preventing any news of them from leaking out. But whereas the French, with their
corps d’arme ́eorganization, felt equal to any eventuality and were developing a
prodigious activity, the Prussians tarried and hesitated. For thirteen days, they
milled about at Erfurt, holding councils of war and waiting for the last ‘detach-
ment’ to join them, so they could give battle. They expected the emperor to
advance from the west; not only was it the shortest road to Berlin, but it was the
one Marshal Soubisse, on his way to the great French defeat at Rossbach, had
taken in 1757. If Clausewitz, who had access to the archives, may be believed, so
strong was the obstacle presented by the river Saale that the thought that he might
come for them from that direction never entered the Prussians’ heads. 37 Fearful of
making a move in any direction lest the boa constrictor come and catch them,
according to Hermann von Boyen, an eyewitness who was later to become his
country’s minister of war, they busied themselves with minor matters of protocol. 38
By 5 October, the emperor had completed his dispositions and the campaign
proper got under way. TheGrande Arme ́ewas launched forward, marching in a
general north-east-north direction along three separate roads. The 4th Corps
(Soult), followed by the 6th (Ney) and another formation consisting of 10,000
Bavarian allies, made up the right. In the centre, 1st Corps (Bernadotte) led the
way with 3rd (Davout), a heavy cavalry corps, and the Guard (Lefebvre), which
formed the general reserve, following. The left consisted of the 5th Corps
(Lannes) and, behind it, the 7th (Augereau); he himself, along with several
thousand men comprising the Maison, the E ́tat Major, and an escort, marched
with Bernadotte in the centre. By Napoleon’s normal standards, the distance
between the army’s wings was rather small, extending over no more than sixty
miles from Schweinfurt to Bayreuth with Bamberg almost exactly in the centre.
Still, this wasfifteen timesas much as Frederick the Great had recommended forty
years earlier. As had happened in the previous year, later during the campaign the
figure went down. Overcrowding meant that the troops had to carry along more
supplies than usual. In the sparsely populated Frankenwald, there could be no
question of feeding the army by the usual method of requisitioning; however,
overcrowding was made inevitable by the nature of the country and by the need
to keep Austria neutral by scrupulously staying away from the border between
Franconia and Bohemia. At the head of each column rode a cavalry brigade that
screened its moves, marked the roads, and explored the country ahead.
Even now the emperor, while informed of the enemy’s whereabouts, still had
no idea of what he might do next. Mainly, this was because King Frederick III,
who was present, and the Duke of Brunswick, the 80-year-old veteran of the
Seven Years War who was serving as his commander-in-chief, had not yet made
up their minds on how to pursue the campaign. As long as they remained inside
the Frankenwald, the French columns, though more or less out of touch with each
other, were safe. Partly for this reason, partly because of the paucity of traverse
communications, very few orders went out to the marshals during this period.
The moment of real danger came when they debouched from the forest. Given
the latest reports concerning the Prussian dispositions, this was especially true of
Lannes’ corps forming the vanguard of the column on the left. Who knew what
26 The Evolution of Operational Art