“The Emperor,” says Savary, “at the point where he stood, saw the flight of the Prussians, and our cavalry taking them by thousands. Night was approaching; and here, as at Austerlitz, he rode round the field of battle. He often alighted from his horse to give a little brandy to the wounded; and several times I observed him putting his hand into the breast of a soldier to ascertain whether his heart beat, because, in consequence of having seen some slight colour in his cheeks, he supposed he might not be dead. In this manner I saw him two or three times discover men who were still alive. On these occasions, he gave way to a joy it is impossible to describe.”

At the same time another battle had been fought and lost by the Prussians not more than twelve miles distant from the scene of this terrible carnage. Davout had received instructions to march to Jena by a route which would enable him to fall on the enemy’s rear while Napoleon was engaging them. In endeavouring to carry out this manœuvre the Marshal came directly upon Frederick’s army before Auerstädt. As regards material strength, the condition of things at Jena was completely reversed. Here, as we have seen, the Prussians were in the minority; at Auerstädt the French were very much weaker. Both sides fought well, and proved themselves worthy of their countrymen who were engaged in a similar struggle only a few leagues away, but when the survivors of the two Prussian armies met it was as fugitives with the common desire to put as great a distance between them and their pursuers as possible. The King, Prince Henry, Prince William, and Marshal Möllendorf were wounded, the Duke of Brunswick and General Schmettau died as a result of injuries they received, and despite the inability of Davout to continue the pursuit of the stricken enemy, the corpses of 20,000 Prussians covered the fields of Jena and Auerstädt, lay in ditches, or almost blocked the roads. Many guns and colours fell to the spoil of the victors. What would have happened had Bernadotte and his cavalry come up is too horrible to contemplate.

It is almost impossible to overstate the dreadful position in which the people of Prussia now found themselves. Mr (afterwards Sir) George Jackson, who had been sent by Fox to obtain accurate information as to what was passing in Germany, confides to his Diary under date Hamburg, October 23rd: “Everybody is in despair, everything is upset by the late disaster that has fallen on the country.... The letters from Berlin speak of a state of ferment that is indescribable.”

On the 25th October the French entered the capital. In their despairing condition the good folk of Berlin appear rather to have welcomed the invaders than otherwise. We will let our friend the Halle student tell us what happened. “I saw the first French who entered the town,” he writes. “At about midday an officer, in a blue uniform, accompanied by three or four chasseurs, rode into the town; they stopped their horses, hurriedly asked the way towards the municipality, or the mansion-house, told the idlers to stand off, and galloped away again. There they were then! Many people still maintained that these were not French, but Russians. This was evident, said they, from their green uniforms. But in a quarter of an hour there was no longer room for doubt; large bodies of cavalry and infantry entered the town, and on the following day Berlin was filled with Marshal Davout’s troops. And now began a totally new life among the half-stupefied inhabitants of Berlin. We breathed again; for, instead of wild unprincipled plunderers, we found a well-disciplined gay soldiery, who were disarmed by being addressed in French, and whose officers were, for the most part, remarkable for courteous manners. This first favourable impression was not effaced by subsequent rough conduct, although it was difficult to satisfy the pressing want of so many people. We still found that we had to thank God, if we were to have enemies quartered upon us, that they were not worse than these. Nevertheless, the slovenly, dirty, ragged appearance of these little, mean-looking, impudent, witty fellows, was a strange sight for eyes which, like ours, had been used to the neatness and admirable carriage of the Prussians, and we were the more astonished how such rabble—for they almost deserved the name—could have beaten such soldiers out of the field....

“On the 27th October,” he continues, “I was taking my usual evening walk by the so-called Lustgarten, or park, when I was struck by a new sight. The whole space in the middle, which had been always kept carefully mown, and even the side-walks towards the palace, were covered with innumerable watch-fires, round which the soldiers of the Imperial Guard were grouped in all kinds of attitudes. The huge fires shone upon these handsome men and their glittering arms and accoutrements, and the eyes were attracted by the incessantly recurring national colours of red, blue and white. About 10,000 men were moving about in this glowing bivouac, near the gloomy-looking palace in which Napoleon had taken up his abode. The whole scene made a strong impression upon me, and when I examined the small details—for every one was allowed to go among the troops—my wonder was increased; each soldier, in appearance, manner, and authority, was like an officer—each man seemed a commander, a hero. The men sang, danced, and feasted till late in the night, while every now and then small detachments, in an admirable state of discipline, marched to and fro with drums and music. It was such a sight as I had never beheld. I stayed there for hours, and could scarcely leave the spot. The Imperial Guard remained there for some days, and all eyes were riveted by the beautiful but hated spectacle. But no subsequent impression equalled that of the first night: the fires burned more dimly; part of the troops had been detached elsewhere; and at length, small bodies of cavalry, with their horses ready saddled and bridled for instant service, were the only troops left in this encampment. The numerous body-guard in the court of the palace was quite sufficient for Napoleon’s personal safety.”

But we must return to war and to misery. Strongholds which had hitherto been thought well-nigh impregnable fell with sickening regularity. Magdeburg, for instance, surrendered ingloriously to Marshal Ney, and the garrison of 24,000 able-bodied men marched out and laid down their weapons, as did 10,000 troops at Erfurt. Custrin, reputed to be one of the strongest fortresses on the Oder, was handed over to some forty chasseurs, Stettin surrendered in the same despicable manner. Soult at Nordhausen, Bernadotte at Halle, and Murat and Lannes at Prenzlow won important victories which still further weighed down the scales against Prussia. It seemed as though the army which had started out with so much noise and bragging would disappear almost to a man. One fragment still remained, that under Blücher, the rugged old soldier who was to be in the chase when the fox was at last run to earth at Waterloo. His total force amounted to about 24,000 men, against whom 60,000 troops under Soult, Murat, and Bernadotte were pitted. On the 6th November 1806, the latter slaughtered many of the harassed Prussians in the narrow streets of Lübeck, but Blücher did not capitulate until the following day, when he was absolutely compelled to do so by the limits of Prussian territory.

CHAPTER XIX
The Polish Campaign (1806–7)

Having deprived the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange of their possessions; concluded an alliance with Saxony, whose Elector was raised to the dignity of King and joined the Rhenish Confederacy; and compelled the Prussian provincial authorities to swear allegiance preparatory to leaving General Clarke as Governor-General, Napoleon turned his unwearied attention to Poland. There he anticipated meeting the slow-moving Russian army before it reached Germany. The Commander-in-chief of the Czar’s forces was Marshal Kamenskoi, a man of eighty years of age, who shortly afterwards became insane, and was succeeded by Bennigsen, on whom the soldiers placed considerably more reliance.