The Prussian King understood well, on learning the fall of Naumburg, the imminent danger of his position; and his army was forthwith set in motion, in two great masses; the former, where he was in person present, advancing towards Naumburg; the latter attempting, in like manner, to force their passage through the French line in the neighbourhood of Jena. The King's march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after a severely contested action, at length repelled the assailant. Napoleon himself, meanwhile, was engaged with the other great body of the Prussians. Arriving on the evening of the 13th October at Jena, he perceived that the enemy were ready to attempt the advance next morning, while his own heavy train were still six-and-thirty hours' march in his rear. Not discouraged with this adverse circumstance, the Emperor laboured all night in directing and encouraging his soldiery to cut a road through the rocks, and draw up by that means such light guns as he had at command to a position, on a lofty plateau in front of Jena, where no man could have expected beforehand that any artillery whatever should be planted, and where, accordingly, the effect even of a small park proved more decisive than that of a much larger one might have been under other circumstances. Buonaparte spent all the night among the men, offering large sums of gold for every piece that should be dragged to the position, and continually reminding his followers that the Prussians were about to fight not for honour, but for safety,—that they were already isolated as completely as Mack's army had been at Ulm, and on stern resistance must needs submit to the fate of the Austrians. Lannes commanded the centre; Augereau the right; Soult the left; and Murat the reserve and cavalry.
Soult had to sustain the first assault of the Prussians, which was violent—and sudden; for the mist lay so thick on the field that the armies were within half gunshot of each other ere the sun and wind rose and discovered them; and on that instant Mollendorf charged. The battle was contested well for some time on this point; but at length Ney appeared in the rear of the Emperor with a fresh division; and then the French centre advanced to a general charge, before which the Prussians were forced to retire. They moved for some space in good order; but Murat now poured his masses of cavalry on them, storm after storm, with such rapidity and vehemence that their rout became inevitable. It ended in the complete breaking up of the army—horse and foot all flying together, in the confusion of panic, upon the road to Weimar. At that point the fugitives met and mingled with their brethren flying, as confusedly as themselves, from Auerstadt. In the course of this disastrous day 20,000 Prussians were killed or taken; 300 guns, twenty generals, and sixty standards. The Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Brunswick, being wounded in the face with a grape-shot, was carried early off the field, never to recover. The loss of superior officers on the Prussian side was so great, that of an army which, on the evening of the 13th of October, mustered not less than 150,000, but a few regiments were ever able to act in concert for some time after the 14th. The various routed divisions roamed about the country, seeking separately the means of escape: they were in consequence destined to fall an easy prey. Mollendorf and the Prince of Orange-Fulda laid down their arms at Erfurt. General Kalkreuth's corps was overtaken and surrounded among the Hartz Mountains: Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg, and 16,000 men, surrendered to Bernadotte at Halle. The Prince of Hohenlohe at length drew together not less than 50,000 of these wandering soldiers, and threw himself, at their head, into Magdeburg. But it turned out that that great fortress had been stripped of all its stores for the service of the Duke of Brunswick's army before Jena. Hohenlohe, therefore, was compelled to retreat towards the Oder. He was defeated in a variety of skirmishes; and at length, finding himself devoid of ammunition or provisions, laid down his arms at Prenzlow; 20,000 surrendered with the Prince. His rear, consisting of about 10,000, under the command of the celebrated General Blucher, were so far behind as to render it possible for them to attempt escape. Their heroic leader traversed the country with them for some time unbroken, and sustained a variety of assaults, from far superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution. By degrees, however, the French, under Soult, hemmed him in on one side, Murat on the other, and Bernadotte appeared close behind him. He was thus forced to throw himself into Lubeck, where a severe action was fought in the streets of the town, on the 6th of November. The Prussian, in this battle, lost 4000 prisoners, besides the slain and wounded: he retreated to Schwerta, and there, it being impossible for him to go farther without violating the neutrality of Denmark, on the morning of the 7th, Blucher at length laid down his arms—having exhibited a specimen of conduct and valour such as certainly had not been displayed by any of his superiors in the campaign.
