,000 men. Late on the night of the 13th, as the fog was causing dire confusion along the narrow roads, these troops were ordered to bivouac in the vicinity of Auerstadt with their 16 batteries totaling 230 guns. At this juncture a Prussian cavalry patrol brought in a few French prisoners who revealed under questioning that Davout’s forward elements were already in control of the Kosen defile. Instead of deciding to launch an early attack on these troops to force a way through toward Freiburg (the opposition in fact numbered only one and a half battalions and two squadrons), the cautious Brunswick determined to evade any action, especially as he believed that Napoleon in person was at Naumburg, and ordered that the army should file off the next day to the west of the neighboring heights of Hassenhaussen, where Schmettau’s cavalry and infantry would be posted to cover the move.

  Thus affairs stood when the 14th dawned with no noticeable diminution of the pervading mists. This notwithstanding, Davout’s troops had been on the move since shortly after 4:00 o’clock. Led by General Gudin’s division, which was accompanied by Davout in person, the IIIrd Corps was well on its way through the village of Hassenhaussen when Colonel Burke’s pathfinding cavalry screen suddenly ran into four squadrons and a single battery of Prussians near the hamlet of Pöppel. It was now seven o’clock. Gudin at once took the precaution of forming his infantry into square before continuing to advance. Beyond Has
senhaussen the fog briefly lifted, disclosing the Prussian cavalry about 1,000 yards away, and Gudin lost no time in opening fire. This rapidly knocked out the Prussian guns and sent their cavalry scuttling back, and so Gudin pressed forward toward the line of the Liss Bach stream before ordering his men to halt, intending to wait there for the following divisions of Friant and Morand to close up. In fact, General Friant was only crossing the Kosen bridge at 8:00 o’clock, while Morand was still farther distant. This meant that Gudin’s men would have to stand alone for some considerable time before reinforcements could arrive.

  The forces of Prussian retribution were meanwhile steadily converging on the Liss Bach. Although the eastward advance of their second and third divisions became badly entangled with convoys of baggage moving north, the division of General Schmettau, accompanied by the King of Prussia and Brunswick, was in position by 8:00 o’clock, while Blücher’s 12 squadrons of cavalry were drawn up in a flanking position at Spielberg. At this juncture, therefore, Gudin faced nine battalions, 24 guns and 16 cavalry squadrons. The action opened as a skirmish between the light infantry screens on each side while the principals completed their deployment, but fortunately for the outnumbered Gudin, the coordination of the Prussian attack went hopelessly wrong. Hot-headed Blücher rushed his squadrons into action prematurely, before the Prussian infantry were in position, and Gudin’s squares had little trouble in repulsing their repeated charges on the right, finally driving them off toward Eckartsberg to re-form and lick their wounds.