The Battle of Auerstaedt opposed the Prussian army to the French army led by Louis Nicolas Davout on October 14, 1806, parallel to the battle of Jena.
Preparations
On October 14, 1806, the Prussian army, a European benchmark for half a century, was routed in two simultaneous battles. Marshal Davout, commanding the right wing of the French army, confronts the Prussians at Auerstaedt.
The Emperor leads a campaign to reach Berlin. After an engagement at Saalfeld, he pursues the Prussian army. Thinking that she was in Weimar retreating towards Leipzig, he moved quickly to face her in Jena. His scouts told him on October 13 that he had joined the enemy. Napoleon I thought he had the bulk of the Prussian army in front of him.
On the night of the 13th to the 14th, he sent Davout forward to take her from behind. But in fact, it was the rear guard that Napoleon faced at Jena, while Davout found himself facing the vanguard followed by the bulk of the enemy troops, who thought they were facing the bulk of the French army.
The turning movement of Davout's three divisions was to pass through Auerstaedt, where the three Prussian army corps were stationed at the same time. At the end of the day of October 13, Naumbourg was occupied and the French held the Kösen bridge, the Prussians set back from the village of Hassenhausen.
Opposite Napoleon, Schmettau's mission was to arrange his troops as a screen to allow the bulk of the Prussian army to ebb, so he did not seek battle.
Procedure
At six o'clock in the morning, in the fog, Gudin's division in the vanguard moved towards the village of Hassenhausen. A first platoon of French cavalry crosses the village to find itself facing Blücher's cavalry, the French take some prisoners who learn of the arrival of a division.
General Blücher's cavalry, which was already outflanking Marshal Davout's right, threatened to turn and envelop it. Davout orders the 25th line infantry regiment to hold the village. Before arriving there they must face the advanced troops of the enemy (hussars and artillery) but after a short fight occupy the village and control the accesses.
At nine o'clock, as the fog dissipated, Gudin's division was firmly established around the village when the Prussian division appeared. Seeing the French, Blücher immediately decides to attack, the successive charges of his cavalry break on the squares of the French and end in a stampede.
To the north a mounted battery then took position to cannonade the right of the French, however Davout had ordered Friant's division to maneuver on this side which jostled this battery and in the process occupied the village of Spielberg, but did not manage to push further. .
At the same time, the village of Popel was taken by Colonel Higonet, who took a flag and three pieces of cannon from the Prussians. Marshal Davout, still at the head of Friant's division which marched in close columns, moved forward, leaving Auerstadt on his left. The fire from the batteries that the enemy had on this point did not prevent General Friant from continuing his movement; he leaned on the right to cut off the enemy's retreat.
The Prussians advance their second line and Wartenselen's division threatens to bypass to the south. For four hours Gudin's division had been struggling against superior forces, and found itself left to its own devices by the movement of Friant's division. The Prussians pushed back the French, who were about to give way, in the village, when Morand's division entered the line around eleven o'clock. A charge of the Prussian cavalry is again decimated. The first brigade of this corps captured, with bayonets, the village of Hassenhausen.
The Duke of Brunswick, who personally commanded the charge, was seriously wounded at ten o'clock, which accentuated the failure of the Prussian troops.
At eleven o'clock in the morning the King of Prussia ordered a general attack; Prince Henry, his brother, placed himself at the head of a numerous body of Prussian cavalry, and fell impetuously on Morand's division, which was defending itself against a division of Prussian infantry. Prince Henry having been wounded in a charge, his troops fell back and came to line up behind the infantry, and General Morand, attacking them in his turn, dispersed them in the plain.
While these events were taking place on the left of the French army, General Friant launched his skirmishers in the direction of the villages of Poppel and Tauchwitz, which forced Prince Henry's brigade to withdraw.
The three engaged Prussian divisions having been forced to fall back, the right of Morand's division gained ground. General de Billy, at the head of the 61st regiment, advanced towards the head of the ravine which leads to Rehausen.
The Prussians strengthened their right to stop the progress of the French left wing, while a few companies of skirmishers sped along the valley. Since the Duke of Brunswick had been forced out of the field of battle and had a horse killed under him, the King of Prussia led all the attacks in person.
The left of the French being stripped of cavalry, this prince wanted to try to push the infantry to then turn the Gudin division; but Marshal Davout, guessing the intentions of the King of Prussia, sent General Morand to prevent this manoeuvre. Marshal Davout, taking advantage of the success of his two wings, advanced the center of his army corps, and having General Gudin attack the village of Tauchwitz, the Prussian army retired in disorder, leaving on the heights of Hussenhausen the most much of its artillery.
The two reserve divisions, commanded by General Kalkreuth, then lined up. The Prince of Prussia, commanding the grenadiers, and General Blücher, who had rallied all the cavalry, supported the movement. Marshal Davout went to the right wing which finished deciding the victory by a movement of conversion, directed his left on the Sonneberg, and sent on the left of the plateaus of Eckartsberg Gudin's division, which debouched from the villages of Tauchwilz and by Poppel.
One of the two reserve divisions of the Prussian army being almost turned, took up position about four o'clock in front of Eckartsberg. A strong battery supported it. Meanwhile, General Grandeau, at the head of Friant's division, was arriving on the plateau from the right with the IIIrd regiment.
At the sight of this reinforcement, the Prussians hastily abandoned their position, the last which remained to them, leaving twenty-two pieces of cannon in the power of the French. The enemy was pursued until nightfall; he experienced such panic that General Vialannes, chasing him in front of him up to three leagues from the field of battle, picked up on his way, without experiencing any resistance, a large number of prisoners, horses and several flags.
King Frederick William III hesitated, despite his numerical advantage, then sounded the retreat around two o'clock. Davout presses him closely, and launches the pursuit at 5 p.m., which causes the rout of the Prussian troops who mix with the fugitives from the battle of Jena.
Review
This great feat of arms would probably have made Davout more famous, if Napoleon had not won the battle of Jena on the same day. The III Corps still had the privilege of entering Berlin first.
See for consequences Battle of Jena
It should be noted that due to a personal conflict, Bernadotte's corps (20,000 men) wandered around on the 14th and took part neither in the battle of Jena nor in that of Auerstaedt.