Chapter V: Part 5

Having ten divisions of infantry, Napoleon, therefore, presented but six of them in line. Behind Marshals Lannes and Soult, he kept in reserve Oudinot’s grenadiers, separated on this occasion from Lannes’s corps, the corps of Bernadotte, composed of Drouet’s and Rivaud’s divisions, and, lastly, the imperial guard. He thus kept at hand a mass of twenty-five thousand men, to move to any point where they might be needed, and particularly to the heights of Pratzen, in order to take those heights at any cost, if the Russians should not have cleared them sufficiently.

Such were the skilful dispositions of the Emperor, and having completed what may be called the foundation of victory, he issued a confident proclamation to his soldiers, as follows:

“Soldiers—The Russian army appears before you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions that you beat at Hollabrunn, and that you have since been constantly pursuing to this spot.

“The positions which we occupy are formidable; and while they are marching to turn my right, they will present their flank to me.

“Soldiers, I shall myself direct your battalions. I shall keep out of the fire, if, with your usual bravery, you throw disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks. But, if the victory should be for a moment uncertain, you will see your Emperor the foremost to expose himself to danger. For victory must not hang doubtful on this day, most particularly, when the honor of the French infantry, which so deeply concerns the honor of the whole nation, is at stake.

“Let not the ranks be thinned upon pretence of carrying away the wounded, and let every one be thoroughly impressed with this thought, that it behoves us to conquer these hirelings of England, who are animated with such bitter hatred against our nation.

“This victory will put an end to the campaign, and we shall then be able to return to our winter-quarters, where we shall be joined by the new armies which are forming in France, and then the peace which I shall make will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.

NAPOLEON.”

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Napoleon had passed the whole day on horseback, and had himself placed every division in position, inspecting every position. All his marshals dined with him, and received his careful and precise orders for the operations of the next day. He then once more glanced at the position of the Russian and Austrian armies, and a smile illumined his features as he said to his marshals,

“Before to-morrow night that army will be in my power. Since the Czar refuses to negotiate for a peace, we must drub him into it.”

He then entered a rude hut, which his soldiers had constructed for him, and stretched himself upon some straw to repose. A hard couch for an emperor! Yet there Napoleon fell into so deep a sleep that his aid-de-camp, Savary, was obliged to shake him, in order to wake him up, to listen to a report which he had ordered to be brought to him. Rousing himself, he left the hut, accompanied by his aid, and proceeded to visit the bivouacs of the army. The night was cold and dark; and the Emperor had reason to believe that he could go among the soldiers without being noticed. But he had only proceeded a few steps before he was discovered, and in a few moments, the whole line was illuminated with torches of straw, while the air was filled with acclamations of “Vive l’Empereur!” It was a glorious sight, and the glare of the torches must have astonished the enemy. That tremendous shout must have told Kutusoff, the Prussian general, that he would be compelled to fight an enemy, full of spirit and confidence.

As Napoleon passed along, one of the old grenadiers, a veteran of Italy, stepped forward, and accosted him with an air of republican familiarity and kindly patronage.

“Sire,” said this old soldier, “you will have no need to expose yourself to danger; I promise you, in the name of the grenadiers of the army, that you will only have to fight with your eyes, and that we will bring you all the flags and cannon of the Russian army, to celebrate the anniversary of your coronation.”

The Emperor was delighted at the spirit displayed by the troops, and, in accordance with their general request, he promised to keep beyond the reach of the enemy’s guns.

Sir Walter Scott finely remarks upon this: “Napoleon,” says he, “promises that he will keep his person out of the reach of the fire: thus showing the full confidence that the assurance of his personal safety would be considered as great an encouragement to the troops as the usual protestations of sovereigns and leaders, that they will be in the front, and share the dangers of the day. This is, perhaps, the strongest proof possible of the complete and confidential understanding which subsisted between Napoleon and his soldiers. Yet there have not been wanting those who have thrown the imputation of cowardice on the victor of a hundred battles, and whose reputation was so well established amongst those troops, who must have been the best judges, that his attention to the safety of his person was requested by them, and granted by him, as a favor to his army.”

The Emperor was on the field by one o’clock in the morning, to get an army under arms in silence. A thick fog, through which the light of the torches could not penetrate to the distance of ten paces, enveloped all the bivouacs; but he knew the ground as well as the environs of Paris. His army, amounting in all to about seventy thousand men, was arranged as follows. The two divisions of Marshal Soult, placed on a vast plateau, formed the right; the division of united grenadiers, drawn up in line behind, constituting the reserve of the right. The two divisions of Marshal Bernadotte, in line with the united grenadiers, formed the centre of the army. The left wing was composed of the two divisions of Marshal Lannes; the infantry of the guard forming the reserve of the left. In advance of the centre, and between the right and left wings, was posted the whole of the cavalry, under the command of Murat. The divisions of hussars and chasseurs were entrusted to Kellermann; the dragoons, to Valther and Beaumont. The cuirassiers and eighty pieces of light artillery formed the reserve of the cavalry. The right of the army rested on some long and narrow defiles formed by ponds; the left, on the strongly fortified position of the Centon. The two divisions of Marshal Davoust were posted on the extreme right, beyond the ponds, to face the left wing of the Russians, which had been extended, as we have said, to a dangerous distance from their centre, and intended, as the Emperor perceived, to commence the battle with an attempt to turn his right. The Emperor himself, with Berthier, Junot, and the whole of his staff, occupied a commanding position, as the reserve of the army, with ten battalions of the imperial guard, and ten battalions of grenadiers, commanded by Oudinot and Duroc. This reserve was ranged in two lines, in columns, by battalions, having in their intervals forty pieces of cannon served by the artillery of the guard. With this reserve, equal to turning the fate of almost any battle, he held himself ready to act wherever occasion should require.

