By the evening of October 24, the French advance guard had reached the suburbs of Berlin, and the next morning Marshal Davout was accorded the honor of leading his corps through the Prussian capital. Two days later, Napoleon in person received the keys of the city from the Prince of Hatzfeld; immediately after the ceremony this personage was arrested on charges of spying, and only the abject pleas of his wife won him his life. The evidence was in fact inconclusive, but Napoleon was never averse to creating an imposing scene to demonstrate his royal clemency for the benefit of contemporary and later observers. A few days later, Augereau’s corps reached the capital, and Baron Marbot recorded a revealing anecdote of the steps taken to humiliate the Prussian army. He had been a witness of the patriotic excesses in Berlin which preceded the declaration of war, yet it was with some sympathy that he described the change of atmosphere. “My first feeling on returning to Berlin, which I had left as a brilliant capital not so long before, was one of sympathy for a patriotic population, brought low by defeat, invasion and the loss of relations and friends. The entry of the Noble Guard, however, disarmed and made prisoner, aroused very different sentiments. The young officers who had sharpened their sabers on the steps of the French Embassy were now humble enough. They had begged to be taken round, and not through, Berlin, not caring to be paraded in view of the inhabitants who had been witnesses of their old swagger. For this very reason the Emperor gave directions for their escort to march- them through the street in which the Embassy stood. This little bit of revenge was not disapproved of by the Berliners, who had little love for the Noble Guard, and accused them of having driven the king to war.”46
Although Napoleon insisted on holding several spectacular reviews to impress the townsfolk, he did not delay in continuing his pursuit of the surviving contingents of the Prussian army. The greatest peril now facing the French was the possibility of Russian intervention, and in order to protect his eastern flank, the Emperor decided to secure the line of the River Oder. The IXth Corps was already en route for Glogau, and had been, in fact, since the crossing of the Elbe, but now Davout also received orders to march east from Berlin to occupy Küstrin and Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. Meantime, the Ist, Vth Corps and the reserve cavalry were to push northward, until the elimination of Hohenlohe and his confederates and the capture of Stettin should be achieved.
The starving and harassed Prussian army was now in the act of retiring with all speed through Oranienburg towards Prenzlau and the relative asylum of Stettin on the Oder. Hard on their heels came Bernadotte, Lannes and Murat. Hohenlohe was never allowed to gain the head start he required to reach Stettin and safety, and the culmination of a string of disasters took place at Prenzlau on the 28th. So great was the Prussian general’s trepidation that he accepted Murat’s blustering claim that he was surrounded by 100,000 French troops without investigating its validity, and forthwith adopted Massenbach’s advice that further resistance was hopeless. Ten thousand Prussians and 64 guns fell into the hands of the French, followed the next day by the ignominious surrender of 4,000 cavalry (albeit only half of them still mounted) to General Milhaud and a mere 700 French horsemen at Pasewalk. The same day (29th), General Lasalle appeared before the gates of the city of Stettin, where the Governor General, von Romberg, lost no time in opening negotiations. Even more reprehensively, the commander of the fortress dominating Stettin, one Colonel Ingersleben, fired not a single shot at the French force although he had sworn to Frederick William that he would die rather than relinquish its control. This renegade even sent boats across the Oder so that Lasalle could cross to the defenses without difficulty. In this way a further 5,000 Prussian soldiers went into the bag.
The only large detachment of the disintegrated Prussian military machine still in the field and unaccounted for were the troops commanded by Blücher and the Duke of Weimar. The former, as already related, had taken a different course from his compatriots after abandoning the line of the Elbe, making for Sandau with the intention of linking up with Weimar’s command to operate against the French rear. The desired junction did not take place, however, until Blücher reached a point north of Strelitz, and by that time he had changed his plan. His new objective was the Danish port of Lübeck where he planned to take ship for England with his men, now totaling 22,000 (inclusive of Weimar’s detachment). Hot on his heels came Bernadotte with only 12,000 troops, Soult’s corps following a day or so behind, but Blücher, despite the favorable odds and the chance of defeating his pursuers one after the other, preferred to shut up his men within the walls of neutral Lübeck on November 5. He was given no chance, however, to put the place in a state of defense. The leading French formations entered Lübeck at almost the same time as Blücher, and before the 5 th was out, General Scharnhorst and 10,000 men had been compelled to surrender. Although he succeeded in extricating 10,000 of his men to the neighboring town of Ratkau, Blücher was so despondent at the loss of his invaluable chief of staff that he too surrendered to the French on the following day.
