The French emperor napoleon Bonaparte managed to win a number of decisive
battles and showed complete tactical and strategic dominance over his opponents
during the War of the Third Coalition, but brilliance often begets new
challenges, and more enemies would join the alliance against the French in the war
of the Fourth Coalition among the central actions of this conflict were
the twin battles of a Jena and Auerstedt fought in 1806.
Napoleon utterly defeated
the Allied Austro-Russian army at the battle of Austerlitz in early December of 1805.
A separate peace at Pressburg was signed by the end of the month as
Austria had no capacity to continue fighting. Austria had to recognize
Bavaria and Wurttemberg as kingdoms, ceding a number of provinces to them in Germany,
while Napoleon received the provinces of Venetia and Dalmatia as the king of
Italy. France was also promised 40 million francs in war indemnities.
The Russians were given a free pass to retreat through Austrian territory, as
the French troops were too tired to chase them anyway. Prussia was planning
to join the coalition in 1805, but was delaying declaring war on France.
The Allied defeat at Austerlitz was alarming for the Prussian King Frederick William III
and in early 1806 he signed a treaty with Napoleon. The Prussians had
to cede a few provinces to the German allies of France while they would
receive in return French occupied Hanover, which belonged to Britain
Prussia also formally entered the alliance with France against Britain.
Meanwhile the Austrian forces, which were keeping French commander in Italy Massena
occupied returned home, and that allowed the French to concentrate their forces
against the kingdom of Naples.
In February 1806 Massena invaded Naples.
Although the British expedition of Stewart supported the Neapolitans they
lost the decisive battle at Campo Tenese and by the end of July King
Ferdinand IV and General Stewart had to retreat to Sicily. All of mainland
Italy was now under French control and this situation would remain unchanged
until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Since Britain and Russia did not share
borders with France and were not eager to start an amphibious invasion the War
of the Third Coalition was effectively over and Napoleon started forming a new
order in Germany. In July 1806 he established the Confederation of the
Rhine consisting of 16 German states with himself as the protector. This gave
Napoleon a buffer between France and the most influential German states - Austria
and Prussia. On the 6th of August he declared the dissolution of the Holy
Roman Empire, which had existed since 800. All this was insulting for Prussia and
as Napoleon offered to return Hannover to Britain to procure peace, war became
inevitable. The Prussian court was divided with the king leading the peace
party while his spouse Queen Louise was nudging the country into conflict.
Finally the war party won and on the 10th of August Prussia started
mobilizing its army in the next two months was able to enter the
alliance with Britain and Russia.
Napoleon learned about the Prussian mobilization in early September and
ordered 50,000 conscripts to join the army. The French troops were stationed
all over Germany, and Napoleon was not ready to go on an offensive just yet.
Prussia used that to enter Saxony and conscript 20,000 locals into its army.
Napoleon demanded that the Prussian army leave Saxony, but on the first of October
received an ultimatum to leave the lands to the east of the Rhine. On the 6th of
October the War of the Fourth Coalition began. Both France and Prussia had about
200,000 troops however there was no unity in the Prussian army and it had
three formal leaders. A number of generals advised the defensive approach
with a slow strategic retreat in the hopes that Bennigsen would soon join
them with more than 100,000 Russians under his command. However this plan was
ignored and a more ambitious plan created by the Prince of Brunswick
Charles William Ferdinand was adopted. The Prussians were going to go on the
offensive, take Stuttgart to cut
Napoleon from a portion of his forces and France. Meanwhile the French Emperor
had already decided on his moves: he was going to move towards the Prussian
capital of Berlin from the southwest, which meant that his troops would be
able to avoid the majority of the rivers. Just a few days after the declaration of
war Napoleon was already on the move. It seems that neither army was sure about
the location of the enemy, but Napoleon's plan was better as it was cutting the
Prussians from the Russians and Berlin, and therefore forcing them to fight. Due
to scouting reports Napoleon was now sure that the Prussians were
concentrating near Jenna, however the latter finally understood that the
French army was moving fast to cut the roads to
Berlin and some of the Prussian forces started moving to the north.