As the day dawned, the mist which had overhung all the dreadful show, began slowly to ascend, like a vast curtain, from the broad plain below. The sun rose in unclouded and majestic brilliancy; and dissipating all remains of the vapors, disclosed to view the great Russian army, commanded by Field-Marshal Kutusoff, to the number of eighty thousand men, ranged in six divisions, on the opposite heights of Pratzen. The magnificence of the sunrise of this eventful morning, enhanced at the time by the previous dense mist, and by the national memories ever since, has caused the “sun of Austerlitz” to become proverbial with the people of France. The two emperors of Russia and Austria were witnesses of the fierce contest; being stationed on horseback on the heights of Austerlitz. As the first rays of the sun were flung from the horizon, the Emperor Napoleon appeared in front of his army, surrounded by his marshals, and formed every division, both of infantry and cavalry, into columns. A brisk fire had just commenced on the extreme right, where Davoust was already at his post; and the Russians began to put themselves in motion to descend from the heights upon the plain. The marshals who surrounded the Emperor importuned him to begin. “How long will it take you,” said he to Soult, “to crown those opposite heights which the Russians are now abandoning?” “One hour,” answered the marshal. “In that case, we will wait yet a quarter of an hour,” replied the Emperor. The cannonade increased, denoting that the attack had become serious. The extreme of the Russian left had commenced its movement to turn the right flank of the French army, but had encountered the formidable resistance of Davoust’s two divisions, with whom they were just engaged. Napoleon now dismissed all the marshals to their posts, and ordered them to begin.

The whole of the right and left wings at once moved forward, in columns, to the foot of the Russian position. They marched as if to exercise, halting at times to rectify their distances and directions; while the words of command of the individual officers were distinctly heard. The two divisions of Marshal Soult came first within reach of the enemy’s fire. The division commanded by General Vandamme overthrew the opposing column, and was master of its position and artillery in an instant; the other, commanded by General St Hilaire, had to sustain a tremendous fire, which lasted for two hours, and brought every one of its battalions into action. The Emperor now dispatched the united grenadiers, and one of Marshal Bernadotte’s division, to support those of Soult, while Lannes had engaged the right of the Russians, and effectually prevented them from moving to the assistance of their left, which was wholly engaged by the tremendous attack we have described, and entirely cut off from their centre. The extreme left of the Russians, which had begun the battle, perceiving the fatal mistake which had been made, attempted to re-ascend the Pratzer, but were so desperately pressed by Davoust, that they were compelled to fight where they stood, without daring either to advance or retire.

Marshal Soult now ordered his division, under Vandamme, supported by one of Bernadotte’s divisions, to make a change of direction by the right flank, for the purpose of turning all the Russian troops which still resisted St. Hilaire’s division. The movement was completely successful; and Soult’s two divisions crowned the heights to which the Emperor had pointed before the battle began.

The right wing of the Russian army was meanwhile sustaining the tremendous onset of Lannes with both his divisions. The fight raged in that quarter throughout the whole of the operations we have detailed; but at this point, Bernadotte’s division being no longer required to support those of Soult, the Emperor ordered the centre of the army to support the left. The Russian right was now entirely broken; the French cavalry by desperate and repeated charges completed the rout, and pursued the fugitives, who took the road to Austerlitz, till nightfall. Bernadotte, after pursuing the Russian infantry a full league, returned to his former position; nobody knew why. Had he, on the contrary, continued marching another half hour, he would have entirely intercepted the retreat, and taken or destroyed the whole of the Russian right. As it was, their flight was disastrous in the extreme: they were forced into a hollow, where numbers attempted to escape across a frozen lake; but the ice proving too weak for them, gave way, and the horrible scene which ensued—the crashing of the broken fragments, the thundering of the artillery, and the groans and shrieks of wounded and drowning men—baffles the imagination.

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Marshal Soult, now changing his position again by the right flank, descended the heights, having traversed a complete semi-circle, and took the Russian extreme left in the rear. The Emperor of Russia, who perceived the imminent danger of his whole army, dispatched his fine regiment of Russian guards, supported by a strong force of artillery, to attack Soult. Their desperate charge broke one of the French regiments. It was at this crisis that Napoleon brought his reserve into action. Bessieres, at the head of the imperial guard, rushed with irresistible fury into the fight. The Russians were entirely broken; their army, surprised in a flank movement, had been cut into as many separate masses as there were columns brought up to attack it. They fled in disorder, and the victory of Austerlitz was decided.

It was with the utmost difficulty that the two emperors of Russia and Austria effected their personal escape. The Emperor Alexander lost all his artillery, baggage, and standards; twenty thousand prisoners, and upwards of twenty thousand killed and wounded. In the precipitate flight, the wounded were abandoned to their fate. Kutusoff, however, with laudable humanity, left placards in the French language, on the doors of the churches and the barns towards which they had crept, inscribed with these words:—“I recommend these unfortunate men to the generosity of the Emperor Napoleon, and the humanity of his brave soldiers.”

In attempting to escape across some frozen ponds, the Russians broke through, and a large number of them were drowned. An eye-witness, General Langeron, says, “I have previously seen some lost battles, but I had no conception of such a defeat.”

