to the greatest military genius of this or of any other age. But, exceptionable as was the plan of a military council to direct the operations of the war, it may be questioned, whether it was not exposed to fewer objections than the appointment of such a commander as the duke of Brunswick to be gene. ralissimo of the army. A more unfortunate choice for that important situation it was impossible to have made. The duke of Brunswick had distinguished himself, in early youth, under his uncle prince Ferdinand, as an active, successful partizan; and had afterwards gained a high reputation in courts, by the prosperous issue of his expedition against the Dutch patriots in Holland; but that reputation, which among military men had been always somewhat equivocal, he had subsequently forfeited by his mis. carriages in France; and on no occasion had he ever displayed the talents of a great general, or shewn a mind sufficiently capacious and comprehensive to direct the move ments of a great army. A well. disposed sovereign and well-bred courtier, he was neither a good general nor a great man. Elevated to his present high command, not by the opinion of his merit, or the recollection of his services, but by his skill and management of intrigue, it was soon evident, that the narrowness of his mind was unequal to the magnitude of a situation, which he had ambition to covet, but wanted ability to fill. Wrapped up in mystery and concealment, he had little intercourse with officers of merit, and admitted no general but Mollendorf to his councils of war, where he discussed military plans with the king, Haug witz and Lucchesini. Immersed in details, he bestowed on inferior concerns the time, which should have been occupied with business of importance; and yet so deficient was he in method and arrange. ment, that the sole result of his labours was confusion and discontent. Unable to form and combine a well digested system of operations for the conduct of the campaign, his perplexed and contradictory orders, the irregular marches and counter-marches of his troops, shewed too plainly, that he pursued no steady plan, nor had any welldefined object in view. Disconcerted and alarmed by every movement of the French, it was manifest, that he had not penetrated the designs of the enemy, nor provided against their success. So obvious was his incapacity, that his army quickly perceived his unfitness to command them, and lost all confidence in their general. Early in October the Prussian head-quarters were at Naumburg, where also their principal magazines were collected, and their army extended itself in the country border. ing on the Saale in Upper Saxony. On the 4th of that month their head-quarters were moved forward to Erfurt, and on the 10th to Weimar. The position of their army was nearly as follows. were Their left, commanded by prince Hohenlohe, under whom general Tauenzein and prince Lewis of Prussia, occupied Saalfeld, Schleitz, and Hof, and its advanced posts extended to Munchberg and Culmbach. Their centre, commanded by the duke of Brunswick, marshal Mollen dorf, and the king in person, was distributed in the neighbours hood hood of Erfurt, Weimar, Gotha, did not enter into the plan of the and Eisenach, and its vanguard under the duke of Saxe Weimar, was stationed at Meinungen on the Werra. Their right commanded by general Ruchel extended to Mulhausen. From this disposition of the Prussian army it is probable, that had not the duke of Brunswick been anticipated by the French, it was his intention to have begun hostilities by bearing down with his right on Frankfort, with his centre on Wurtzberg, and with his left on Bamberg. A separate corps under general Blucher which had been stationed at Gottingen, for the protection of Westphalia, joined the main army before the battle. Hesse was neutral, but the Saxons acted as auxiliaries to the Prussians, and served in the left under prince Hohenlohe. The reserve of the Prussian army under prince Eugene of Wirtemberg, did not arrive from Custrin till after the battle of Auerstadt. The whole force, Prussians and Saxons, under the command of the duke of Brunswick, did not amount to less than 150,000 men. While this immense army remained inactive on the banks of the Saale, the French were collecting their scattered troops and concentrating their forces in the neighbourhood of Bamberg. On the 6th of October Bonaparte arrived in that city, and on the 8th the French army was in motion to attack the Prussians. Why the French were suffered peaceably to assemble their forces, without any movement of the Prussians to attack them before the divisions of their army had formed a junction, it seems difficult to explain. If offensive operations campaign, why did Prussia hurry on The position of the Prussian army in front was strong and perhaps impregnable. But a wise general, attentive to every danger to which his troops are exposed, should have reflected on the possibility of the enemy turning their