Indeed just three days after the war began Napoleon's troops ended up to the
south and east of the Prussian army and due to their faster movement
concentrated and defeated the Prussians in the first battles of the campaign at
Schleiz and Saalfeld. Once again the French were too quick for their opponents
and two corps alongside the cavalry reserve ended up to the northeast of the
Prussian positions. The Prussians were not encircled, but as the road to Berlin
was open to attack, they had to stand and fight. The twin battles of Jenna and
Auersted took place on the 14th of October. In a way it was two distinct battles as
the two locations were more than 30 kilometers from each other and the two
battles never combined into one. The French had about 40,000 infantry 8,000
cavalry and 110 guns at Jenna under the overall command of Napoleon, against
34,000 infantry 12,000 cavalry and 15 artillery batteries of the Prussian
Prince Hohenlohe the French Center was commanded by Lannes the left flank by
Augereau and the right by Soult. Napoleon ordered his troops to take Landgraefenburg -
the plateau that prevailed over the battlefield. Part of the plateau
was taken by the French during the night, but they needed more space, so at 6 a.m.
an attack commenced the. French Center took Closwith while the left captured
captured Cospeda. The Prussians lost the hill.
Hohenlohe now understood that he was fighting the main French army and asked for help from
the reserves at Weimar. The Prussians managed to set the second line of
defense between the villages of Isserstadt and Vierzehnheiligen
French advance was halted.
However by 11:00 a.m. Ney's 6th Corps was on the scene and
Napoleon launched another attack Augereau captured Isserstadt, Ney occupied
Vierzehnheiligen and Soult turned the Prussian left. By 1 p.m. Hohenlohe had
committed all his reserves in order to keep his line intact. Reserved from Weimar
were desperately needed. Napoleon ordered his whole line to advance and the
Prussians finally collapsed by 3:00 p.m. The Prussians were in full retreat
with the French cavalry chasing them. The reserves from Weimar finally arrived
and stopped the French at Kapellendorf Rüchel, who was leading the newly arrived
15,000 Prussians didn't set a proper line and decided to counter-attack.
Although the French forces were initially halted, their cavalry soon
outflanked and routed the enemy. By 4:00 p.m. the Battle of Jena was over.
The French had lost about 6500 men while the Prussian losses have been estimated at
25,000. Napoleon was sure that he had defeated the main Prussian army, but he was
wrong. At this point his marshal Davout was fighting the Prussian prince
Brunswick. On the previous day Davout was ordered to move to the south
and attack what Napoleon considered to be the main Prussian army from the north.
He also was told to join forces with Bernadotte. However the latter declined
and kept his position at Dornburg, as he was ordered to before. In the early
morning Davout's 28,000 left their positions near
the river Salle and moved towards Auerstadt. Yere they were attacked by 52,000
Prussians with no hope of support. Early in the battle the French took the
village of Hassenhausen. the French leader deployed his three divisions
nearby. Despite repeated charges by the Prussian cavalry by 8:30 a.m. Davout's
infantry managed to rout the enemy cavalry. But the Prussian infantry was
arriving to the battle. The French stopped a number of Prussian attacks
mainly because the Prussians attacked in small groups with each division
advancing in isolation. As their leader was mortally wounded early on, the
Prussians lacked any coordinated command. At 11:00 a.m. when the Prussians had
exhausted their efforts, Davout ordered a French advance and the
Prussians collapsed.
by the end of the battle Davout had inflicted 10,000 casualties and taken
3,000 prisoners while he lost 7,000. Over the next few weeks a relentless French
pursuit caused more casualties to the Prussians and Berlin was occupied on the
27th. In less than a month since the start of the campaign Napoleon's forces
killed 20,000 Prussians and took more than 140,000 prisoners. Still the
Prussian leadership retreated towards the Russian army, so the war of the
fourth coalition was just starting. Thank you for watching our documentary on the
twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt. In two weeks we will be back to cover the
Battle of Eylau. We would like to express our gratitude to our patreon supporters
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