The strong fortresses of the Prussian monarchy made as ineffectual resistance as the armies in the field. In how far the charge of actual treachery, brought then, and still continued, against the commanders of those places, be just, we know not; but the fact is certain that the Governors of Spandau, Stettin, Custrin, Hamelen, and Magdeburg itself, yielded successively to the French Generals, under circumstances which roused the indignant suspicion of the Prussian people, as well as the soldiery and their unfortunate King. Buonaparte, in person, entered Berlin on the 25th of October: and before the end of November, except Konigsberg—where the King himself had found refuge, and gathered round him a few thousand troops, the sad relics of an army which had been considered as not unable to withstand the whole power of France,—and a few less important fortresses, the whole of the German possessions of the house of Brandenburg were in the hands of the conqueror. Louis Buonaparte, King of Holland, meanwhile, had advanced into Westphalia, and occupied that territory also, with great part of Hanover, East Friesland, Embden, and the dominions of Hesse-Cassel.
Thus in the course of a few short weeks, was the proud fabric of the Prussian monarchy levelled with the ground. The government being of a strictly military character, when the army, the pride and strength of the nation, disappeared, every bond of union among the various provinces of the crown seemed to be at once dissolved. To account for the unexampled rapidity of such a downfall, it must be remembered, first, that the Prussian states, many of them the fruits of recent military conquest, were held together by little but the name of the great Frederick, and the terror of the highly disciplined force, which he had bequeathed to his successors; that, in a word, they had not yet had time to be blended and melted thoroughly into a national whole: secondly, that Prussia had rushed into this war not only with imprudent rashness, but with the stain of dishonour on her hands. The acceptance of Hanover, as a bribe, from the French despot, and the hard and brazen reluctance to part with that ill-gotten spoil, even when the preservation of peace with France seemed hopeless—these circumstances, together with the mean desertion of Austria during the preceding campaign of Austerlitz—had, in effect, injured the government deeply and degradingly in the opinion of its own subjects, as well as of other nations: but, thirdly, the imbecile conduct of the chief Prussian officers, in the campaign of Jena, was as little likely to have been foreseen or expected, as the pusillanimous, if not treacherous, baseness of those who, after the army was defeated, abandoned so easily a chain of the best fortresses in Europe.
The personal character of King Frederick William was never calumniated, even when the measures of his government were most generally and most justly exposed to suspicion and scorn. On the contrary, the misfortunes of this virtuous sovereign and his family were heard of with unmixed regret and compassion.
These sentiments, and all sentiments likely in their consequences to be injurious to the cause of Napoleon, the conduct of the Conqueror in Prussia, at this time of national humiliation and sorrow, was well calculated to strengthen and confirm. The Duke of Brunswick, retiring wounded from Jena to the capital of his own hereditary principality, addressed a letter from thence to Napoleon, requesting that the territory of Brunswick might not be confounded with that of Prussia, although he, as an individual, had appeared in Prussian uniform against him. Buonaparte answered with insolence as well as harshness. He styled the Duke "General Brunswick," and said he was determined to destroy his city, and displace his family for ever. The brave, though unfortunate Duke, retired on this to Altona, a Danish town, from which he meant to embark for England; but his wound being inflamed by these untimely movements, he died ere a vessel could be prepared for him. His son, considering him as murdered, vowed eternal revenge—and how he kept his vow, we shall see hereafter. The Prussian nobility and gentry were treated on almost every occasion with like brutality. The great Conqueror did not hesitate to come down from his dignity for the petty pleasure of personally insulting gentlemen, who had done him no injury except that of being loyal to their own prince. The exactions of the victorious military were beyond all former example of licence; and studied contempt was everywhere mingled with their rapacity. It was now that the French laid the foundation of that universal hatred with which the Prussian nation, in the sequel, regarded them, and which assumed everywhere the virulence of a private and personal passion.
In justice to Buonaparte, a solitary instance of generous conduct, which occurred ere he had been long in Berlin, must be noticed. The Prince of Hatzsfeld, continuing to reside in Berlin under his protection, corresponded, nevertheless, with Hohenlohe, then in the field, and sent information of the state and movements of the French army. One of his letters fell into the hands of the French—the Prince was arrested—his wife gained access to the Emperor, and, ignorant of her husband's conduct, spoke with the boldness of innocence in his favour. He handed to her the Prince's letter; and, confounded with the clearness of that evidence, she fell on her knees in silence. "Put the paper in the fire, madam," said Napoleon, "and there will then be no proof."
Perhaps no part of Buonaparte's conduct at this time gave more general disgust than his meanness in robbing the funeral monument of Frederick the Great of his sword and orders. These unworthy trophies he transmitted to Paris, along with the best statues and pictures of the galleries of Berlin and Potsdam, thus dealt with according to the example of Lombardy and Venice.