In the headlong flight before Murat’s horsemen, the fugitives fell in with another beaten array, that of Brunswick.  At Jena the Prussians, if defeated, were not disgraced:  before the first shot was fired their defeat was a mathematical certainty.  At the crisis of the battle they had but 47,400 men at hand, while Napoleon then disposed of 83,600 combatants.[108] But at Auerstaedt they were driven back and disgraced.  There they had a decided superiority in numbers, having more than 35,000 of their choicest troops, while opposite to them stood only the 27,000 men of Davoust’s corps.

Hitherto Davoust had been remarkable rather for his dog-like devotion to Napoleon than for any martial genius; and the brilliant Marmont had openly scoffed at his receiving the title of Marshal.  But, under his quiet exterior and plodding habits, there lay concealed a variety of gifts which only needed a great occasion to shine forth and astonish the world.[109] The time was now at hand.  Frederick William and Brunswick were marching from Auerstaedt to make good their retreat on the Elbe, when their foremost horsemen, led by the gallant Bluecher, saw a solid wall of French infantry loom through the morning fog.  It was part of Davoust’s corps, strongly posted in and around the village of Hassenhausen.

At once Bluecher charged, only to be driven back with severe loss.  Again he came on, this time supported by infantry and cannon:  again he was repulsed; for Davoust, aided by the fog, had seized the neighbouring heights which commanded the high road, and held them with firm grip.  Determined to brush aside or crush this stubborn foe, the Duke of Brunswick now led heavy masses along the narrow defile; but the steady fire of the French laid him low, with most of the officers; and as the Prussians fell back, Davoust swung forward his men to threaten their flanks.  The King was dismayed at these repeated checks, and though the Prussian reserves under Kalckreuth could have been called up to overwhelm the hard-pressed French by the weight of numbers, yet he judged it better to draw off his men and fall back on Hohenlohe for support.

But what a support!  Instead of an army, it was a terrified mob flying before Murat’s sabres, that met them halfway between Auerstaedt and Weimar.  Threatened also by Bernadotte’s corps on their left flank, the two Prussian armies now melted away in one indistinguishable torrent, that was stemmed only by the sheltering walls of Erfurt, Magdeburg, and of fortresses yet more remote.

Of the twin battles of Jena and Auerstaedt, the latter was unquestionably the more glorious for the French arms.  That Napoleon should have beaten an army of little more than half his numbers is in no way remarkable.  What is strange is that so consummate a leader should have been entirely ignorant of the distribution of the enemy’s forces, and should have left Davoust with only 27,000 men exposed to the attack of Brunswick with nearly 40,000.[110] In his bulletins, as in the “Relation Officielle,” the Emperor sought to gloze over his error by magnifying Hohenlohe’s corps into a great army and attenuating Davoust’s splendid exploit, which in his private letters he warmly praised.  The fact is, he had made all his dispositions in the belief that he had the main body of the Prussians before him at Jena.