Then, with a ridiculously misplaced
confidence in the old-time reputation of Frederick the Great, without
waiting for assistance from the Russians who were coming up, the
Prussian army--some 110,000 strong, under the old-fashioned duke of
Brunswick--advanced against the 150,000 veterans of Napoleon. The
resulting battle of Jena, on 14 October, 1806, proved the absolute
superiority of Napoleon's strategy and of the enthusiastic French
soldiers over the older tactics and military organization of the
Prussians. Jena was not merely a defeat for the Prussians; it was at
once a rout and a total collapse of that Prussian military prestige
which in the course of the eighteenth century had been gained by the
utmost sacrifice. Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph and took
possession of the greater part of the kingdom of Prussia.
[Sidenote: Napoleon vs. Russia, Friedland]
[Sidenote: Treaty of Tilsit (1807): Dissolution of the Third Coalition]
The Russians still remained to be dealt with. Winter was a bad season
for campaigning in East Prussia, and it was not until June, 1807, at
Friedland, that Napoleon was able to administer the same kind of a
defeat to the Russians that he had administered to the Austrians at
Austerlitz and to the Prussians at Jena.
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