Napoleon, who had participated in the pursuit, returned about night-fall. He was received with shouts by his triumphant troops, and they could scarcely be prevented from taking him in their arms. He soon commanded silence, and set about relieving the wounded, who actually covered the field. He administered brandy with his own hand to some suffering Russians, who could only repay him with a blessing, and gave orders that all the wounded should be attended to as speedily as possible. The troops had already given a name to the battle, that of the “Three Emperors.” But Napoleon himself gave this great conflict the name of the village near which it was fought. He issued the following proclamation, immediately after victory had been achieved.

“Soldiers—I am satisfied with you: in the battle of Austerlitz you have justified all that I expected from your intrepidity. You have decorated your eagles with immortal glory. An army of one hundred thousand men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, has been in less than four hours either cut in pieces or dispersed. Those who escaped your weapons are drowned in the lakes.

“Forty colors, the standards of the imperial guard of Russia, one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, more than thirty thousand prisoners, are the result of this ever-celebrated battle. That infantry, so highly vaunted and superior in number, could not withstand your shocks, and thenceforward you have no rivals to fear. Thus, in two months, this third coalition has been vanquished and dissolved. Peace cannot now be far distant, but, as I promised my people, before I passed the Rhine, I will make only such a peace as gives us guarantees and insures rewards to our allies.

“Soldiers, when all that is necessary to secure the welfare and the prosperity of our country is accomplished, I will lead you back to France: there you will be the object of my tenderest concern. My people will see you again with joy, and it will be sufficient to say, I was at the battle of Austerlitz, for them to reply, there is a brave man.

“NAPOLEON.”

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THE CAMP-FIRE AT PALENY.

The disaster at Austerlitz affected the Emperors Francis and Alexander very differently, Alexander was deeply dejected; but Francis was tranquil. Under the common misfortune, he had at least the consolation, that the Russians could no longer allege that the cowardice of the Austrians constituted all the glory of Napoleon. The two emperors retreated precipitately over the plain of Moravia, amidst profound darkness, separated from their household, and liable to be insulted through the barbarity of their own soldiers. Francis took it upon himself to send their gallant Prince John of Lichtenstein to Napoleon, to solicit an armistice, with a promise to sign a peace in a few days. He commissioned him, also, to express to Napoleon, his wish to have an interview with him at the advanced posts of the army. The French Emperor, having returned to his head-quarters at Posoritz, there received Prince John. He treated him as a conqueror full of courtesy, and agreed to an interview with the Emperor of Austria. But an armistice was not to be granted until the Emperors had met and explained themselves.

Napoleon hastened to recall his columns to Nasiedlowitz and Goding. Marshal Davoust, reinforced by the junction of Friant’s whole division, and by the arrival in line of Gudin’s division, had lost no time, thanks to his nearer position to the Hungary road. He set out in pursuit of the Russians, and pressed them closely. He intended to overtake them before the passage of the Morava, and to cut off perhaps a part of their army. After marching on the 3d, he was, on the morning of the 4th, in sight of Goding and nearly up with them. The greatest confusion prevailed in Goding. Beyond that place there was a mansion belonging to the Emperor of Germany, that of Holitsch, where the two allied sovereigns had taken refuge. The perturbation there was as great as at Goding. The Russian officers continued to hold the most unbecoming language respecting the Austrians. They laid the blame of the common defeat on them, as if they ought not to have attributed it to their own presumption, to the incapacity of their generals, and to the levity of their government. The Austrians, moreover, had behaved quite as well as the Russians on the field of battle.

The two vanquished monarchs were very cool towards each other. The Emperor Francis wished to confer with the Emperor Alexander, before he went to the interview agreed upon with Napoleon. Both thought that they ought to solicit an armistice and peace, for it was impossible to continue the struggle. Alexander was desirous, though he did not acknowledge it, that himself and his army should be saved as soon as possible from the consequences of an impetuous pursuit, such as might be apprehended from Napoleon. As for the conditions, he left his ally to settle them as he pleased. The Emperor Francis alone having to defray the expenses of the war, the conditions on which peace should be signed concerned him exclusively. Some time before, the Emperor Alexander, setting himself up for the arbiter of Europe, would have insisted that those conditions concerned him also. His pride was less exigent since the battle of the 2d of December.

The Emperor Francis accordingly set out for Nasiedlowitz, a village and there, near the mill of Paleny, between Nasiedlowitz and Urschitz, amidst the French and the Austrian advanced posts, he found Napoleon waiting for him, before a bivouac fire kindled by his soldiers. Napoleon had had the politeness to arrive first. He went to meet the Emperor Francis, received him as he alighted from his carriage and embraced him. The Austrian monarch, encouraged by the welcome of his all-powerful foe, had a long conversation with him. The principal officers of the two armies, standing aside, beheld with great curiosity the extraordinary spectacle of the successor of the Cæsars vanquished and soliciting peace of the crowned soldier, whom the French Revolution had raised to the pinnacle of human greatness.

Francis wore the brilliant costume of an Austrian field-marshal, and was a monarch of dignified aspect.

