Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4Menzel, Wolfgang
History
Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4
Menzel, Wolfgang
Germany -- History
The Prussian army was compared to a ship with all sail spread lying at
anchor. The duke was posted with the main body not far from Weimar,
the Saxons at the Schnecke on the road between Weimar and Jena, the
prince of Hohenlohe at Jena. Mack had isolated and exposed his
different corps d'armee in an exactly similar manner at Ulm. Hohenlohe
again subdivided his corps and scattered them in front of the
concentrated forces of the enemy. Still, all was not yet lost, the
Prussians being advantageously posted in the upper valley, while the
French were advancing along the deep valleys of the Saal and its
tributaries. But, on the 13th of October, Tauenzien retired from the
vale, leaving the steeps of Jena, which a hundred students had been
able to defend simply by rolling down the stones there piled in heaps,
open, and, during the same night, Napoleon sent his artillery up and
posted himself on the Landgrafenberg. There, nevertheless, still
remained a chance; the Dornberg, by which the Landgrafenberg was
commanded, was still occupied by Tauenzien, and the Windknollen, a
still steeper ascent, whence Hohenlohe, had he not spent the night in
undisturbed slumbers at Capellendorf, might utterly have annihilated
the French army, remained unoccupied. The thunder of the French
artillery first roused Hohenlohe from his couch, and, while he was
still under the hands of his barber, Tauenzien was driven from the
Dornberg. The duties of the toilet at length concluded, Hohenlohe led
his troops up the hillside with a view of retaking the position he had
so foolishly lost; but his serried columns were exposed to the
destructive fire of a body of French tirailleurs posted above, and
were repulsed with immense loss. General Ruchel arrived, with his
corps that had been uselessly detached, too late to prevent the flight
of the Hohenlohe corps, and, making a brave but senseless attack, was
wounded and defeated. A similar fate befell the unfortunate Saxons at
the Schnecke and the duke of Brunswick at Auerstädt. The latter,
although at the head of the strongest division of the Prussian army,
succumbed to the weakest division of the French army, that commanded
by Davoust, who henceforward bore the title of duke of Auerstädt, and
was so suddenly put to the rout that a body of twenty thousand
Prussians under Kalkreuth never came into action. The duke was shot in
both eyes. This incident was, by his enemies, termed fortune's
revenge, "as he never would see when he had his eyes open."[1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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