In this great danger, General Ruchel at length made his appearance, but too late. He marched in two fines of infantry, having on the left the cavalry belonging to his corps, and on the right the Saxon cavalry, commanded by the brave General Zeschwitz, who had come of his own accord and taken that position. He ascended at a foot-pace those plateaux, sloping from the Landgrafenberg to the Ilm. While mounting, Prussian and French poured down around him like a torrent, the one pursued by the other. He was thus met by a sort of tempest, at the moment of his appearance on the field of battle. While he was advancing, his heart rent with grief at this disaster, the French rushed upon him with the impetuosity of victory. The cavalry which covered his left flank was first dispersed. That unfortunate general, an unwise but ardent friend of his country, was the first to oppose the shock in person. A ball entered his chest, and he was borne off dying in the arms of his soldiers. His infantry, deprived of the cavalry which covered it, found itself attacked in flank by the troops of Marshal Soult, and threatened in front by those of Marshals Lannes and Ney. The battalions placed at the left extremity of the line, seized with terror, dispersed, and hurried along the rest of the corps in their flight. To aggravate the disaster, the French dragoons and cuirassiers came up at a gallop, under the conduct of Murat, impatient to take a share in the battle. They surrounded those hapless and dispersed battalions, cut in pieces all who attempted to resist, and pursued the others to the banks of the Ilm, where they made a great number of prisoners.
On the field of battle were left only the two Saxon brigades of Burgsdorf and Nehroff, which, after honorably defending the Schnecke against Heudelet’s and Desjardin’s division of Augereau’s corps, had been forced in their position by the address of the French tirailleurs, and effected their retreat, formed into two squares. These squares presented three sides of infantry and one of artillery, the latter being the rear side. The two Saxon brigades retired, halting alternately, firing their guns, and then resuming their march. Augereau’s artillery followed, sending balls after them; a swarm of French tirailleurs ran after them, harassing them with their small arms. Murat, who had just overthrown the relics of Ruchel’s corps, fell upon the two Saxon brigades, and ordered them to be charged to the utmost extremity by his dragoons and cuirassiers. The dragoons attacked first without forcing an entrance; but they returned to the charge, penetrated and broke the square. General d’Hatpoul, with the cuirassiers, attacked the second, broke it, and made that havoc which a victorious cavalry inflicts on a broken infantry. Those unfortunate men had no other resource but to surrender. The Prussian battalion of Boguslawski was forced in its turn, and treated like the others. The brave General Zeschwitz, who had hastened with the Saxon cavalry to the assistance of its infantry, made vain efforts to support it, and was driven back, and forced to give way to the general rout.
Murat rallied his squadrons, and hastened to Weimar, to collect fresh trophies. At some distance from that town were crowded together, pell-mell, detachments of infantry, cavalry, artillery, at the top of a long and steep slope, formed by the high road leading down to the bottom of the valley of the Ilm. These troops, confusedly huddled together, were supported upon a small wood, called the wood of Webicht. All at once, the bright helmets of the French cavalry made their appearance. A few musket-shots were instinctively fired by this affrighted crowd. At this signal, the mass, seized with terror, rushed down the hill, at the foot of which Weimar is situated: foot, horse, artillerymen, all tumbled over one another into this gulf—a new and tremendous disaster. Murat now sent after them a part of his dragoons, who goaded on this mob with the points of their swords, and pursued it into the streets of Weimar. With the others he made a circuit to the other side of Weimar, and cut off the retreat of the fugitives, who surrendered by thousands.
Out of the seventy thousand Prussians who had appeared on the field of battle, not a single corps remained entire, not one retreated in order. Out of one hundred thousand French troops, composed of the corps of Marshals Soult, Lannes, Augereau, Ney, Murat, and the guard, not more than fifty thousand had fought, and they had been sufficient to overthrow the Prussian army. The greater part of that army, seized with a sort of vertigo, throwing away its arms, ceasing to know either its colors or its officers, covered all the roads of Thuringin. About twelve thousand Prussians and Saxons, killed and wounded, about four thousand French killed and wounded also, strewed the ground from Jena to Weimar. On the ground were seen stretched a great number—a greater number, indeed, than usual—of Prussian officers, who had nobly paid for their silly passions with their lives; Fifteen thousand prisoners, two hundred pieces of cannon, were in the hands of the French, intoxicated with joy. The shells of the Prussians had set fire to the town of Jena, and from the plateaux where the battle was fought, columns of flame were seen bursting from the dark bosom of night. French shells ploughed up the city of Weimar, and threatened it with a similar fate. The shrieks of fugitives while running[running] through the streets, the tramp of Murat’s cavalry, dashing through them at a gallop, slaughtering without mercy all who were not quick enough in flinging down them arms, had filled with horror that charming city—the noble asylum of letters.
At Weimar, as at Jena, part of the inhabitants had fled. The conquerors, disposing like masters of their almost deserted towns, established their magazines and their hospitals in the churches and public buildings. Napoleon, on returning from Jena, directed his attention, according to his custom, to the collecting of the wounded, and heard shouts of Vive l’Empereur! mingled with the moans of the dying.
But Napoleon knew not yet the full measure of his victory. In the course of the day, he had heard the distant thundering of the cannon in the direction of Naumberg, where he had posted Marshal Davoust. He had the greatest confidence in the wisdom, valor, and inflexible resolution of that great general, but he did not know of the immensely superior forces the Marshal had to fight, to maintain his position. The facts were soon learned. Marshal Davoust, with only twenty-six thousand men, had not only sustained his position for many hours against the impetuous attack of seventy thousand Prussians, commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, and cheered by the presence of Frederick William himself, but had routed his enemy, and thus achieved the victory of Auerstadt. Never had there been a grander display of heroic firmness by general and soldiers. The Prussians had lost three thousand prisoners, nine or ten thousand men, killed or wounded, besides the Duke of Brunswick, Marshal Mollendorf and General Schwettan mortally wounded, together with a prodigious number of their gallant officers. Davoust had suffered a loss of seven thousand men, killed or wounded, and half the generals of brigade and colonels were placed hors de combat. The king was denied the consolation of his army retreating in good order. Nearly every corps was broken and disbanded, being seized with a panic. The roads were crowded with fear-stricken fugitives.
During the terrible night, which followed the bloody day of Jena and Auerstadt, the victors suffered not less than the vanquished. The night was intensely cold, and they were obliged to bivouac on the ground, having scarcely any thing to eat. Many of them wounded, more or less severely, were stretched on the cold earth beside wounded enemies, mingling their groans. Napoleon made every effort in his power to relieve their sufferings, and many a poor soldier, almost fainting from loss of blood, exerted his feeble strength to shout “Vive l’Empereur!”
But the Prussian army was annihilated. The road to Berlin was open, and thither the French Emperor hastened, in following up his decisive victory. A few small actions were fought and the French made thousands of prisoners almost every day. Frederick William solicited an armistice, but the Emperor refused to grant it for wise military reasons. He was destined to enter the Prussian capital in triumph. Never did Europe dread the name of Napoleon so notably as when that Prussian army, upon which the last hope was founded, vanished before his resistless arms.