Napoleon apologized to the Emperor Francis for receiving him in such a place. “Such are the palaces,” said he, “which your majesty has obliged me to inhabit for these three months.”—“The abode in them,” replied the Austrian monarch, “makes you so thriving, that you have no right to be angry with me for it.” The conversation then turned upon the general state of affairs, Napoleon insisting that he had been forced into the war against his will at a moment when he least expected it, and when he was exclusively engaged with England; the Emperor of Austria affirming that he had been urged to take arms solely by the designs of France in regard to Italy. Napoleon declared that, on the conditions already specified to M. de Giulay, and which he had no need to repeat, he was ready to sign a peace. The Emperor Francis, without explaining himself on this subject, wished to know how Napoleon was disposed in regard to the Russian army. Napoleon first required that the Emperor Francis should separate his cause from that of the Emperor Alexander, and that the Russian army should retire by regulated marches from the Austrian territories, and promised to grant him an armistice on this condition. As for peace with Russia, he added, that would be settled afterwards, for this peace concerned him alone. “Take my advice,” said Napoleon to the Emperor Francis, “do not mix up your cause with that of the Emperor Alexander. Russia alone can now wage only a _fancy war_ in Europe. Vanquished, she retires to her deserts, and you, you pay with your provinces the costs of the war.” The forcible language of Napoleon expressed but too well the state of things in Europe between that great empire and the rest of the continent. The Emperor Francis pledged his word as a man and a sovereign not to renew the war, and above all to listen no more to the suggestions of powers which had nothing to lose in the struggle. He agreed to an armistice for himself—and for the Emperor Alexander, an armistice, the condition of which was that the Russians should retire by regulated marches—and that the Austrian cabinet should immediately send negotiators empowered to sign a separate peace with France.

The two emperors parted with reiterated demonstrations of cordiality. Napoleon handed into his carriage that monarch whom he had just called his brother, and remounted his horse to return to Austerlitz.

General Savary was sent to suspend the march of Davoust’s corps. He first proceeded to Holitsch, with the suite of the Emperor Francis, to learn whether the Emperor Alexander acceded to the proposed conditions. He saw the latter, around whom every thing was much changed since the mission on which he was sent to him a few days before. “Your master,” said Alexander to him, “has shown himself very great. I acknowledge all the power of his genius, and, as for myself, I shall retire, since my ally is satisfied.” General Savary conversed for some time with the young czar on the late battle, explained to him how the French army, inferior in number to the Russian army, had nevertheless appeared superior on all points, owing to the art of manœuvring which Napoleon possessed in so eminent a degree. He courteously added that with experience Alexander, in his turn, would become a warrior, but that so difficult an art was not to be learned in a day. After these flatteries to the vanquished monarch, he set out for Goding to stop Marshal Davoust, who had rejected all the proposals for a suspension of arms, and was ready to attack the relics of the Russian army. To no purpose he had been assured in the name of the Emperor of Russia himself that an armistice was negotiating between Napoleon and the Emperor of Austria. He would not on any account abandon his prey. But General Savary stopped him with a formal order from Napoleon. These were the last musket-shots fired during that unexampled campaign. The troops of the several nations separated to go into winter-quarters, awaiting what should be decided by the negotiators of the belligerent powers.

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THE CAMP-FIRE AT JENA.

Jena was one of Napoleon’s most decisive fields. There, in the conflict of a day, Prussia, who had dared to defy a power which had brought Austria and Russia to the dust, was completely annihilated. There the descendants of the great Frederick reaped the bitter consequences of his weak presumption. At Jena, the valley of the Saale begins to widen. The right bank is low, damp and covered with meadows. The left bank presents steep heights, whose peaked tops overlook the town of Jena, and are ascended by narrow, winding ravines, overhung with wood. On the left of Jena, a gorge more open, less abrupt, called the Muhlthal, has become the passage through which the high road from Jena to Weimar has been carried. This road first keeps along the bottom of the Muhlthal, then rises in form of a spiral staircase, and opens upon the plateaux in rear. It would have required a fierce assault to force this pass.

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The principal of the heights that overlook the town of Jena is called Landgrafenberg, and, since the memorable events of which it has been the theatre, it has received from the inhabitants the name of Napoleonsberg. It is the highest in these parts. Napoleon and Lannes, surveying from that height the surrounding country, with their backs turned to Jena, beheld on their right the Saale running in a deep, winding, wooded gorge, to Naumburg, which is six or seven leagues from Jena. Before them they saw undulated plateaux, extending to a distance, and subsiding by a gentle slope to the little valley of the Ilm, at the extremity of which is situated the town of Weimar. They perceived on their left the high road from Jena to Weimar, rising by a series of slopes from the gorge of the Muhlthal to these plateaux, and running in a straight line to Weimar. These slopes, somewhat resembling a sort of snail’s shell, have thence received in German the appellation of the _Schneeke_ (snail.)

It was in September, 1806, that Napoleon, having set all his divisions in motion, left Paris and put himself at the head of his grand army. The Prussians were superior in numbers, well disciplined, and full of spirit. They numbered between one hundred and thirty thousand and one hundred and forty thousand men. The cavalry especially, bore a high reputation, which, however, as we shall see, it could not sustain. The French Emperor had an army of one hundred and seventy thousand men in the field, with a power of concentrating one hundred thousand of them within a few hours.

On learning that the Prussian army was changing its position and advancing from Erfurt upon Weimar, with a view to approach the banks of the Saale, Napoleon manœuvred to meet the changes of the enemy.

