attacked at the old regulation speed of seventy-five paces to the minute, and the French manœuvred at the quick or double of 120 or 150. The consequence was that the French always succeeded in reinforcing their fighting line in time to avert disaster. Nevertheless by mid-day their strength was well-nigh exhausted, whilst the Prussian reserve, eighteen battalions of guards under Kalckreuth, stood intact and ready to engage. But at the critical moment the duke of Brunswick fell mortally wounded, and Scharnhorst, his chief of the staff, was at the time absent on another part of the field. Meanwhile rumours from the battle-field at Jena, magnified as usual, began to reach the staff, and these may possibly have influenced Kalckreuth, for when appealed to to attack with his eighteen battalions and win the day, he declined to move without the direct order of the commander-in-chief to do so, alleging that it was the duty of a reserve to cover the retreat and he considered himself personally responsible to the king for the guards entrusted to his care. Even then the day might have been saved had Blücher been able to find even twenty squadrons accustomed to gallop together, but the Prussian cavalry had been dispersed amongst the infantry commands, and at the critical moment it proved impossible for them to deliver a united and decisive attack.
Seeing further efforts hopeless, Scharnhorst in the duke’s name initiated the retreat and the troops withdrew N.W. towards Buttelstedt, almost unmolested by the French, who this day had put forth all that was in them, and withstood victoriously the highest average punishment any troops of the new age of warfare had as yet endured. So desperate had been their resistance that the Prussians unanimously stated Davout’s strength at double the actual figure. Probably no man but Davout could have got so much out of his men, but why was he left unsupported?
Bernadotte, we have seen, had marched to Dornburg, or rather to a point overlooking the ford across the Saale at the village of that name, and reached there in ample time to intervene on either field. But with the struggle raging before him he remained undecided, until at Jena the decision had clearly fallen, and then he crossed the river and arrived with fresh troops too late for their services to be required.
19. Prussian Retreat.—During the night the Prussians continued their retreat, the bulk of the main body to Sömmerda, Hohenlohe’s corps towards Nordhausen. The troops had got much mixed up, but as the French did not immediately press the pursuit home, order was soon re-established and a combined retreat was begun towards the mouth of the Elbe and Lübeck. Here help was expected to arrive from England, and the tide might yet have turned, for the Russian armies were gathering in the east. It was now that the results of a divorce of the army from the nation began to be felt. Instead of seizing all provisions and burning what they could not remove, the Prussian generals enforced on their men the utmost forbearance towards the inhabitants, and the fact that they were obeyed, in spite of the inhumanity the people showed to their sick and wounded countrymen, proves that discipline was by no means so far gone as has generally been believed. The French marching in pursuit were received with open arms, the people even turning their own wounded out of doors to make room for their French guests. Their servility awakened the bitterest contempt of their conquerors and forms the best excuse for the unparalleled severity of the French yoke. On the 26th of October Davout reached Berlin, having marched 166 m. in twelve days including two sharp rearguard actions, Bernadotte with his fresh troops having fallen behind. The inhabitants of Berlin, headed by their mayor, came out to meet him, and the newspapers lavished adulation on the victors and abuse on the beaten army. On the 28th Murat’s cavalry overtook the remnant of Prince Hohenlohe’s army near Prenzlau (N. of Berlin) and invited its capitulation. Unfortunately the prince sent Massenbach to discuss the situation, and the latter completely lost his head. Murat boasted that he had 100,000 men behind him, and on his return Massenbach implored his chief to submit to an unconditional surrender, advice which the prince accepted, though as a fact Murat’s horses were completely exhausted and he had no infantry whatever within call. Only Blücher now remained in the field, and he too was driven at length into Lübeck with his back to the sea.
20. Campaigns in Poland and East Prussia.—Hitherto the French had been operating in a rich country, untouched for half a century past by the ravages of war, but as the necessity for a campaign against the Russians confronted the emperor, he realized that his whole supply and transport service must be put on a different footing. After the wants of the cavalry and artillery had been provided for, there remained but little material for transport work. Exhaustive orders to organize the necessary trains were duly issued, but the emperor seems to have had no conception of the difficulties the tracks—there were no metalled roads—of Poland were about to present to him. Moreover, it was one thing to issue orders, but quite another to ensure that they were obeyed, for they entailed a complete transformation in the mental attitude of the French soldier towards all that he had been taught to consider his duties in the field. Experience only can teach the art of packing wagons and the care of draught animals, and throughout the campaign the small ponies of Poland and East Prussia broke down by thousands from over loading and unskilful packing.
21. The Russian Army formed the most complete contrast to the French that it is possible to imagine. Though clad, armed and organized in European fashion, the soldiers retained in a marked degree the traditions of their Mongolian forerunners, their transport wagons were in type the survival of ages of experience, and their care for their animals equally the result of hereditary habit. The intelligence of the men and regimental officers was very low, but on the other hand service was practically for life, and the regiment the only home the great majority had ever known. Hence obedience was instinctive and initiative almost undreamt of. Moreover, they were essentially a war-trained army, for even in peace time their long marches to and fro within the empire had most thoroughly inured them to hardship and privation. Napoleon might have remembered his own saying, “La misère est l’école du bon soldat.” In cavalry they were weak, for the Russian does not take kindly to equitation and the horses were not equal to the accepted European standard of weight, while the Cossack was only formidable to stragglers and wounded. Their artillery was numerous and for the most part of heavy calibre—18- and 24-pounders were common—but the strength of the army lay in its infantry, with its incomparable tenacity in defence and its blind confidence in the bayonet in attack. The traditions of Suvarov and his victories in Italy (see French Revolutionary Wars) were still fresh, but there was no longer a Suvarov to lead them.
22. Advance to the Vistula.—Napoleon had from the first been aware of the secret alliance between Prussia and Russia, sworn by their respective sovereigns over the grave of Frederick the Great, and this knowledge had been his principal reason for precipitating hostilities with the former. He remained, however, in complete ignorance of the degree of preparation attained on the Russian side, and since the seizure of Warsaw together with the control of the resources of Poland in men and material its occupation would afford, was the chief factor in his calculation, he turned at once to the eastward as soon as all further organized resistance in Prussia was ended by the surrender of Prenzlau and Lübeck. Scarcely leaving his troops time to restore their worn-out footgear, or for the cavalry to replace their jaded horses from captured Prussian resources, he set Davout in motion towards Warsaw on the 2nd of November, and the remainder of the army followed in successive echelons as rapidly as they could be despatched.
The cavalry, moving well in advance, dispersed the Prussian depôts and captured their horses, as far as the line of the Vistula, where at last they encountered organized resistance from the outposts of Lestocq’s little corps of 15,000 men—all that was left of Frederick the Great’s army. These, however, gave way before the threat of the advancing French and after a few trifling skirmishes. Davout entered Warsaw on the 30th of
