But it was foes, not friends, that he found; for Bernadotte had passed Dornburg, and was in control of the Weimar road, having reached Apolda with his van. The awful disappointment unnerved and demoralized both the King and his army; throughout the terrible day the Prussian soldiers had justified their renown, fighting bravely and stubbornly; but now discipline was at an end, and with one or two exceptions the squadrons dissolved and turned into a flying horde. Hohenlohe drew off ten thousand men in good order, marched in swift but dignified retreat through Nordhausen to Magdeburg, and thence continued by Neu-Ruppin to Prenzlau. Blücher escaped with a body of cavalry. The battle of Auerstädt was tactically a separate affair from that of Jena, but strategically and morally they were one. Professional students find in this campaign almost the first complete realization of the hazardous and delicate manoeuver known as turning the enemy--common sense shows that the turner, if careless or slow, is himself liable to be turned. The campaign as a whole was never for a moment endangered, because the unprecedented marches of the French made their leader's strategy impregnable. But Bernadotte's conduct, though technically justifiable, would, with any less efficiency on Davout's part, have jeopardized the battle as it was fought. The success of Napoleon was due in part to the fact that, as he himself said, "while others were taking counsel the French army was marching," in part to the still undiminished devotion and capacity of the marshals. Great ventures generally succeed by narrow margins and fail by broad ones. The Prussian campaign was a great one; its successors were to be of even larger dimensions as to conception. When they were successful it was by an even narrower chance; when disastrous, it was with frightful completeness. CHAPTER XXXV THE DEVASTATION OF PRUSSIA[38]