Battles of Jena and Auerstedt

Background

In 1806 a war party at the Prussian court, led by Queen Luise and Prince Louis Ferdinand, pushed Frederick William III into confrontation with Napoleon. On 26 August Berlin demanded that French troops withdraw beyond the Rhine by 8 October, and on 9 October Prussia declared war, with Saxony as its ally in the field.

Napoleon moved first. His Grande Armée, some 160,000–180,000 strong, was already in southern Germany. Rather than force the Thuringian Forest, he marched through the narrower Franconian Forest to the east in three columns on three good roads, to turn the Prussian left and get between the enemy and Berlin. The Prussians, about 130,000 of their own troops and 20,000 Saxons, were split into three armies under the Duke of Brunswick, Prince Hohenlohe and Rüchel, and their commanders had argued over five plans without settling on any. On 9 October Bernadotte drove Tauentzien out of Schleiz, and on 10 October Lannes overwhelmed Prince Louis Ferdinand's advance guard at Saalfeld; the prince was cut down by a quartermaster of the 10th Hussars.

With their flank turned, the Prussians decided that the main army would march from Weimar on the 13th, down the left bank of the Ilm towards the Unstrut, to join the reserve coming from Halle, while Hohenlohe and Rüchel covered the march. Davout had already taken Naumburg and its magazines. On the afternoon of the 13th Lannes seized the Landgrafenberg above Jena, and Napoleon, seeing Hohenlohe's camps on the plateau beyond, assumed he had the whole Prussian army in front of him. He ordered a battle for the 14th and sent Davout and Bernadotte to come down on its left and rear at Apolda. The main army was in fact marching straight across Davout's path.

The armies

The Prussian infantry was brave and well drilled, and its cavalry was reckoned better than the French. But its doctrine had hardly changed in fifty years: its musket was poor, its wagon trains were slow and it relied on rigid linear tactics. Its leaders were old (Brunswick was 71, Field Marshal Möllendorf 82), and the duties of chief of staff were split between Phull, Scharnhorst and Massenbach. At Jena Prussian battalions halted to form line and fire volleys by the book, within range of French skirmishers they could barely hurt.

The Grande Armée of 1806 has been judged among the best-trained and most integrated forces Napoleon ever led. Its corps system let Napoleon feed corps into a battle as they arrived, and its infantry attacked behind dense swarms of skirmishers. At Jena Napoleon had the corps of Lannes, Augereau, Soult and Ney, the Guard and Murat's reserve cavalry: about 25,500 men at dawn, 55,000 by 09:00–10:00, nearly 80,000 by noon and 96,000 soon after.

At Auerstedt Davout's III Corps, with the divisions of Gudin, Friant and Morand, numbered about 26,000, but had only 1,300–1,400 cavalry in three regiments of chasseurs and 44 guns. The main Prussian army facing it had 49,800 men and 230 guns by the Prussian staff count (others give about 64,000). Davout's corps was known for its iron discipline, and he himself for a quick eye for ground.

The battle

Jena (CDB90 engagement 118, JENA). Before dawn a thick mist came down on the plateau. Lannes' corps and the Guard were crammed onto the Landgrafenberg and needed room to deploy. At about 06:00 Tauentzien's guns opened as he advanced, and Lannes went forward behind his skirmishers. In the fog Suchet's division drifted right towards Closewitz, opening a gap that Napoleon filled with a 25-gun battery. By about 07:30 Suchet had taken the Closewitz woods and village and Gazan had taken Lützeroda, while Saint-Hilaire's division of Soult's corps climbed from the Saale on the right and Augereau's came up through Cospeda on the left. Tauentzien fell back at about 08:30.

Hohenlohe, at Capellendorf, was slow to believe the attack mattered. Holtzendorf's detachment, coming from above Dornburg, tried to strike the French right around 10:00; Saint-Hilaire and Soult's light cavalry drove it off, and it took no further part in the battle. Ney, with an advance guard of under 4,000, pushed into the line near Vierzehnheiligen without orders and was caught by Prussian cavalry and guns; his men formed square, Lannes was sent to help and the Guard held the centre. Soon after 11:00 the French took Vierzehnheiligen.

Grawert's Prussian infantry then formed up in front of the village as if on parade and stood there for nearly two hours, shot down by skirmishers in the gardens and behind walls. Around noon Augereau's division under Desjardins cleared the Isserstadt wood and village, cutting the Saxons off from Hohenlohe's centre, while Saint-Hilaire worked round the Prussian left. About 13:00 Napoleon ordered a general advance, and by 14:00 the line from Isserstadt to beyond Vierzehnheiligen had dissolved, with Murat's cavalry loose among the fugitives.

