1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Napoleonic Campaigns: Difference between revisions
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hope he is already on his way to Dornburg.” Now Bernadotte
{{page break|221|left}}
had neglected to keep the emperor informed as to his whereabouts.
He was still with Davout, but, concluding that he had missed an order directing him to Dornburg, he thought to conceal his error by assuming the receipt of the order evidently alluded to in the last words, and as a result he marched towards Dornburg, and his whole corps was lost to the emperor at the crisis of the next days battle. On the road from Gera to Jena Napoleon was met by
intelligence from Lannes announcing his occupation of Jena and
the discovery of Prussian troops to the northward. Knowing the
emperors methods, he wisely restrained the ardour of his
subordinates and asked for instructions whether to attack or wait.
The emperor rode forward rapidly, reached Jena about 3 {{sc|p.m.}},
and with Lannes proceeded to the Landgrafenberg to reconnoitre.
From this point his view was, however, restricted to the immediate
foreground, and he only saw the camps of Hohenlohe's
left wing. At this moment the Prussians were actually on
parade and ready to move off to attack, but just then the “evil
genius” of the Prussian army, von Massenbach, an officer of the
Headquarter Staff, rode up and claiming to speak with the
authority of the king and commander-in-chief, induced Hohenlohe
to order his troops back to camp. Of all this Napoleon
saw nothing, but from all reports he came to the conclusion that
the whole Prussian army was actually in front of him, and at
once issued orders for his whole army to concentrate towards
Jena, marching all night if need be. Six hours earlier his conclusion
would have been correct, but early that morning the
Prussian headquarters, alarmed for the safaty of their line of
retreat on Berlin by the presence of the French in Naumburg,
decided to leave Hohenlohe and Rüchel to act as rear-guard,
and with the main body to commence their retreat towards
the river Unstrutt and the Eckhardtsberge where Massenbach
had previously reconnoitred an ideal battlefield. This belief
in. positions was the cardinal principle of Prussian strategy
in these days. The troops had accordingly commenced their
march on the morning of the I3th, and now at 3 {{sc|p.m.}} were settling
down into bivouac; they were still but a short march from the
decisive field.
{{section|Battle of Jena}}17. ''Battle of Jena.''—On the French side, Lannes' men were
working their hardest, under Napoleon's personal supervision, to make a practicable road up to the Landgrafenberg, and all night long the remaining corps struggled through darkness towards the rendezvous. By daybreak on the 14th, the anniversary of Elchingen, upwards of 60,000 men stood densely [[File:EB1911-19-0221-a-Napoleonic Campaigns, Jena.jpg|left|thumb|350px]]
packed on the narrow plateau of the mountain, whilst, below
in the ravines on either flank, Soult on the right, and Augereau on the left, were getting into position. Fortunately a dense fog hid the helpless masses on the Landgrafenberg from sight of the Prussian gunners. Hohenlohe had determined to drive the French into the ravine at daybreak, but had no idea as to the numbers in front of him. For want of room, only a few Prussian <!--column 2-->
battalions were sent forward, and these, delaying their advance
till the fog had sufficiently lifted, were met by French skirmishers,
and small columns, who rapidly overlapped their flanks and
drove them back in confusion. Hohenlohe now brought up the
remainder of his command, but in the meanwhile the French
had poured across the neck between the Landgrafenberg and the
main plateau, and the troops of Soult and Augereau were working
up the ravines on either hand. In view of these troops the
Prussian line, which had advanced faultlessly as if on parade,
halted to prepare its bayonet attack by fire, and, once halted, it
was found impossible to get them to go on again. The French
who had thrown themselves into houses, copses, &c., picked off
the officers, and the flanks of the long Prussian lines swayed and
got into confusion. The rival artilleries held each other too
thoroughly to be able to spare attention to the infantry, whilst
the Prussian cavalry, which had forgotten how to charge in
masses of eighty or more squadrons, frittered away their strength
in isolated efforts. By 10 {{sc|a.m.}} the fourteen battalions which had
initiated this attack were outnumbered by three to one, and
drifted away from the battlefield. Their places were taken by
a fresh body, but this was soon outnumbered and outflanked
in its turn. By 2 {{sc|p.m.}} the psychic moment had come, and
Napoleon launched his guards and the cavalry to complete the
victory and initiate the pursuit. Rüchel's division now arrived
and made a most gallant effort to cover the retreat, but their
order being broken by the torrent of fugitives, they were soon
overwhelmed by the tide of the French victory and all organized
resistance had ceased by 4 {{sc|p.m.}}
Briefly summarized, the battle came to this—in four successive
efforts the Prussians failed because they were locally outnumbered.
This was the fault of their leaders solely, for, except
for the last attack, local superiority was in each case attainable.
Organization and tactics did not affect the issue directly, for the
conduct of the men and their junior officers gave abundant proof
that in the hands of a competent leader the “linear” principle of
delivering one shattering blow would have proved superior to that
of a gradual attrition of the enemy here, as on the battlefields of
the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and this in spite of other defects
in the training of the Prussian infantry which simultaneously
caused its defeat on the neighboring field of Auerstädt.
{{section|Battle of Auersädt}}18. ''Battle of Auersädt.''—Here the superiority of French
mobility, a consequence of their training and not necessarily of their system, showed its value most conclusively. Davout in obedience to his orders of the previous morning was marching [[File:EB1911-19-0221-b-Napoleonic Campaigns Auerstadt.jpg|right|thumb|350px]]
over the Saale at Kosen, when his advanced guard came in
contact with that of the Prussian main army. The latter with at least 50,000 men was marching in two columns, and ought therefore to have delivered its men into line of battle twice as fast as the French, who had to deploy from a single issue, and whose columns had opened out in the passage of the defile and the long ascent of the plateau above. But the Prussians {{page break|222|left}}
attacked at the old regulation speed of seventy-five paces to the minute, and the French manœuvred at the quick or double of 120 or 150. The consequence was that the French always succeeded in reinforcing their fighting line in time to avert disaster. Nevertheless by mid-day their strength was well-nigh exhausted, whilst the Prussian reserve, eighteen battalions of guards under Kalckreuth, stood intact and ready to engage. But at the critical moment the duke of Brunswick fell mortally wlunded, and Scharnhorst, his chief of the staff, was at the time absent on another part of the field. Meanwhile rumours from the battle-field at Jena, magnified as usual, began to reach the staff, and these may possibly have influenced Kalckreuth, for when appealed to to attack with his eighteen battalions and win the day, he declined to move without the direct order of the commander-in-chief to do so, alleging that it was the duty of a reserve to cover the retreat and he considered himself personally responsible to the king for the guards entrusted to his care. Even then the day might have been saved had Blücher been able to find even twenty squadrons accustomed to gallop together, but the Prussian cavalry had been dispersed amongst the infantry commands, and at the critical moment it proved impossible for them to deliver a united and decisive attack.
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