They might be coming thither with one of the two following intentions: either to occupy the bridge over the Saale at Naumburg, over which passes the great central road of Germany, in order to retire upon the Elbe, while covering Leipzig and Dresden; or to approach the course of the Saale, for the purpose of defending its banks against the French. To meet this double contingency, Napoleon took a first precaution, which was to dispatch Marshal Davoust immediately to Naumburg, with orders to bar the passage of the bridge there with the twenty-six thousand men of the third corps. He sent Murat, with the cavalry, along the banks of the Saale, to watch its course, and to push reconnoisances as far as Leipzig. He directed Marshal Bernadette upon Naumburg, with instructions to support Marshal Davoust in case of need. He sent Marshals Lannes and Augereau to Jena itself. His object was to make himself master immediately of the two principal passages of the Saale, those at Naumburg and Jena, either to stop the Prussian army there, if it should design to cross and to retire to the Elbe, or to go and seek it on the heights bordering that river, if it purposed to remain there on the defensive. As for himself, he continued with Marshals Ney and Soult, within reach of Naumburg and Jena, ready to march for either point according to circumstances.

On the morning of the 13th, he learned by more circumstantial accounts that the enemy was definitively approaching the Saale, with the yet uncertain resolution of fighting a defensive battle on its banks, or of crossing and pushing on to the Elbe. It was in the direction from Weimar to Jena that the largest assemblage appeared. Without losing a moment, Napoleon mounted his horse to proceed to Jena. He gave himself his instructions to Marshals Soult and Ney, and enjoined them to be at Jena in the evening, or at latest in the night. He directed Murat to bring his cavalry towards Jena, and Marshal Bernadotte to take at Dornburg an intermediate position between Jena and Naumburg. He set out immediately, sending officers to stop all troops on march to Gera, and to make them turn back for Jena.

In the evening of the preceding day, Marshal Davoust had entered Naumburg, occupied the bridge of the Saale, and taken considerable magazines, with a fine bridge equipage. Marshal Bernadotte had joined him. Murat had sent his light cavalry as far as Leipzig, and surprised the gates of that great commercial city. Lannes had proceeded towards Jena, a small university town, seated on the very banks of the Saale, and had driven back pell-mell the enemy’s troops left beyond the river, as well as the baggage, which encumbered the road. He had taken possession of Jena, and immediately pushed his advanced posts upon the heights which command it. From these heights he had perceived the army of the Prince of Hohenlohe, which, after recrossing the Saale, encamped between Jena and Weimar, and he had reason to suspect that a great assemblage was collecting in that place.

Napoleon had arrived at Jena on the afternoon of the 13th of October. Marshal Lannes, who had outstripped him, was waiting for him with impatience, like that of a war-horse, snuffing the battle. Both mounted their horses to reconnoitre the localities. We have described the ground upon which the battle was fought. The Prussians were posted on the heights which overlook the town of Jena. The French were coming up on the low ground on the opposite side of the river. The chief difficulty was to reach the Prussians. There was but one method that appeared practicable. The bold tirailleurs of Lannes, entering the ravines which are met with on going out of Jena, had succeeded in ascending the principal eminence, and all at once perceived the Prussian army encamped on the plateaux of the left bank. Followed presently by some detachments of Suchet’s division, they had made room for themselves by driving in General Tauenzien’s advanced posts. Thus by force of daring, the heights which commanded the left bank of the Saale were gained; but by a route which was scarcely practicable to artillery. Thither, Lannes conducted the emperor, amidst an incessant fire of tirailleurs which rendered reconnoisance extremely dangerous.

Napoleon, having before him a mass of troops, the force of which could scarcely be estimated, supposed that the Prussian army had chosen this ground for a field of battle, and immediately made his dispositions, so as to debouch with his army on the Landgrafenberg, before the enemy should hasten up, _en masse_, to hurl him into the precipices of the Saale. He was obliged to make the best use of his time, and to take advantage of the space gained by the tirailleurs to establish himself on the height. He had, it is true, no more of it than the summit, for, only a few paces off, there was the corps of General Tauenzien, separated from the French only by a slight ridge of ground. This corps was stationed near two villages, one on the right, that of Closewitz, surrounded by a small wood, the other on the left, that of Cospoda, likewise surrounded by a wood of some extent. Napoleon purposed to leave the Prussians quiet in this position till the next day, and meanwhile to lead part of his army up the Landgrafenberg. The space which it occupied was capable of containing the corps of Lannes and the guard. He ordered them to be led up immediately through the steep ravines which serve to ascend from Jena to the Landgrafenberg. On the left, he placed Gazan’s division. On the right, Suchet’s division; in the centre, and a little in rear, the foot-guard. He made the latter encamp in a square of four thousand men, and in the centre of this square he established his own bivouac.

But it was not enough to bring infantry upon the Landgrafenberg—it was necessary to mount artillery too upon it. Napoleon, riding about in all directions, discovered a passage less steep than the others, and by which the artillery might be dragged up with great exertion. Unluckily, the way was too narrow. Napoleon sent forthwith for a detachment of the engineers, and had it widened by cutting the rock; he himself, in his impatience, directed the works, torch in hand. He did not retire till the night was far advanced, when he had seen the first pieces of cannon rolled up. It required twelve horses to drag each gun-carriage to the top of the Landgrafenberg. Napoleon purposed to attack General Tauenzien at day-break, and, by pushing him briskly, to conquer the space necessary for deploying his army. Fearful, however, of debouching by a single outlet, wishing also to divide the attention of the enemy, he directed Augereau towards the left, to enter the gorge of the Muhlthal, to march one of his two divisions upon the Weimar road, and to gain with the other the back of the Landgrafenberg, in order to fall upon the rear of General Tauenzien. On the right, he ordered Marshal Soult, whose corps, breaking up from Gera, was to arrive in the night, to ascend the other ravines, which, running from Lobstedt and Dornburg, debouch upon Closewitz, likewise for the purpose of falling upon the rear of General Tauenzien. With this double diversion, on the right and on the left, Napoleon had no doubt of forcing the Prussians in their position, and gaining for himself the space needed by his army for deploying. Marshals Ney and Murat were to ascend the Landgrafenberg by the route Lannes and the guard had followed.