flank; getting possession of their magazines: shutting them up in a country without resources; and forcing them to fight at a disadvantage, and, if worsted, without a possibility of escape. The magazines at Hof, Zwickau, Weissenfels, and Naumburg were left with out out protection, exposed to the attacks of the enemy, and when cut off from these, the Prussians had no alternative but to fight or starve. There were no resources in the barren country of Weimar for maintaining so large an army and numerous cavalry as the Prussian. There was no bread, no beer, no brandy for their men, and no fodder for their horses. When their cavalry took the field on the morning of the battle of Auerstadt, the horses had been without corn, and the men without food for two nights and a day. Another fatal error in the disposition of the army was its encampment on the left bank of the Saale, by which the electorate of Saxony, the chief fortresses of the Prussian States, and the capital itself were laid open to the enemy; and the Prussians, in case of a disaster, were cut off from Magdeburg, the only rallying point, where they could assemble, or place of refuge, where they could be in safety. The French army advanced on the 8th, in three divisions. The right, composed of the corps of marshals Soult and Ney, and of a division of Bavarians, set out from Amberg and Nuremberg, joined at Bayreuth, and from thence marched against Hof. The centre commanded by the grand duke of Berg, the prince of Ponte Corvo (Bernadotte), and marshall Davoust, marched from Bamberg to Cronach, and from thence to Saalburg and Schleitz. The left, composed of the corps of marshals Lannes and Augereau, advanced from Schweine furth upon Coburg, Graffenthal, and Saalfeld. By these movements the left wing of the Prussians, which stretched to a great distance from their centre, was exposed to the attack of the whole of the French army. Aware of their danger, the Prussians at Hof, who were at the extremity of the line, and in the greatest danger of being cut off, fell back upon Schleitz before the arrival of marshal Soult. Some prisoners, however, were taken, and all the magazines at Hof fell into the hands of the enemy. Soult, followed by Ney, at the distance of half a day's march, pressed forward to Plauen in Upper Saxony, where he arrived on the 10th. The French centre passed the Saale at Saalburg, after a slight resistance on the part of the Prussians, and advanced on the 9th to Schleitz, where a body of 10,000 Prussians was posted under the command of of general Tauenzein. An action ensued, in ensued, in which the Prussians were worsted with considerable loss, and next day the French advanced to Auma, and on the 11th to Gera, within half a day's march of Naumburg, where lay the great magazines of the Prussian army. The French left had equal success with the other divisions of their army. Lannes entered Coburg on the 8th, and advanced to Graffenthal on the 9th. On the 10th he attacked at Saalfeld the advanced guard of prince Hohenlohe, commanded by prince Lewis of Prussia, and gained over it a signal victory. Prince Lewis, to whose rashness and disobedience of orders in quitting his position at the bridge of Saalfeld, and advancing to attack the enemy, this misfortune was entirely to be attributed, fell in the action. The Prussians were completely routed, and lost 30 pieces of cannon, besides 600 men killed, 1000 taken prisoners, and a great number wounded. By By the success of these operations the French, after turning the Prus. sian left, became masters of their magazines, and placed themselves between their grand army and the cities of Berlin and Dresden. On the 12th, part of the French centre, under Marshal Davoust, entered Naumburg, and took possession of the Prussian magazines, which they set on fire. Their army now extended along the right bank of the Saale from Naumburg to Neustadt. Their first line was composed of the corps of Davoust, at Naumburg; of that of Lannes, at Jena; and of that of Augereau, at Kahla. In the second line was the grand duke of Berg, between Zeitz and Leipzig; the prince of Ponte Corvo, at Zeitz; the emperor and Soult, at Jeua; and marshal Ney, at Neustadt. The disasters of Schleitz and Saalfeld, and the unfortunate death of prince Louis, when known at the Prussian head-quarters, produced there universal consternation and dismay, though the extent and consequences of these calamities were far from being fully understood or foreseen. Fears were entertained, that the French, after breaking through and defeating their left, would advance to Dresden and take possession of Saxony. But so re. miss were they in the most ordinary precautions, and so absurdly confident in the strength of their posi. tions, that one of their patroles, sent out from head-quarters towards Naumburg to reconnoitre, returned without going to Naumburg, because when half way they met a traveller who told them there were no news of the French at Naumburg. From