He found Marshal Lannes and a handful of his officers on the knoll on the crest of the heights.They were staring out across the plateau to where the campfires of the Prussian army sprawled across the darkened landscape.
‘Any signs of movement?’ Napoleon asked as he slid down from his saddle.
‘No, sire.’
‘Any reinforcements?’
‘None that we have detected.’
‘That’s strange,’ Napoleon mused. ‘They know we’re here. They will want to concentrate their forces to make or meet any attack. Are you certain there’s been no sign of activity, no fresh columns arriving in the enemy camp?’
‘As certain as we can be, sire.’
Napoleon was still for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Very well, then. That has to be the main Prussian force. And we have the enemy where we want him. The first thrust of the Grand Army will fix the Prussians on the plateau, while Davout and Bernadotte cross the Saale and march on to their flank and rear. If all goes well, they will crumble under assault from two directions and the day is ours.’
Lannes was silent for a moment before he responded.‘Assuming that is the entire Prussian army out there. What if the enemy has split his force, sire? What if there is another column we have not accounted for?’
‘Another column?’ Napoleon snorted dismissively.‘Why would there be another column? Why would the enemy divide his strength on the eve of battle? Not even the Prussians are that foolish, my dear Lannes.’
He turned away from the enemy and indicated an even stretch of ground a short distance from the crest of the ridge. ‘I’ll spend the rest of the night there. Have a fire made up, and then I want the first units of the Imperial Guard to take up position around the crest.’ Napoleon turned to the nearest of his staff officers. ‘See to it.’
‘At once, sire.’
As the night passed the first of the guns arrived at the top of the Landgrafenberg and was eased into position on the forward slope. A steady stream of cannon and caissons rumbled past Napoleon’s makeshift command post, while the columns of infantry from Lannes’s corps and the Imperial Guard took a direct route to the summit and filed past in the darkness as they were directed into line for the dawn advance on to the plateau. By the light of his campfire Napoleon issued the last of his orders, and read through the most recent reports from his corps commanders. There was only one that concerned him slightly. Davout claimed to have detected a large enemy force ahead of him and suggested that it might be the main Prussian army. Napoleon considered the possibility for an instant and then dismissed it as he glanced towards the enemy campfires once more. There was no doubt about it, he decided, that had to be the main Prussian army. So, wrapping his coat about his shoulders, he settled on a camp chair and warmed himself at the fire as he waited for dawn and the coming battle.
The cold night brought up a dense fog from the plateau as the first glimmer of day thickened along the horizon.The ground in front of the Landgrafenberg was wreathed in a pallid gloom that hid much of the detail of the landscape. During the night, the corps of Soult and Augereau had arrived and taken up positions alongside Lannes’s. Over forty thousand French troops were ready to advance and open the way for the bulk of the Grand Army crossing the river Saale behind them. The men were standing still and silent as ghosts as they waited for the attack to begin and Napoleon was pleased with their good discipline, since they were well within cannon range of the enemy position. If the Prussians were to detect any sign of the coming onslaught they would be ready in time to inflict fearful casualties amongst the leading French units.
As he stood behind the batteries on the heights Napoleon flipped his pocket watch open and glanced down now and again as the hands slowly crawled towards six o’clock.Then there was a distant shout as the order was given, and the signal gun boomed, announcing the start of the attack. An instant later the batteries on the Landgrafenberg thundered out and Napoleon’s gaze was caught by the thin dark smear of a ball as it arced towards the Prussian lines, until it dropped into the fog. Then the drums rolled as they beat the advance and Lannes’s divisions began to tramp down the slope until they too were lost in the fog.
Moments later Napoleon saw a bloom of orange in the murk and then heard the dull thud as a Prussian battery fired in the direction of the approaching French divisions. More enemy guns opened up and the rattle of musket fire accompanied the din as the skirmishers of both sides came into contact. On the Landgrafenberg the French gunners shifted their aim to target the dim flashes that revealed the positions of the enemy cannon. The firing from both sides grew more intense, but the fog prevented Napoleon from seeing how the attack was progressing. Then the first of the casualties came limping up the slope, nursing their injured limbs as they found what cover they could to wait out the battle and then find medical help.
‘I have to know what is going on,’ Napoleon snapped to one of the hussars of his personal guard. ‘Ride down there. Find Marshal Lannes and tell him to report his progress back to me at once.’
‘Yes, sire.’
The firing continued with growing intensity, as if a storm were raging below the smooth surface of the fog, and even though the rising sun began to burn off the mist thick banks of powder smoke still obscured much of the detail as the first hours of the battle raged. The first reports arrived from the leading divisions and Napoleon scanned the hurriedly written notes to learn that the nearest villages on the plateau had been taken, with heavy losses inflicted by enemy cannon firing at close range on the densely packed French assault columns. But the enemy had been driven back and Lannes had won sufficient space for the other corps of the Grand Army to join the attack.
By ten o’clock Soult’s men had reached their position on the right flank and launched an immediate attack on the Prussians, pushing them back.To the left, Augereau’s columns were striding out to take up their positions, and in the centre Ney’s fresh troops were marching up the road from Jena to reinforce Lannes. Only the last wreaths of fog lay in dips in the ground and now Napoleon had a clear view of the battlefield. The bodies of men from the assault columns littered the plateau, piled in small heaps where Prussian grapeshot had blasted into the French line. Beyond the villages of Closwitz and Lutzeroda the men of Lannes’s corps had paused to re-form in the face of fresh troops the Prussians had brought forward to meet the attack. There was a gap of nearly a mile between the reduced ranks of the men of Lannes’s corps and that of Augereau, and, as Napoleon watched, Ney’s column made for the gap and then continued forward alone towards the waiting Prussian artillery that had already done so much damage to Lannes’s men.