An additional prize that fell into Bernadotte’s hand was a newly arrived Swedish division sent by King Gustavus IV to aid his Prussian allies. In the words of Marbot, “The Marshal, whose manners, when he liked, were I must admit, very attractive, was especially desirous to earn the character of a well-bred man in the eyes of these strangers.”47 Every attention was lavished on Count Moerner and his officers, and in due course this well-judged civility earned Bernadotte a throne in northern Europe through the good offices of a grateful Moerner and his colleagues. This same courtesy, however, did not prevent the French soldiery from committing terrible atrocities against the citizens of Lübeck.
On November 6, more than 100 miles away to the south of Lübeck, General von Kleist, defender of Magdeburg, opened negotiations with the blockading force of Marshal Ney, and within four days more than 22,000 more prisoners, 600 guns and vast quantities of supplies had been added to the tally of the Grande Armée’s booty. The campaign of Jena was now virtually at an end. Away on the Rhine flank Mortier moved forward to occupy Hamburg. In addition to 25,000 killed and wounded, the Prussians had lost 140,000 men made captive and handed over more than 2,000 cannon, and only small numbers of survivors succeeded in making their way over the Oder to join the Russian forces. It had taken only 33 days to destroy the armies of Prussia and with them the legend of Prussian invincibility. The whole war had lasted only seven weeks. The blitzkrieg of Napoleonic warfare had once again been convincingly demonstrated.
See Part Six, p. 352, for diagram.
43
THE TRIUMPH ANALYZED
Any analysis of this impressive French success must start with the relative professional competence of the major antagonists. Seldom in history has an army been reduced to impotence more swiftly or decisively. The great traditions of Frederick the Great and his justly famed techniques proved fatal to his successors. Complacency led to the rejection of all schemes of modernization, and overconfidence resulted in a complete misappreciation of what was needed to face Napoleon. The lack of a centralized command system and of a clear military policy led to that profusion of conflicting plans which largely contributed to the confusion and indecisiveness of the Prussian high command. Steeped in the traditions of a glorious past, the warriors of Prussia had to be taught the hard way that the realities of warfare had changed beyond all recognition in the forty years since Rossbach and Leuthen. Opposed to them had been the will of a single man, with complete control over his forces and a clear notion of how to effect the overthrow of his adversaries. Ready to his call was the most efficient and proved army in Europe, led by young men of proven ability with morale already high on account of the triumphs of 1805. Yet the French had not suffered from overconfidence; Napoleon himself made preparations for a long struggle, and the men in the ranks originally echoed his precautionary attitude. Jean Pierre Blaise of the 108th recorded: “We were all certain that we faced a severer campaign than the one that we were, in fact, called upon to undertake. As it happened,
it took us only a few days to find the difference distinguishing Prussia from Austria.”48
The two distinct phases of the campaign, the events leading up to the double battle of October 14 and the subsequent exploitation that lasted into November, form one of the most interesting periods of Napoleon’s military career. In the first period we find him, after adopting sensible security measures for the defense of the Rhine and France, imposing his will on a dilatory and uncertain enemy. This even though the French intelligence service was itself confused by the complexity of the Prussian movements, forcing the Emperor to advance virtually “into the blue” with little accurate information concerning the location of his adversary. Of course, the bataillon carré system was ideally suited to cope with such an uncertain situation, as it could operate against an enemy coming from any side, but it was only on 13th October that Napoleon received comparatively full information as to the exact Prussian whereabouts. However, Napoleon had made the most of the outmoded logistical capacity of his opponents to place them in an impossible situation, and by that time he had eliminated all possible courses of Prussian action but two. Even then, he found himself taking on a full-scale battle two whole days ahead of his anticipated schedule (he had expected to fight at Weimar on the 16th), and throughout the battle of Jena he continued to labor under the delusion that he was engaging the main Prussian army while in fact he was fighting only a flank force with an overall French advantage of more than 20 per cent. These errors can be fairly ascribed to “the fog of war” and to the strength of the Prussian flank position behind the Saale (which Clausewitz called the “best mentioned in history”), rather than to any direct errors on Napoleon’s part. But in this instance we find him groping in the dark for a considerable period, and this is rare in the campaigns he undertook. Nevertheless all possible Prussian courses of action were skillfully eliminated one by one, until the truth became apparent.
