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By Root 2741 0

the headwaters of the river Main north-eastwards towards the Saxon city of Leipzig and, ultimately, the key fortress of Magdeburg, that was designed to cut the Prussians off from Berlin - and within six days the grande armée had advanced a hundred miles or more. At this point Napoleon, it is true, completely misjudged the situation and came to the conclusion that the Prussians lay somewhere to the north of him when they were in fact on his left flank, but when the enemy’s situation was revealed by cavalry reconnaissance such was the disposition of the grande armée that a flurry of orders was sufficient for its corps to change face on the march and start moving west across the river Saale. Nor was diplomacy forgotten, the emperor dispatching a letter to Frederick William whose honeyed words served to deepen the confusion in the king’s tortured mind: ‘Why shed so much blood? To what end? I have been your friend these six years . . . Why let our subjects be slaughtered?’24

To return to the issue of Prussia, if Jena and Auerstädt were by no means a total disgrace, what followed was by any standards a catastrophe. No sooner had the guns fallen silent than the victorious French armies launched an invasion of Prussia that carried all before it. Broken into several fragments and reduced to a state of semi-starvation, most of what remained of the Prussian army was rounded up with hardly a fight, while many fortresses capitulated at the first summons (in fairness, it should be remarked that few of them were provided for a siege). Berlin fell without resistance on 24 October, and everywhere the populace remained quiet. As the governor proclaimed, ‘The king has lost a battle. The first duty of the citizens is to keep quiet.’25 Prussia was not yet out of the war - Frederick William had escaped to the east - while a little honour was salvaged by the gallant General Blücher, a fiery officer who had had a horse killed under him at Auerstädt and escaped capture only by dint of some desperate swordplay. Ordered to take command of another division and make for East Prussia, Blücher found the way blocked, yet unlike most of Prussia’s generals, he did not lose hope. Shelter might yet be found in the coastal regions north of the river Elbe and with it the possibility of linking up with the Swedish forces in Stralsund or even a British expeditionary force. Meanwhile, a force based in this area might at least win time for the king to reach East Prussia, rally such forces as he could and join up with Russians. But such hopes proved short-lived. Harried all the way by French cavalry and desperately short of food and ammunition, Blücher got his ever-diminishing band of fugitives to Lübeck. Here, however, he was finally cornered on 6 November by Marshal Bernadotte, and after a desperate battle forced to surrender. As even the French recognized, it had been a good effort, but it did nothing to alter the awe-inspiring nature of Napoleon’s triumph. For all that, Napoleon might have done well to note the reservations that were later expressed by one of the members of his council of state:

In France enthusiasm was at a peak: nothing could have appeared so incredible. However, in the middle of this most understandable atmosphere, one noted that a sentiment was gaining strength that thereafter never ceased to grow, a sentiment that the conqueror was far too much inclined to ignore and which yet would later do much to explain the misfortunes of the last days of his reign. France, beyond doubt, was proud of his victories, but she wanted to enjoy their fruits, and of these in her eyes the first ought to have been peace. Only moderation in victory could have achieved this result, and, generous as it is, the French character ensured that there was a general disposition to believe that that moderation existed. On all sides was to be found the belief that someone who had risen so high would not be found lacking in the only quality that could assure his conquests: with every battle that was won, with every town that was taken, the first assumption was that