14 October 1806, 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Davout counterattacks
About 10.30 a.m. the Prince of Orange’s division arrives, and the king makes his only decision of the day, splitting it to send half to each flank. On the French side Morand’s division comes up and is sent to secure Gudin’s left. Davout sees that the Prussians are wavering, and at 11 a.m. he orders his whole line to counterattack.
Marshal Davout at Auerstedt, drawing by Dick de Lonlay, late 19th centuryWikimedia Commons, Dick de Lonlay, Public domain (Davout-a-auerstaedt.jpg)
Morand takes the Sonnenberg on the left and Friant pushes towards the heights of Eckartsberga on the right, and from both heights the French guns fire into the Prussian flanks. By noon Schmettau’s centre is broken and driven back over the Lissbach, Blücher’s cavalry is spent, and the king orders a withdrawal. The exhausted French follow no further than Auerstedt.
Davout’s corps loses 7,052 officers and men killed and wounded, the Prussians 13,000 to 15,000. Napoleon at first does not believe that one corps has beaten the Prussian main army and remarks that Davout must be seeing double. He later makes him Duke of Auerstedt. Bernadotte reaches Apolda late in the day without having fought in either battle.
Sources
- John Gallaher, The Iron Marshal: A Biography of Louis N. Davout (2018).
- F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia 1806 (1907).
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