11 to 13 October 1806
The armies meet on the Saale
After Saalfeld Napoleon pushes north down the Saale towards Gera and Leipzig. He expects the Prussians to gather around Erfurt and Weimar and means to turn west against their left, cutting their road to Berlin. On 12 October Davout’s III Corps and Bernadotte’s I Corps reach Naumburg, across the Prussian line of retreat, while Lannes’s V Corps follows the Saale to Jena.
The battle of Jena, coloured print after Carle Vernet and Jacques François Swebach, early 19th centuryWikimedia Commons, JoJan, CC BY 3.0 (Napoleon.Jena.jpg)
The Prussian command divides its army. The main army under the Duke of Brunswick, about 64,000 men with King Frederick William III, Field Marshal Möllendorf and Field Marshal Kalckreuth, sets out north-east from Weimar for the Saale crossings at Kösen and Freyburg, the road to the Elbe and Berlin. Prince Hohenlohe, with about 40,000 Prussians and Saxons, covers its flank on the plateau west of Jena, and Rüchel’s 15,000 stand at Weimar.
On 13 October Lannes takes Jena and climbs the Landgrafenberg, the steep height above the town, where Napoleon joins him. During the night the Imperial Guard and Lannes’s corps crowd onto the summit with their guns, and Soult, Ney, Augereau and Murat are called up. Napoleon believes that the whole Prussian army is in front of him. He orders Davout to march from Naumburg by Kösen into the Prussian rear at Apolda, and Bernadotte to come in by Dornburg.
The Battle of Jena, painting by Horace Vernet, 1836Wikimedia Commons, Horace Vernet, Public domain (Iena.jpg)
On the morning of 14 October the plateau lies in thick fog. Napoleon has about 48,000 men at hand when the fighting begins, and as his corps come up from the Saale valley the number grows to 96,000, of whom about 40,000 fight. Hohenlohe’s troops are camped across the plateau from Kapellendorf towards Jena, with Tauentzien’s advance guard nearest the French.
Sources
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
- F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia 1806 (1907).
- David G. Chandler, Jena 1806: Napoleon Destroys Prussia (1993).
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