Prussia, furious at the violation of her territory of Anspach, had mobilized, and had sent Haugwitz as ambassador to Napoleon's headquarters. He arrived on the 30th of November, and Napoleon, pleading business, put off his official reception till after the battle of Austerlitz. Of course the ultimatum was never presented, as may be imagined; Haugwitz returned and the king of Prussia demobilized at once. But Napoleon, well knowing the man he had to deal with, had determined to force a quarrel upon Prussia at the earliest convenient opportunity.
His troops therefore, when withdrawn from Austria, were cantoned in south Germany in such a way that, whilst suspicion was not aroused in minds unacquainted with Napoleonic methods, they could be concentrated by a few marches behind the Thuringian forest and the upper waters of the Main. Here the Grand Army was left to itself to recuperate and assimilate its recruits, and it is characteristic of the man and his methods that he did not trouble his corps commanders with a single order during the whole of the spring and summer.
As the diplomatic crisis approached, spies were sent into Prussia, and simultaneously with the orders for preliminary concentration the marshals received private instructions, the pith of which cannot be better expressed than in the following two quotations from Napoleon's correspondence:
"Mon intention est de concentrer toutes mes forces sur l'cxtremite de ma droite en laissant tout l'espace entre le Rhin et Bamberg entirement degarni, do maniere a' avoir pres do 200,000 hommes reunis sur un memo champ do bataille; mes premieres marches menacent le cocur de la monarchic prussienne." (No. 10,920).
Avoc cette immense superiorite do forces reunis sur un espace si etroit, vous sontez que je suis dans la volonte de ne rein hasarder et d'attaquer l'ennemi partout ou' il voudra tenir. Vous pensez bien que ce serait une belle affaire que do se porter sur cette place (Dresden) en un bataillon carre de 200,000 hommes." (Soult, No.10,941).
On the 7th of October the Grande Armée lay in three parallel columns along the roads leading over the mountains to Hof, Schleiz and Kronach; on the right lay the IV. Corps (Soult) about Bayreuth; with his cavalry in rear, and behind these the VI. Corps (Ney) at Pegnitz; in the centre, Bernadotte's I. Corps from Nordhalben, with the III. Corps (Davout) at Lichtenfels; Guard and Headquarters at Bamberg. The left column was composed of the V. Corps (Lannes) at Hemmendorf, with the VIII Corps (Augereau) extending south to the Main at Burgebrach. Napoleon's object being surprise, all the cavalry except a few vedettes were kept back behind the leading infantry columns and these latter were ordered to advance, on the signal being given, in "masses of manoeuvre," so as to crush at once any outpost resistance which was calculated upon the time required for the deployment of ordinary marching columns. This order has never since found an imitator, but deserves attentive study as a masterpiece.
To meet the impending blow the Prussians had been extended in a cordon along the great road leading from Mainz to Dresden, Blucher was at Erfurt, Ruchel at Gotha, Hohenlohe at Weimar, Saxons in Dresden, with outposts along the frontier. An offensive move into Franconia was under discussion, and for this purpose the Prussian staff had commenced a lateral concentration about Weimar, Jena and Naumburg when the storm burst upon them. The emperor gathered little from the confused reports of their purposeless manoeuvres, but, secure in the midst of his " battalion square" of 200,000 men, he remained quite indifferent, well knowing that an advance straight on Berlin must force his enemy to concentrate and fight, and as they would bring at most 127,000 men on to the battlefield the result could hardly be doubtful. On the 9th of October the cloud burst. Out of the forests which clothe the northern slopes of the Thuringer Wald the French streamed forth, easily overpowering the resistance of the Prussian outposts on the upper Saale, and once the open country was reached the cavalry under Murat trotted to the front, closely followed by Bernadotte's corps as "general advance guard." The result of the cavalry scouting was however unsatisfactory. On the night of the 10th, the Emperor was still unaware of the position of his principal foe, and Murat with Bernadotte behind him was directed on Gera for the 11h, the remainder of the army continuing along the roads previously assigned to them. In the meanwhile, however, the Saxons had been moving from Naumburg through Gera on Jena, Hohenlohe was near Weimar, and all the other divisions of the army had closed in a march eastwards, the idea of an offensive to the southward which Napoleon had himself attributed to them having already disappeared.
Reaching Gera at 9 A.M. Murat reported the movement of the Saxons on the previous day, but omitted to send a strong detachment in pursuit. The traces of the Saxons were lost, and Napoleon, little satisfied with his cavalry, authorized Lasalle to offer up to 6000 frs. reward for information of the Prussian point of concentration. At 1 A.M. of the 12th Napoleon issued his orders. Murat and Bernadotte via Zeitz to Naumburg; Davout (III. corps and a dragoon division) also to Naumburt; lannes to Jena, Augereau following; Soult to Gera.
In the meantime the Prussians were effecting their concentration. Rtlchel, who with 15,000 men had been sent into the mountains as an advanced guard for the projected offensive, was recalled to Weimar, which he reached on the 13th. The main body were between Weimar and Apolda during the 12th, and the Saxons duly effected their junction with Hohenlohe in the vicinity of Vierzehnheiligen, whilst the latter had withdrawn his troops all but some outposts from Jena to the plateau about Capellendorf, some 4 m. to the N.W. The whole army, upwards of 120,000 men, could therefore have been concentrated against Lannes and Augereau by the afternoon of the 13th, whilst Soult could only have intervened very late in the day, and Davout and Bernadotte were still too distant to reach the battlefield before the 14th. All the French corps, moreover, were so exhausted by their rapid marches over bad roads that the emperor actually ordered (at 1 A.M. on the 13th) a day of rest for all except Davout, Bernadotte, Lannes and Murat.
The Prussian headquarters, however, spent the 12th and 13th in idle discussion, whilst the troop commanders exerted them selves to obtain some alleviation for the suffering of their starving men. The defeats undergone by their outpost detach ment had profoundly affected the nerves of the troops, and on the afternoon of the 11th, on the false alarm of a French approach, a panic broke out in the streets of Jena, and it took all the energy of Hohenlohe and his staff to restore order. On the morning of the 12th the Saxon commanding officers approached Hohenlohe with a statement of the famishing condition of their men, and threatened to withdraw them again to Saxony. Hohenlohe pointed out that the Prussians were equally badly off, but promised to do his best to help his allies. Urgent messages were sent off to the Commissary von Goethe (the poet), at Weimar for permission to requisition food and firewood. These requests, however, remained unanswered, and the Prussians and Saxons spent the night before the battle shivering in their miserable bivouacs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY : Colonel Frederic Natusch Maude C.B., Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910, vol. 19
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