The day of the 13th had closed; profound darkness enveloped the field of battle. Napoleon had placed his tent in the centre of the square formed by his guard, and had suffered only a few fires to be lighted; but all those of the Prussian army were kindled. The fires of the Prince of Hohenlohe were to be seen over the whole extent of the plateaux, and at the horizon on the right, topped by the old castle of Eckartsberg, those of the army of the Duke of Brunswick, which had all at once become visible for Napoleon. He conceived that, so far from retiring, the whole of the Prussian forces had come to take part in the battle. He sent immediately fresh orders to Marshals Davoust and Bernadotte. He enjoined Marshal Davoust to guard strictly the bridge of Naumburg, even to cross it, if possible, and to fall upon the rear of the Prussians, while they were engaged in front. He ordered Marshal Bernadotte, placed immediately, to concur in the projected movement, either by joining Marshal Davoust, if he was near the latter, or by throwing himself directly on the flank of the Prussians, if he had already taken at Dornburg a position nearer to Jena. Lastly, he desired Murat to arrive as speedily as possible with his cavalry.

While Napoleon was making these dispositions, the Prince of Hohenlohe was in complete ignorance of the lot which awaited him. Still persuaded that the bulk of the French army, instead of halting before Jena, was hurrying to Leipzig and Dresden, he supposed that he should at most have to deal with the corps of Marshals Lannes and Augereau, which, having passed the Saale, would, he imagined, make their appearance between Jena and Weimar, as if they had descended from the heights of the forest of Thuringia. Under this idea, not thinking of making front towards Jena, he had on that side opposed only the corps of General Tauenzien, and ranged his army along the road from Jena to Weimar. His left, composed of Saxons, guarded the summit of the Schnecke; his right extended to Weimar, and connected itself with General Ruchel’s corps. However, a fire of tirailleurs, which was heard on the Landgrafenberg, having excited a sort of alarm, and General Tauenzien applying for succor, the Prince of Hohenlohe ordered the Saxon brigade of Cerini, the Prussian brigade of Sanitz, and several squadrons of cavalry, to get under arms, and dispatched these forces to the Landgrafenberg, to dislodge from it the French, whom he conceived to be scarcely established on that point. At the moment when he was about to execute this resolution, Colonel de Massenbach brought him from the Duke of Brunswick a reiterated order not to involve himself in any serious action, to guard well the passages of the Saale, and particularly that of Dornburg, which excited uneasiness because some light troops had been perceived there. The Prince of Hohenlohe, who had become one of the most obedient of lieutenants when he ought not to have been so, desisted at once, in compliance with these injunctions from the head-quarters. It was singular, nevertheless, that in obeying the order not to fight, he should abandon the _debouche_ by which, on the morrow, a disastrous battle was to be forced upon him. Be this as it may, relinquishing the idea of retaking the Landgrafenberg, he contented himself with sending the Saxon brigade of Cerini to General Tauenzien, and with placing at Nerkwitz, facing Dornburg, the Prussian brigade of Schemmelpfennig, lastly several detachments of cavalry and artillery, under the command of General Holzendorf. He sent some light horse to Dornburg itself, to learn what was passing there. The Prince of Hohenlohe confined himself to these dispositions: he returned to his head-quarters at Capellendorf.

Napoleon, stirring before daylight, gave his last instructions to his lieutenants, and orders for his soldiers to get under arms. The night was cold, the country covered to a distance with a thick fog, like that which for some hours enveloped the field of Austerlitz. Escorted by men carrying torches, Napoleon went along the front of the troops, talking to the officers and soldiers. He explained the position of the two armies, demonstrated to them that the Prussians were as deeply compromised as the Austrians in the preceding year; that, if vanquished in that engagement, they would be cut off from the Elbe and the Oder, separated from the Russians, and forced to abandon to the French the whole Prussian monarchy; that, in such a situation, the French corps which should suffer itself to be beaten would frustrate the grandest designs, and disgrace itself for ever. He exhorted them to keep on their guard against the Prussian cavalry, and to receive it in square with their usual firmness. His words everywhere drew forth shouts of “Forward! _vive l’Empereur!_” Though the fog was thick, yet through its veil the enemy’s advanced posts perceived the glare of the torches, heard the acclamations of the French, and went to give the alarm to General Tauenzien. At that moment, the corps of Lannes set itself in motion, on a signal from Napoleon. Suchet’s division, formed into three brigades, advanced first. Claparede’s brigade, composed of the 17th light infantry, and a battalion of _elite_, marched at the head, deployed in a single line. On the wings of this line, and to preserve it from attacks of cavalry, the 34th and 40th regiments, forming the second brigade, were disposed in close column, Vedel’s brigade, deployed, closed this sort of square. On the left of Suchet’s division, but a little in rear, came Gazan’s division, ranged in two lines and preceded by its artillery. Thus they advanced, groping their way through the fog. Suchet’s division directed its course towards the village of Closewitz, which was on the right, Gazan’s division towards the village of Cospoda, which was on the left. The Saxon battalions of Frederick Augustus and Rechten, and the Prussian battalion of Zweifel, perceiving through the fog a mass in motion, fired all together. The 17th light infantry sustained that fire, and immediately returned it. This fire of musketry was kept up for a few minutes, the parties seeing the flash and hearing the report, but not discerning one another. The French, on approaching, at length discovered the little wood which surrounded the village of Closewitz. General Claparede briskly threw himself into it, and, after a fight hand to hand, had soon carried it, as well as the village of Closewitz itself. Having deprived General Tauenzien’s line of this support, the French continued their march amidst the balls that issued from that thick fog. Gazan’s division, on its part, took the village of Cospoda, and established itself there. Between these two villages, but a little farther off, was a small hamlet, that of Lutzenrode, occupied by Erichsen’s fusiliers. Gazan’s division carried that also, and was then able to deploy more at its ease.