this state of blind security they were roused by the blaze of their magazines on the night of the 12th, which at once disclosed to them the real intentions of the enemy, and shewed how successful he had been in accomplishing his designs. Nothing now remained for them but to risk a general engagement without delay. Next day was employed, on both sides, in making arrangements for the important batthe decisive of the fate of Prussia. The French army extended from Naumburg to Kahla, along the Saale, a line of six hours march, its centre being at Jena. The Prussians, who had been collecting the whole of their forces into one point, were assembled between Auerstadt, Weimar, and Jena. The two armies were separated by the heights of the Saale, which seemed to afford an impregnable position to the Prussians, and to oppose an insuperable barrier to the French. But, by some incredible oversight, the Prussian generals, satisfied with guarding the high road between Jena and Weimar, left the most important passes of the Saale unoccupied. Of this omission the French failed not to avail themselves. During the whole of the night of the 13th they were indefatigably employed in securing these passes, and transporting cannon to defend them; in which they were so successful, that, when day broke, the Prussians saw them. selves attacked in their elevated position, which they had considered as an impregnable fortress; and so unsuspicious were they to the last moment of their danger, that at Rauhthal, the French, who had penetrated by the neglected pass of Swetzen, arrived within 300 paces of one of their columns before its approach was suspected. At break of day the whole of the French army was under arms. The light troops of the centre began the action by opening a brisk fire on the Prussians, which drove them from their advanced positions, and enabled the French line to extend itself on the plain, and draw up ip order of battle. The Prussian left, amounting to about 50,000 men, were dispatched early in the morn ing towards Naumburg, to take possession of the impregnable defiles of Koesen; but these were already occupied by Davoust, whom they attacked eleven times successively, but in vain attempted to dislodge. Their centre, consisting of 80,000 men, was opposed to the French centre at Jena; and these were the only two divisions of their army engaged in the heat of the action. Their right, under general Ruchel, amounting to 12,000 men, did not come up till their centre was broken and thrown into disorder; and their rear guard, (formerly their vanguard), commanded by the duke of Saxe Weimar, was still at Meinungen, 30 miles distant from the field of battle. A thick fog obseured the early part of the day; and when it cleared up, the two armies beheld each other at the distance of less than cannon shot. The action began by some French battalions taking possession of a small village, from which the Prussians attempted to dislodge them. Lannes advanced to support his countrymen, and Soult to get possession of a wood upon his right occupied by the enemy. Another body of Prussians having made a movement upon the French left, Augereau put his troops in motion to repulse them. In less than an hour the action became general. Two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand men with seven or eight hundred pieces of artillery, scattered death in every direction, and exhibited one of the most awful scenes ever beheld. The Prussian infantry behaved with courage and firmness; but their cavalry, worn out, fatigued, and disheartened, maintained not its antient reputation. The French cavalry charged with the greatest spirit and boldness; and their artillery performed wonders. The most courageous soldiers could not approach without trembling the shower of balls that preceded the march of their columns. Both armies manouvred with the same exactness as on a field day, but the rapidity of the French evolutions astonished and disconcerted the Prussians. Soult having got possession of the wood, after a combat of two hours, pressed forward; and, at the same instant, the French reserve, both cavalry and infantry, advanced to the front line, which, being thus strengthened, threw the Prussians into disorder, and forced them to retire. They rallied, however, and returned to the action, which they maintained for about an hour; but they were again thrown into confusion by the advance of the second French reserve, composed of the dragoons and cuirassiers under the command of the grand duke of Berg. The charge of this body of horse, at the conclusion of the day, was irresistible. Neither cavalry nor infantry could withstand the shock, In vain did the Prussians form themselves into square battalions: their ranks were broken; artillery, cavalry, infantry, all were put to rout. The French reached Weimar as soon their fugitive enemics. While the Prussian centre and right were thus completely defeated, their left, repulsed by Davoust in its repeated |