A REPLY WITHIN A WEEK
The Prussian ultimatum, delivered on September 1, haughtily demanded a reply from France within a week. It was accepted with alacrity. Napoleon had foreseen all and laid his plans. “Marshal,” he said to Berthier, with a grim smile, as he read the ultimatum, “they have given us a rendezvous for the 8th; never did Frenchman refuse such an appeal.”
The Eagles never swooped to more deadly purpose, with results more amazing and more dramatic, than in that campaign.
Within three days of the firing of the first shot, a Prussian division of 9,000 men had been routed with heavy loss at Schleitz in Thuringia; and Murat’s cavalry had captured elsewhere great part of the Prussian reserve baggage-trains and pontoon equipment. On the fourth day of the war, at Saalfeld in Thuringia, 1,200 Prussian prisoners were taken and 30 guns. In the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, both fought on the same day, October 14, 20,000 Prussian prisoners, 200 guns, and 25 standards were spoils to the Eagles. At Erfurth, on the next day, a Prussian field-marshal with 14,000 men, 120 guns and the whole of the grand park of the reserve artillery of the army were taken. At Halle 4,000 Prussian prisoners were taken, with 30 guns; at Lübeck 8,000 prisoners and 40 guns. Magdeburg, one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, with immense magazines and 600 guns on the ramparts garrisoned by 16,000 troops, surrendered after a few hours’ partial bombardment. Stettin, a first-class fortress mounting 150 guns, with a garrison of 6,000 men, surrendered without firing a shot. The strong fortress of Cüstrin on the Oder, with 4,000 men in garrison and 90 cannon on the ramparts, surrendered, also without firing a shot, to a solitary French infantry regiment with four guns. The fortress of Spandau, garrisoned by 6,000 men, hauled down its flag and opened its gates to a squadron of French hussars, no other French troops being within many miles, bluffed into surrender. Within twelve days of Jena, Napoleon had made his entry as a conqueror into Berlin, and the Prussian Army had ceased to exist. “We have arrived in Potsdam and Berlin,” announced Napoleon in a Bulletin to the Grand Army, “sooner than the renown of our victories! We have made 60,000 prisoners, taken 65 standards, including those of the Royal Guard, 600 pieces of cannon, 3 fortresses, 20 generals, half of our army having to regret that they have not had an opportunity of firing a shot. All the Prussian provinces from the Elbe to the Oder are in our hands.” Before the end of the year, in little more than three months from the firing of the first shot, a total of 100,000 prisoners, 4,000 cannon, 6 first-class fortresses, and many smaller ones, were in the hands of the victors.
RUIN, SWIFT AND IRREPARABLE
Never had the world witnessed such an overthrow in war, so complete and appalling a catastrophe. Two battles sufficed to prostrate Prussia and annihilate the model army of Frederick the Great: the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt, both fought, as has been said, on the same day, October 14, and within ten miles of one another. Jena was fought under Napoleon’s own eye; Auerstadt by Marshal Davout, practically single-handed, with his one army corps confronting the King and Blücher with the main Prussian army. The Prussian generals indeed gave themselves into Napoleon’s hands at the outset. They separated their main army into two bodies out of touch with each other, in the immediate presence of the enemy. Ruin, swift and irreparable, was the penalty. At Jena, Prince Hohenlohe’s army was flung roughly back and dashed to pieces, its scattered remnants flying in wild disorder. At Auerstadt, Davout defeated numbers nearly double his own, through the confused tactics of the Prussian generals. Immediately after that came on the débâcle. The Prussian Auerstadt army was falling back, disheartened and demoralised, but still in fair military formation to a large extent, when, all of a sudden, not having had up to then the least inkling of what had happened at Jena, the retreating troops came upon the shattered fragments of Hohenlohe’s battalions, streaming in wild confusion across their path; masses of fugitives running for their lives in frantic panic before the sabres of Murat’s pursuing cavalry. That ended everything for the Prussian army in five minutes. The sight of their fugitive comrades struck confusion and sheer fright into the retreating columns from Auerstadt. All order was instantly lost: the soldiers threw away their arms and spread over the country in headlong rout. And there was no means of stopping it. In their blind self-confidence the Prussian generals had made no arrangements in the event of a reverse. No line of retreat had been arranged for, no rallying-point had been thought of. “The disaster of a single day made an end of the Prussian army as a force capable of meeting the enemy in the field.”
For the Eagles it was a day of adventures on both battlefields. Swiftly alternating rushes forward, the Eagles showing the way at the head of their regiments at one moment; hasty halts to form in rallying squares, the Eagles in the midst, the next moment, to check the incessant Prussian cavalry counter-charges—that was what the fighting on the French side was like, all through the day, at both Jena and Auerstadt. At one time the Eagles were leading forward charging lines of exultantly cheering men, firing fast and racing forward at the pas de charge; immediately afterwards they were standing fast, each the centre of a mass of breathless and excited soldiers, surging round and closing up to form square, with bristling bayonets levelled on every side, to hold the ground they had won against the charging squadrons of Prussian horsemen that came at them, thundering down impetuously at the gallop.
“LEAD OUT YOUR EAGLE!”
“I want to see the Eagles well to the front to-day!” said Napoleon to several regiments in turn, as he rode at early dawn along the lines of Marshal Soult’s two foremost divisions who were to open the attack at Jena. To them the task had been appointed to push forward in advance, and hold the exits from the narrow defiles through which the French troops had to pass, before reaching the Prussians on the high ground beyond, in order to give time to the main army, following close in rear, to deploy and form in battle order. “Lead out your Eagle, Sixty-fourth!” Napoleon said to one of the regiments told off to go forward in the forefront of all. “I wish to-day to see the Eagle of the Sixty-fourth lead the battle on the field of honour!” How that Eagle led its regiment, how those who fought under it did their duty, the prized honour of special mention in the Jena Bulletin of the Grand Army, and a shower of crosses of the Legion of Honour, distributed among all ranks, bore testimony. Five times did the Eagle of the 34th, the regiment fighting next to the 64th, lead a charge, each charge crossing bayonets with the enemy, twice in hand-to-hand fight with the picked corps of the Prussian Grenadiers.
It was on the battlefield of Jena that Marshal Ney won his historic sobriquet of “The Bravest of the Brave.” He personally led forward his attack, with, at either side of him, the Eagles of the 18th of the Line, the 32nd, and the 96th. Carried away by his impetuous valour, soon after the opening of the battle, Ney made his attack with only at hand the three regiments of his First Division. The other two divisions of Ney’s corps had not yet reached the field. A regiment of cuirassiers headed the column, and at their first charge captured 13 Prussian guns; but the Prussian cavalry, charging back at once to recover the guns, overpowered the cuirassiers.