The Prussians fled, leaving the bridge which gave the French access to the country behind the Saale. The flank of the Prussian position was turned; the French army passed entirely around them, and Napoleon seized and blew up the magazines at Naumburg. The explosion announced to the King of Prussia and his generalissimo, the Duke of Brunswick, that Napoleon was in their rear. From this moment the Prussians were isolated and completely cut off from all their resources—as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm the year before. The engagement at Schleiz contributed to hasten the retreat of the enemy which threw away upon the roads a great number of muskets and hats, and leaving in the hands of the French 400 prisoners and as many killed or wounded. But the moral effect of the action was greater than the material, the Prussians learning for the first time the sort of soldiers they had to deal with.
Napoleon was extremely pleased with this first action at Schleiz, as it proved how little the Prussian cavalry, though excellently mounted and very skillful in the management of its horses, was to be feared by his solid infantry and bold horse soldiers.
The Duke of Brunswick who flattered himself that the French could not debouch, hastily endeavored to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, meanwhile, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief passages of the Saale, and awaited the coming of his outwitted opponent.
The manifesto of Frederick William had arrived at the capital a day or two after Napoleon had quitted Paris for the camp, and it was now that he found time to answer it by calling on his own marshals to witness how "The French army has done as it was bidden; this is the 8th of October, and we have evacuated the territories of the Confederation of the Rhine!"
To the King of Prussia Napoleon wrote: "Believe me, my strength is such that your forces cannot long balance the victory. But wherefore shed so much blood? To what purpose? I will hold to your Majesty the same language I held to the Emperor Alexander two days before the battle of Austerlitz: 'Why should we make our subjects slay each other? I do not prize a victory which is purchased by the lives of so many of my children.' If I were just commencing my military career, and if I had any reason to fear the chances of war, this language would be wholly misplaced. Sire, your Majesty will be vanquished; you will have compromised the repose of your life, the existence of your subjects, without the shadow of a pretext. At present you are uninjured, and may treat with me in a manner conformable with your rank; before a month has passed you will treat, but in a different position."
On learning of the fall of Naumburg, the Prussian king knew full well the imminent danger of his position. His army was at once set in motion in two great masses, one commanded by himself, advancing towards Naumburg, the other attempting in like manner to force its passage through the French line in the neighborhood 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 of October at Jena, he at once perceived that the enemy was ready to attempt the advance next morning, while his own heavy train was still thirty-six hours' march in his rear. "But," as the Emperor said in his bulletin of the battle fought next day, "there are moments in war when no consideration can balance the advantage of being before-hand with the enemy, and of attacking first."
From a Drawing by Martinet