At this moment the two divisions of Lannes were assailed by fresh discharges of artillery and musketry. These were from the Saxon grenadiers of the Cerini brigade, who, after taking up the advanced posts of General Tauenzien, continued to move forward, firing battalion volleys with as much precision as if they had been at a review. The 17th light infantry, which formed the head of Suchet’s division, having exhausted its cartridges, was sent to the rear. The 34th took its place, kept up the fire for some time, then encountered the Saxon grenadiers with the bayonet, and broke them. The route having soon extended to the whole corps of General Tauenzien. Gazan’s and Suchet’s divisions picked up about twenty pieces of cannon and many fugitives. From the Landgrafenberg, the undulated plateaux, on which the French had just deployed, gradually subsided to the little valley of the Ilm. Hence they marched rapidly upon sloping ground, to the heels of a fleeing enemy. In this quick movement they encountered two battalions of Cerini, and also Pelet’s fusiliers, which had been left in the environs of Closewitz. These troops were flung back for the rest of the day towards General Holzendorf, commissioned on the preceding day to guard the _debouche_ of Dornburg.

This action had not lasted two hours. It was nine o’clock, and Napoleon had thus early realized the first part of his plan, which consisted in gaining the space necessary for deploying his army. At the same moment his instructions were executed at all points with remarkable punctuality. Towards the left, Marshal Augereau, having sent off Heudelet’s division, and likewise his artillery and cavalry, to the extremity of the Muhlthal, on the high road from Weimar, was climbing with Desjardin’s divisions, the back of the Landgrafenberg, and coming to form on the plateaux to the left of Gazan’s division. Marshal Soult, only one of whose divisions, that of General St. Hilaire, had arrived, was ascending from Lobstedt, in the rear of Closewitz, facing the positions of Nerkwitz and Alten-Krone, occupied by the relics of Tauenzien’s corps and by the detachment of General Holzendorf. Marshal Ney, impatient to share in the battle, had detached from his corps a battalion of voltigeurs, a battalion of grenadiers, the 25th light infantry, two regiments of cavalry, and had gone on before with this body of _elite_. He entered Jena at the very hour when the first act of the engagement was over. Lastly, Murat, returning at a gallop, with the dragoons and cuirassiers, from reconnoisances executed on the Lower Saale, was mounting in breathless haste towards Jena. Napoleon resolved, therefore, to halt for a few moments on the conquered ground, to afford his troops time to get into line.

Meanwhile, the fugitives belonging to General Tauenzien’s force had given the alarm to the whole camp of the Prussians. At the sound of the cannon, the Prince of Hohenlohe had hastened to the Weimar road, where the Prussian infantry was encamped, not yet believing the action to be general, and complaining that the troops were harassed by being obliged needlessly to get under arms. Being soon undeceived, he took his measures for giving battle. Knowing that the French had passed the Saale at Saalfeld, he had expected to see them make their appearance between Jena and Weimar, and had drawn up his army along the road running from one to the other of these towns. As this conjuncture was not realized, he was obliged to change his dispositions, and he did it with promptness and resolution. He sent the bulk of the Prussian infantry, under the command of General Grawert, to occupy the positions abandoned by General Tauenzien. Towards the Schnecke, which was to form his right, he left the Niesemuchel division, composed of the two Saxon brigades of Burgsdorf and Nehroff, of the Prussian Boguslawski battalion, and of a numerous artillery, with orders to defend to the last extremity the winding slopes by which the Weimar road rises to the plateaux. To aid them, he gave them the Cerini brigade, rallied and reinforced by four Saxon battalions. In rear of his centre, he placed a reserve of five battalions under General Dyherrn, to support General Grawert. He had the wrecks of Tauenzien’s corps rallied at some distance from the field of battle, and supplied with ammunition. As for his left, he directed General Holzendorf to push forward, if he could, and to fall upon the right of the French, while he would himself endeavor to stop them in front. He sent General Ruchel information of what was passing, and begged him to hasten his march. Lastly, he hurried off himself with the Prussian cavalry and the artillery horses, to meet the French, for the purpose of keeping them in check and covering the formation of General Grawert’s infantry.