Only now did Rüchel's 15,000 arrive from Weimar, after taking four hours to march six miles. Climbing in echelons from Capellendorf towards Gross Romstedt, they were broken in about half an hour by massed French guns and infantry, and Rüchel was badly wounded. Surrounded near the Schnecke, the Saxon infantry surrendered to Murat after 15:00, some 6,000 men. A last stand outside Weimar about 16:00 failed.

Auerstedt (CDB90 engagement 119, AUERSTADT). Thirteen miles to the north, the main Prussian army had camped around Auerstedt without seizing the defile at Kösen, which Davout held overnight. Gudin's division crossed the Kösen bridge before dawn and marched west across the open plateau. At about 07:00, in fog near Pöppel, Davout's scouts ran into Blücher's advance guard. Gudin deployed at Hassenhausen, whose orchards and sunken road made a ready-made strongpoint.

At about 08:00 Blücher, with some 1,150 cuirassiers, dragoons and hussars, charged Gudin's squares and was repulsed; by 08:30 his cavalry had fled. Schmettau's division waited in front of Pöppel for Wartensleben, delayed at Auerstedt's single bridge, who came up on its right about 09:00. Friant's division arrived on Gudin's right and took Spielberg. Shortly before 10:00 Brunswick ordered a full assault on Hassenhausen, and around 10:00 he was shot through the eyes; Schmettau was mortally wounded. The Prussian command broke down. The King split the arriving division of the Prince of Orange between both flanks, while Gudin, his left forced back to the road, clung to the village.

Morand's division then came up the road and attacked south of Hassenhausen, beating off uncoordinated charges by Prince William's cavalry in square and taking the Sonnenberg, from which its guns enfiladed the Prussian right. Friant pushed through Pöppel on the other flank. Davout counter-attacked about 11:00, and by 12:30 the Prussians were falling back. Kalckreuth's reserve covered the retreat behind the Lissbach and then near Eckartsberga, until Friant's division and a picked force of 400 drove it off, taking twenty guns. By 16:30 Davout's exhausted infantry had stopped at Eckartsberga; only his chasseurs pursued, to Buttstädt.

Aftermath

Prussian losses can only be estimated, since those of the battle are mixed with those of the retreat: perhaps 25,000–27,000 at Jena, 15,000 of them prisoners, and 13,000–18,000 at Auerstedt, with about 150 guns at Jena and, by Davout's count, 115 at Auerstedt. Davout lost over 7,000, more than a quarter of his corps; Napoleon's battle cost perhaps 5,000–6,500.

The pursuit finished the work. Erfurt capitulated on 16 October; Bernadotte beat the Prussian reserve at Halle on the 17th; Davout's corps was given the honour of entering Berlin first; Hohenlohe surrendered after Prenzlau on 28 October and Blücher at Lübeck on 7 November. Brunswick died of his wound on 10 November. The war went on against Russia until Tilsit in July 1807, and Prussia did not take the field against Napoleon again until 1813.

Napoleon at first refused to believe that one corps had beaten the main army, replying to the first report that his marshal 'must be seeing double'. He then praised Davout and made him Duke of Auerstedt, though his bulletins counted the two battles as a single victory at Jena. Bernadotte's absence from both fields is still argued over. Petre saw only jealousy; others note that no order requiring him to march with Davout was ever found, and that Napoleon may have been shifting blame. Defeat drove the reforms of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Clausewitz, all present. Paris has its Pont d'Iéna; the Brunswick monument stands between Taugwitz and Hassenhausen, and Cospeda has a museum of the battle.

Wargaming it

The same day gives two quite different games, linked by a decision neither commander knew he was making.

Jena is a large game, best at brigade or divisional level with turns of 30–60 minutes. Its heart is the French arrival schedule: about 25,500 men at dawn, 55,000 by mid-morning, 96,000 by early afternoon. The Prussian player starts with a local chance and watches it shrink. Key terrain is the cramped exit from the Landgrafenberg, the Closewitz woods, Vierzehnheiligen and the Isserstadt wood. Fog rules matter for the first two hours. Rüchel's arrival time and Holtzendorf's detached force are the obvious variables, along with whether Hohenlohe should fight at all or simply screen Brunswick's march.

Auerstedt is the better balanced game and suits battalion or regimental level with 15–20 minute turns. Both armies arrive piecemeal: Gudin first, then Friant and Morand down a single road from Kösen, and the Prussian divisions one by one through Auerstedt's bottleneck. Hassenhausen is the pivot; Spielberg and the Sonnenberg are the horns that let the French enfilade the line. Brunswick's wound at about 10:00 suits a variable event that paralyses Prussian command. The what-ifs are rich: Prussians holding the Kösen defile overnight, Kalckreuth's reserve committed early, or Bernadotte marching with Davout, which Petre thought would have given the French a slight superiority instead of being outnumbered two to one.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.