Another important lesson of the Jena period of the campaign is the contrast between the confused leadership of the Prussian many-headed “hydra” and the completely centralized direction of French affairs. At the same time, the inherent weakness of the Napoleonic system of command was well demonstrated by the dilatory conduct of Bernadotte. The Master could not be everywhere at once, and in consequence the 1st Corps was permitted to waste the whole day of the 14th without making the least contribution to either the battle of Jena or that of Auerstadt. Had fortune gone against the French in either conflict, the Prince of Ponte Corvo’s behavior might well have led to a disaster. As it was, it robbed the victory of even more comprehensive immediate results. Similarly, Ney’s premature entry into the battle of Jena was another complicating feature showing that Napoleon was not always in full control of his subordinates. On the other hand, there were also two outstanding examples of initiative, courage and good sense displayed by two of the other marshals: Davout’s brilliant handling of the critical situation at Auerstadt is justly the most celebrated incident of the whole campaign, but Lannes’ occupation of the Landgrafenberg in the late morning of the 13th and his prompt report on what he found before him is also highly creditable.
Leadership apart, the rank and file of both armies acquitted themselves nobly on the field of battle. It is true that the Saxon contingents were unduly windy after the action of Saalfeld, but they were “pressganged” allies, and therefore could not be expected to measure up to the high standards of their Prussian comrades. Nevertheless, Tauenzien’s successful covering action during the retreat from Jena toward the north was a staunch action, particularly as his command had been very roughly handled that same morning, and examples of individual heroism are not far to seek. The Grande Armée, of course, was at the very height of its form both as regards morale and battle-readiness, although its record off the field of battle was not so creditable; comprehensive looting and senseless destructiveness were widely indulged in, characteristics more suitable in Attila’s hordes or the toumans of Genghis Khan than in the warriors of the First French Empire.
Napoleon’s handling of the battle of Jena itself is notable for three things. First, the determination and ingenuity with which he adapted his plans to the new circumstances and concentrated 40,000 men over the Saale during the night of the 13th, not to mention the 48 guns. Secondly, the flexibility of his planning which enabled his army to proceed immediately with the second part of the battle plan in spite of the fact that the first phase was completed several hours ahead of schedule and that the build-up of forces did not go exactly as planned. Thirdly, his use of batteries of artillery, pushed to the very front of the army, during the first phase of the Prussian retreat when Ruchel’s corps unexpectedly advanced to counterattack; then, for a period, only a handful of guns held the Prussians at bay until the perspiring infantry could arrive to fill the gap in the French line. In future Napoleonic battles the use of artillery in this way will be frequently observed. On the debit side were his failure to check Ney in time (although he succeeded in extricating his subordinate with consummate skill) and the misappreciations which dogged his calculations (as they had in the days immediately preceding Marengo in 1800). Another criticism, applicable at a later date, was his failure to accord Davout his full measure of recognition. At the time, however, he gave Davout unstinted praise and recognition, as the Bulletins of the Army reveal, and in due course he was created Duke of Auerstadt. Nevertheless, it is ironic, if humanly understandable, that Napoleon never really liked Davout; perhaps he appeared too successful and therefore a potential rival.