It was about ten o’clock, and the action of the morning, interrupted for an hour, was about to begin again with greater violence, while, on the right, Marshal Soult, debouching from Lobstedt, was climbing the heights with St. Hilaire’s division; while in the centre Marshal Lannes, with Suchet’s and Gazan’s divisions, was deploying on the plateaux won in the morning; and while, on the left, Marshal Augereau, ascending from the bottom of the Muhlthal, had reached the village of Iserstedt, Marshal Ney, in his ardour for fighting, had advanced with his three thousand men of the _elite_, concealed by the fog, and had placed himself between Lannes and Augereau, facing the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, which occupied the centre of the field of battle. He arrived at the very moment when the Prince of Hohenlohe was hastening up at the head of the Prussian cavalry. Finding himself all at once facing the enemy, he engaged before the Emperor had given orders for renewing the action. The horse artillery of the Prince of Hohenlohe having already placed itself in battery, Ney pushed the 10th chasseurs upon this artillery. This regiment, taking advantage of a clump of trees to form, dashed forward on the gallop, ascended by its right upon the flank of the Russian artillery, cut down the gunners, and took seven pieces of cannon, under the fire of the whole line of the enemy. But a mass of Prussian cuirassiers rushed upon it, and he was obliged to retire with precipitation. Ney then dispatched the 3d hussars. This regiment, manœuvring as the 10th chasseurs had done, took advantage of the clump of trees to form, ascended upon the flank of the cuirassiers, then fell upon them suddenly, threw them into disorder, and forced them to retire. Two regiments of light cavalry, however, were not enough to make head against thirty squadrons of dragoons and cuirassiers. The chasseurs and hussars were soon obliged to seek shelter behind the infantry. Marshal Ney then sent forward the battalion of grenadiers and the battalion of voltigeurs which he had brought, formed two squares, then placing himself in one of them, opposed the charges of the Prussian cavalry. He allowed the enemy’s cuirassiers to approach within twenty paces of his bayonets, and terrified them by the aspect of a motionless infantry which had reserved its fire. At his signal, a discharge within point-blank range strewed the ground with dead and wounded. Though several times assailed, these two squares remained unbroken.

Napoleon, on the top of the Landgrafenberg, had been highly astonished to hear the firing recommence without his order. He learned with still more astonishment that Marshal Ney, whom he had supposed to be in the rear, was engaged with the Prussians. He hastened up greatly displeased, and on approaching Vierzehn-Heiligen, perceived from the height Marshal Ney defending himself, in the middle of two weak squares, against the whole of the Prussian cavalry. This heroic demonstration was enough to dispel all displeasure. Napoleon sent General Bertrand with two regiments of light cavalry, all that he had at hand, in the absence of Murat, to assist in extricating Ney, and ordered Lannes to advance with his infantry. During the time that elapsed before relief arrived, the intrepid Ney was not disconcerted. While, with four regiments of horse, he renewed his charges of cavalry, he moved the 25th infantry to his left, in order to station himself on the wood of Iserstedt, which Augereau, on his part, was striving to reach; he made the battalion of grenadiers advance as far as the little wood which had protected his chasseurs, and dispatched the battalion of voltigeurs to gain possession of the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen. But, at the same instant, Lannes, coming to his assistance, threw the 21st regiment of light infantry into the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, and, putting himself at the head of the 100th, 103d, 34th, 64th, and 88th of the line, debouched in the face of the Prussian infantry of General Grawert. The latter deployed before the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, with a regularity of movement due to long exercises. It drew up in order of battle, and opened a regular and terrible fire of small arms. Ney’s three little detachments suffered severely; but Lannes, ascending on the right of General Grawert’s infantry, endeavored to turn it in spite of repeated charges of the Prince of Hohenlohe’s cavalry, which came to attack him in his march.

The Prince of Hohenlohe bravely supported his troops amidst the danger. The regiment of Sanitz was completely broken; he formed it anew under the fire. He then purposed that the Zastrow regiment should retake the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen at the point of the bayonet, hoping thereby to decide the victory. Meanwhile he was informed that more hostile columns began to appear; that General Holzendorf, engaged with superior forces, was incapable of seconding him; that General Ruchel, however, was on the point of joining him with his corps. He then judged it expedient to wait for this powerful succor, and poured a shower of shells into the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, resolved to try the effect of flames before he attacked it with his bayonets. He sent at the same time officers to General Ruchel, to urge him to hasten up, and to promise him the victory if he arrived in time; for, according to him, the French were on the point of giving way. At that very hour fortune was deciding otherwise. Augereau debouching at last from the wood of Iserstedt with Desjardin’s division, disengaged Ney’s left, and began to exchange a fire of musketry with the Saxons who were defending the Schnecke, while General Heudelet attacked them in column on the high road from Jena to Weimar. On the other side of the field of battle, the corps of Marshal Soult, after driving the remains of the Cerini brigade, as well as the Pelet fusiliers, out of the wood of Closewitz, and flinging back Holzendorf’s detachment to a distance, opened its guns on the flank of the Prussians. Napoleon, seeing the progress of his two wings, and learning the arrival of the troops which had been left in rear, was no longer afraid to bring into action all the forces present on the ground, the guard included, and gave orders for advancing. An irresistible impulse was communicated to the whole line. The Prussians were driven back, broken, and hurled down the sloping ground which descends from Landgrafenberg to the valley of the Ilm. The regiments of Hohenlohe and the Hahn grenadiers, of Grawert’s division, were almost entirely destroyed by the fire or by the bayonet. The Cerini brigade, assailed with grape, fell back upon the Dyherrn reserve, which in vain opposed its five battalions to the movement of the French. That reserve, being soon left uncovered, found itself attacked, surrounded on all sides, and forced to disperse. Tauenzien’s corps, rallied for a moment, and brought back into the fire by the Prince of Hohenlohe, was hurried away, like the others, in the general rout. The Prussian cavalry, taking advantage of the absence of the heavy French cavalry, made charges to cover its broken infantry; but the chasseurs and hussars kept it in check; and though driven back several times, returned incessantly to the charge. A terrible carnage followed this disorderly retreat. At every step prisoners were made; artillery was taken by whole batteries.