Battle of Auerstaedt
The battles of Auerstaedt opposed the Prussian army to the French Army carried out by Louis Nicolas Davout the October 14th 1806, parallel to the Bataille of Iéna.
Preparations
The October 14th 1806 the Prussian army, European reference for one half-century, has been put in rout during two simultaneous battles. The marshal Davout, ordering the right wing of the French Army, faces the Prussians with Auerstaedt .The Emperor conducts a campaign aiming at reaching Berlin. After an engagement with Saalfeld, it continues the Prussian army. Thinking that it is with Weimar in retirement towards Leipzig, he plays speed to face it with Iéna. Its scouts learn to him in the course of the day from the October 13rd which it joined the enemy. Napoleon i thinks of having in front of him large Prussian army.
In the night of the 13 to the 14, it sends Davout to ahead take it with reverse. But makes of it, it is the rear-guard that Napoleon faces in Iéna, whereas Davout is vis-a-vis the avant-garde followed of large of the enemy troops, those thinking of facing large French Army.
The turning movement of three divisions of Davout was to pass by Auerstaedt where at the same time the three Prussian army corps stationed. In end-of-day of the October 13rd, Naumbourg is occupied and the French hold the bridge of Kösen, the Prussians lay out themselves in withdrawal of the village of Hassenhausen.
Opposite Napoleon, Schmettau had the role of laying out its troops out of screen to allow the backward flow of large Prussian army, it thus does not seek the battle.
Unfolding
At six o'clock in the morning, in the fog, division Gudin with the avant-garde moves on the village of Hassenhausen. A first group of French cavalry crosses the village to be found vis-a-vis the cavalry of Blücher, the French make some prisoners who learn the arrival from a division.
The cavalry of the Blücher general, who already overflowed the line of the Davout marshal, threatened to turn it and wrap it. Davout orders with the 25 {{E}} regiment of infantry of line to go to hold the village. Before arriving there they must face the advanced troops of the enemy (hussards and artillery) but after a court combat occupy the village and the accesses control some.
At nine hours, whereas the fog dissipates division Gudin is firmly established around the village when appears announced Prussian division. Seeing the French, Blücher immediately decides to attack, the successive loads of its cavalry break on the squares of the French and finish by a rout.
In north a horse battery then gives an opinion to cannonade the line of the French, however Davout had ordered with division Friant to operate on this side which hustles this battery and in the tread the village of Spielberg occupies, but does not manage to push further.
At the same time, the village of Popel was removed by the colonel Higonet who took to the Prussians a flag and three parts of gun. The Davout marshal, always to the head of the Friant division which went in tightened columns, went ahead, leaving Auerstadt on his left. The fire of the batteries which the enemy had on this point did not prevent the Friant general from continuing his movement; it rested on the right to cut the retirement to the enemy.
The Prussians advance their second line and Wartenselen division threatens to circumvent in the south. For four hours, Gudin division had fought against higher forces, and was delivered to itself by the movement of Friant division. The Prussians make move back the French who are about to yield, in the village, when division Morand enters on line around eleven hours. A load of the Prussian cavalry is again decimated. The first brigade of this body removed, with the bayonet, the village of Hassenhausen.
The duke of Brunswick, which ordered the load personally, is wounded seriously at ten hours, which accentuates the failure of the Prussian troops.
At eleven o'clock in the morning, the king of Prussia ordered a general attack; the prince Henri, his brother, put himself at the head of a many body of Prussian cavalry, and fell with impetuosity on the Morand division, which was defended against a division of Prussian infantry. Prince Henri having been wounded in a load, its troops were folded up and lined up behind the infantry, and the general Morand, the attacker in his turn, dispersed them in the plain.
While these events occurred to the left from the French Army, the Friant general launched his riflemen in the direction of the villages of Poppel and Tauchwitz, which obliged the brigade of prince Henri to be withdrawn.
Three committed Prussian divisions having been forced to retrogress, the line of Morand division gained ground. The general of Billy, with the head of the 61e regiment, advanced towards the head of the ravine which leads to Rehausen.
The Prussians made reinforce their line to stop progress of the left wing of the French, while some companies of riflemen slipped by along the small valley. Since the duke of Brunswick had been forced to leave the battle field and had had a horse killed under him, the king of Prussia led all the attacks in person.
The left of the French being dismantled of cavalry, this prince wanted to try to insert the infantry to turn Gudin division then; but the Davout marshal, guessing the intentions of king de Prusse, sent the Morand general to prevent this operation. The Davout marshal benefitting from the success of his two wings, advanced the center of his army corps, and making attack the village of Tauchwitz by the Gudin general, the Prussian army was withdrawn in disorder leaving on the heights of Hussenhausen most of its artillery.
The two divisions of reserve, ordered by the general Kalkreuth, are reflected then on line. The prince of Prussia, ordering pomegranates, and the Blücher general who had rejoined all the cavalry supported the movement. The Davout marshal went to the right wing which completed to decide the victory by a movement of conversion, directed its left on Sonneberg, and sent on the left of the plates of Eckartsberg the Gudin division, which emerged of the villages of Tauchwilz and Poppel.
One of two divisions of reserve of the Prussian army being almost turned, gave an opinion around the four hours in front of Eckartsberg. A strong battery supported it. During this time, the general Grandeau, at the head of Friant division, arrived by the line on the plate with IIIe regiment.
With the sight of this reinforcement, the Prussians gave up precipitately their position, the last which remained to them, leaving twenty-two parts of gun to the capacity of the French. The enemy was continued until the night; he tested such a panic, that the general Vialannes, driving out it in front of him up to three miles of the battle field, collected on his way, without examining any resistance, a great number of prisoners, horses and several flags.
The king Frederic Guillaume III hesitates, in spite of his numerical advantage, then made sound the retirement around fourteen hours. Davout presses it closely, and launches the continuation at ten seven hours, which causes the rout of the Prussian troops which mix with the runaways Bataille of Iéna.
Assessment
This great feat of arms should probably have returned more famous Davout, if Napoleon had not gained the same day the Bataille of Iéna. IIIe body had all the same the privilege to enter the first to Berlin.
See for the consequences Battle of Iéna
to note that because of a conflict of people the body of Bernadotte (20 000 men) wanders at the time of the day of the 14 and takes part neither in the Bataille of Iéna nor to that of Auerstaedt.
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