The pursuit phase of the campaign is full of interest. Bernadotte partially made up for his earlier misconduct by the ruthlessness of the chase he conducted together with Murat, and the full meaning of “Napoleonic exploitation” was convincingly demonstrated to an aghast Europe. On the Prussian side, the failings of Hohenlohe and other subordinates were again revealed in the general incompetence, one almost might say cowardice, with which they tried to cope with the catastrophe. Only Blücher made any show of resistance or aggressive spirit. Never has the morale of any army been more completely shattered; this presumably points the lesson that the earlier high morale of the Prussian army must be regarded as a positive disadvantage as it bordered on overconfidence with what proved to be devastating results. “The higher the rise, the harder the fall,” runs the proverb, and William the Silent’s sensible but restrained comment that “one does not need to be successful to carry on”49 apparently had no place in the philosophy of the Prussian military machine at this period. As a result, Napoleon was able to account for no less than 125,000 Prussian troops out of the total 160,000 originally operating in Saxony; and of the further 35,000 Prussians and Saxons stationed elsewhere, not one succeeded in crossing the Oder to link up with the Russians at this stage.
One final point, however, must be made. The tremendous military triumph won by the French army did not achieve the full political object of the campaign. The capture of Berlin and the virtual destruction of the Prussian armies did not bring peace. Frederick William, to be sure, talked of nothing else from 15th October onwards, but he was a broken reed, and the real direction of Prussian affairs devolved on his beautiful and strong-willed wife, Queen Louise, and the Chief Minister Hardenberg. These patriots were made of sterner stuff, and on the receipt of assurances from St. Petersburg that Russian aid was still available, they determined to continue the struggle. Thus Napoleon was thwarted of a “knockout” victory of the type won at Austerlitz, and a further six months of bitter winter campaigning still lay ahead before Prussia was forced to accept the inevitable and reach a form of agreement with the Emperor.
PART NINE
Winter War
NAPOLEON’S CAMPAIGNS IN EAST PRUSSIA AND POLAND, OCTOBER 1806 TO FEBRUARY 1807
44
THE ADVANCE TO WARSAW
N
APOLEON had blown with his breath, and Prussian military might was no more. The news of the sudden French victory at Jena-Auerstadt left the governments of Europe gasping and amaze
d. It was difficult enough to credit the news that the army of Frederick the Great had been virtually annihilated in the maelstrom and subsequent exploitation of a single day’s fighting. It was still harder to accept the fact that Napoleon was now in effective control of all Europe to the west of the River Oder. It was only thirteen months since the newly born Grande Armée had first crossed the Rhine and swept toward the Danube, but in that period the armies and governments of the two greatest Germanic powers had been brought low, the forces of Holy Russia severely drubbed and the French frontier to all intents and purposes pushed 350 miles eastward.
The news of these new military triumphs, however, received a decidedly cool reception in France itself. The “honeymoon” period of the relationship between the Emperor and his adopted people was rapidly drawing to a close, as the hard realities of continuous war in terms of human suffering and economic dislocation became fully recognized. Tidings of Austerlitz had brought Paris out en fête; news of Jena received a far cooler reception. By late 1806, “so great was the public desire for peace that it even surpassed the gratification of pride,” wrote the great French historian, Louis Madelin, “and people went so far as to say that such a complete triumph for the Emperor would no doubt encourage him to prove intractable towards Russia, and the prospects of a fresh struggle, which would almost certainly be long and arduous against that ‘snow mountain,’ cast a gloom everywhere. The Senate decided to send a deputation to Berlin, not so much to congratulate the Emperor on his victory as to persuade him to make peace. Napoleon gave the deputation an extremely cold reception. He was ready to make peace, but only when Russia showed herself prepared to fight with him against the ‘tyranny of England.’”1
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 63