On the morning of October 14th, a thick mist covered the countryside, which favoured our movements; Augereau's second division, making a diversionary attack, advanced from Jena via Muhlthal on the road to Weimar. As the enemy believed that this was the only way by which we could come from Jena, they had placed a considerable force there; but while they prepared to conduct a vigourous defence of this pass, Napoleon, bringing down from the Landgrafenberg the troops which he had accumulated there during the night, drew them up in battle order on the plain. A light breeze having dispersed the mist, which was followed by brilliant sunshine, the Prussians were stupefied to see the lines of the French army deployed opposite them and advancing to engage them in battle. They could not understand how we had got there when they thought we were down in the valley of Jena, with no other means of reaching them but the road to Wiemar, which they were guarding so thoroughly.
The battle began immediately and the first lines of the Prussians and Saxons, commanded by Prince Hohenlohe, were forced to retreat. They advanced their reserves, but we received a powerful reinforcement. Marshal Ney's corps and Murat's cavalry which had been held up in the pass, burst out into the plain and took part in the action. However a Prussian army corps commanded by General Ruchel stopped our columns for a time; but charged by French cavalry it was almost entirely wiped out and General Ruchel was killed.
Marshal Augereau's 1st division, coming down from the Landgrafenberg, joined with the 2nd, arriving from Muhlthal, and with the troops of Marshals Lannes and Soult, they proceeded down the road to Wiemar, capturing enemy positions as they went.
The Prussian infantry, whose poor composition I have already described, fought very badly, and the cavalry not much better. One saw them on several occasions advance, with loud shouts, towards our battalions; but, intimidated by their calm bearing, they never dared charge home; at a distance of fifty paces from our line they shamefully turned about, amid a hail of bullets and the jeers of our men.
The Saxons fought with courage; they resisted Marshal Augereau's corps for a long time, and it was not until after the retreat of the Prussian troops that, having formed themselves into two large squares, they began to withdraw while continuing to fire. Marshal Augereau admired the courage of the Saxons, and to prevent further loss of life, he had just sent an envoy to persuade them to surrender, since they had no longer any hope of relief, when Prince Murat arrived with his cavalry and mounted an attack with his Cuirassiers and dragoons, who charging impetuously the Saxon squares, overwhelmed them and forced them to lay down their arms. The next day, however, the Emperor set them at liberty and restored them to their sovereign, with whom he hastened to make peace.
All the Prussian troops who had fought before Jena, retreated in a complete rout along the road to Weimar, at whose gates the fugitives, their baggage and artillery had piled up, when suddenly the squadrons of the French cavalry appeared! At the sight of them, panic spread through the crowd of Prussians, who fled in utter disorder, leaving us with a great number of prisoners, flags, guns and baggage.
The town of Weimar, called by some the new Athens, was inhabited at this period by a great number of scholars, artists and distinguished authors, who had gathered there under the patronage of the ruling duke, an enlightened protector of the arts and sciences. The noise of guns, the passage of the fugitives and the entry of the victors caused a great stir in this peaceful and studious population; but Marshals Lannes and Soult maintained a firm discipline, and apart from having to provide food for the soldiers, the town suffered no outrage. The Prince of Weimar served in the Prussian army, nevertheless his palace, where the princess, his wife, was living, was respected and none of the marshals took up residence there.
Marshal Augereau's headquarters were established at the town gates, in the house of the prince's head gardener. All the inhabitants of the house having taken flight, the general staff found nothing to eat, and had to sup on some pineapples and plums from the hot-houses. This was a very light diet for people who, without food for twenty-four hours, had spent the preceding night on foot and all day fighting! But we were the victors, and that magical word enabled us to support all our privations.
The Emperor went back to sleep at Jena, where he learned of a success no less great than that which he had just achieved himself. The battle of Jena was a double battle, if one may use the expression, for neither the French nor the Prussian armies were united at Jena, they were each divided into two parts and fought two different battles: so that while the Emperor, at the head of the corps of Augereau, Lannes, Soult and Ney, his guard and the cavalry of Murat, was defeating the corps of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel. The King of Prussia, at the head of his main army, commanded by the celebrated Prince of Brunswick, Marshals Mollendorf and Kalkreuth had left Weimar, and on their way to Naumburg had settled for the night at the village of Auerstadt, not far from the French corps of Davout and Bernadotte, who were in the villages around Naumburg. In order to rejoin the Emperor, who was at Apolda, in the plain beyond Jena, Davout and Bernadotte had to cross the Saale before Naumburg and traverse the narrow hilly pass of Kosen. Although Davout thought that the King of Prussia with the main body of his army was facing the Emperor, and not so close to him at Auerstadt, this vigilant warrior secured, during the night, the Kosen pass and its steep slopes which the King of Prussia and his marshals had neglected to occupy, thus making the same mistake as Prince Hohenlohe made at Jena in failing to guard the Landgrafenberg. The combined forces of Bernadotte and Davout did not amount to more than forty-four thousand men, while the King of Prussia had eighty thousand at Auerstadt.
From daybreak on the 14th, the two French marshals realised that they had to face much superior numbers; it was their duty then to act in unison. Davout, aware of this necessity, volunteered to put himself under the command of Bernadotte, but the latter jibbed at the idea of a shared victory, and unwilling to subordinate his personal interests to the welfare of his country, he decided to act on his own; and on the pretext that the Emperor had ordered him to be at Dornburg on the 13th, he decided to make his way there on the 14th, although Napoleon had written to him during the night to say that, if he was still in Naumburg, he should stay there and support Davout. Not finding the situation to his liking, Bernadotte left Davout to defend himself as best he could and, going down the Saale, he settled himself at Dornburg where, although he came across no enemies, he could see from the elevated position which he occupied, the desperate battle being fought by the gallant Davout some two leagues away. Meanwhile he ordered his men to set up their bivouacs and to start preparing a meal. His generals complained to him in vain at this culpable inaction; Bernadotte would not budge, so that Marshal Davout, with no more than twenty-five thousand men, comprising the divisions of Friant, Morland and Gudin, faced almost eighty thousand Prussians animated by the presence of their king.