wounded himself. Napoleon at first found it difficult to acknowledge that
he had made such a signal error and played this down in his bulletins.
Privately he gave Davout full credit for his marvellous feat but showed
some slight signs of jealousy by not giving him the Dukedom of
Auerstadt until some years later. But if he felt some negative emotion
towards Davout, this was nothing to the anger he displayed towards
Bernadotte. Davout informed him that he had repeatedly sent for help to
Bernadotte during the thick of the battle, but the Gascon had ignored
him. Bernadotte, indeed, discovered the trick which at least one other
third-rate marshal would later emulate, of not being present at either
battle. If Bernadotte had reached the Apolda three hours earlier, as he
was supposed to, he would have trapped the fu gitives fr om the field of
Jena and a Cannae-like annihilation would have resulted. Even as it was,
Jena-Auerstadt was a great victory.
Speculation was rife in the army that this time Bernadotte had
overreached himself and would surely be court-martialled. Not a single
man in his I Corps had been in action, even though the Grande Armee had
just fought two gruelling battles; the cause had to be either incompetence
or malice. The most likely explanation is deliberate sabotage by
Bernadotte, arising from his insane jealousy of Bonaparte. Napoleon
certainly thought so and signed an order for his court-martial, to the
great satisfaction of Davout. Then, to general consternation he tore it up.
How could his marshals know that the Emperor was still thinking of
Desiree Clary?
Bernadotte was given one last chance to retrieve his reputation. He,
Lannes and Murat pursued the fleeing Prussians and this time the
Gascon was on his mettle. Blucher, with 22,0 00 troops, headed for
Lubeck, hoping to ship out for England with his men. But Bernadotte, in
an unwontedly energetic pursuit caught up with him at the Baltic.
Surrounded by Bernadotte and Soult, Blucher had no choice but to
surrender. The French meanwhile won another victory at Halle and
crossed the Elbe. There was a slight delay while gross indiscipline among
drunken, marauding French troops was sorted out, but finally the Grande
Armee entered Berlin on 25 October. In thirty-three days Napoleon had
inflicted ss,ooo casualties, forced the surrender of another 4o,ooo troops
and taken 2,000 cannon. He had spent a lot of the campaign groping in
the dark, but finally the combination of his famous intuition and his
mathematical brain resulted in another memorable victory. It was a good
result for the Grand Army too, for if Ney and Bernadotte had lost caste,
Davout and Lannes had performed brilliantly.
marcin
(Marcin)
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