A Footnote To Bernadotte

Scapegoat for Intelligence Failure?

By Dave Hollins

When John Cook and I were chatting about his article in FE48 on Bernadotte's role in 1806, he was a little uncertain about a reference in the orders sent by Berthier to Murat at 0400 on 12th October, directing him to Zeitz: "It is the Emperor's wish that from Zeitz, if the information you receive shows the enemy is still near Erfurt, then you should proceed to Nauemburg". There was no indication of the source of this information. Bernadotte – scapegoat for a major intelligence blunder? After John had sent the article in, I stumbled over the answer – well, I'd read it before, but thought nothing of it at the time. It adds further to one of John's key points, namely that Napoleon kept his senior commanders in the dark, but then blamed them if the campaign didn't go in accordance with his orders. Murat is told to send skirmishers out towards Leipzig to the north-west, as his main task was to scout for signs of Prussian reinforcements coming from that direction, but that wouldn't tell him whether the main Prussian army was around Erfurt, about 50 miles to the west of Murat's position at Zeitz. Napoleon clearly envisages that Murat will receive some definite information at Zeitz, which would probably direct him further north to Nauemburg. The fundamental flaw in Napoleon's plan was that much of the Prussian army was not around Erfurt. About 50,000 men were along the Erfurt-Jena road, but 60,000 under Brunswick were about 15 miles north of Jena around Auerstadt. Thus on 14th June, when Napoleon swung his troops west off the main axis of advance towards Leipzig, his right under Davout had to engage Brunswick on its own at Auerstadt, while Napoleon fought at Jena. Murat had returned to Napoleon's HQ, but his light cavalry were too far from Davout to help him. So, what had happened regarding Napoleon's orders? Intelligence Gathering Intelligence gathering is a subject that has been largely ignored in military history, but the recent coverage of the activities of Bletchley Park in the UK and its breaking of the Nazi Enigma codes is leading to a reassessment of the information on which military decisions were taken. There is nothing new in this. Gathering intelligence data on enemy positions was a fundamental part of the pre-battle stage of any campaign in history. It was done by a variety of means, notably by light cavalry, although the French cavalry in our period were regularly criticised for their failures in this regard. Individual scouts from the army or sympathetic locals also brought in data to headquarters. Probably the most effective work was done by spies, men paid from secret funds, who would penetrate enemy headquarters or already be in place looking for information far behind enemy lines. These operations were run by the likes of Savary, who learned his trade under Desaix and would later be Napoleon's Chief of Police. However, some spies were so important that Napoleon would direct them himself. The most famous of these shadowy figures was Charles Schulmeister, who penetrated Mack's headquarters at Ulm to pin the Austrians in position while the Emperor sprang his trap. In this campaign, he was an ADC with Savary and would later seize the Prussian town of Wismar with a handful of Hussars. Napoleon's success with spies in his early campaigns had perhaps made him overreliant on them. The more usual intelligence gathering by Soult, Lannes and Murat at the head of his army on 11th October certainly indicated that the Prussians were concentrated around Erfurt, but Napoleon's concept of operations upon which his operations were based clearly included information from Zeitz already in his possession. The detailed explanation of this order to Murat comes in Col. Elting's Swords Around a Throne (1988) pp.1-2: "On October 12 1806, French cavalry swept abruptly through the little Saxon town of Zeitz … Close behind the leading brigade … rode Marshal Joachim Murat … Probably he halted impatiently in the Zeitz market square while his staff interrogated the local postmaster, minister and mayor as to the whereabouts of the Prussian and Saxon armies for which his troopers were probing. Somewhere in Zeitz at any rate, an inconspicuous civilian sifted through the gawking townspeople, identified himself as a French spy, and reported that the principal enemy army lay to the west and south around Erfurt. A staff officer … quickly converted the spy's report into several copies of a message to the Emperor. (Two copies were given to ADCs, one made for the files and another to a brigadier). A horse was found for the spy and the spy and brigadier pounded off together …(These two made their way to Napoleon's headquarters) And so they came to a quiet room … where the Emperor worked over his orders for the next day. Beside him was … Berthier. Around them, the quiet officers of the advance echelon of the Imperial headquarters came and went. (Napoleon then interrogates the spy minutely while other messengers arrived including those from Murat, whose reports were plotted by d'Albe on the operations map). All had the same word – the enemy was massing to westward around Erfurt and Weimar. Finally, his questioning finished, the Emperor turned to Berthier and began a rush of rapid, harsh-accented orders … Breaking down Napoleon's general operations order, Berthier drafted specific orders for each of the units involved." Second Stage So began the second stage of orders, which led to Jena. Napoleon had already kept his senior commanders out of his strategic thought process and now it is clear they were out of the intelligence loop. Napoleon was certainly using a variety of sources of intelligence data but it is the information (or picture) that is drawn from these sources that matters. That process necessitates a prioritisation of data and assessment of each item's reliability. The Emperor was obviously confident enough in this spy to direct Murat to him, a perceived reliability, which must have arisen both from money paid out to the spy and the quality of information the spy had previously brought in. Napoleon here is prioritising and relying on the spy's report, which is helped along by the scout reports coming in from his own cavalry. However, the spy must have known, purely by virtue of geography, where Brunswick was more accurately than the rest of the Prussian army. The fact that he was behind Prussian lines would have made his reports seem more reliable. Yet in direct conversation, he failed to tell Napoleon about Brunswick as well as cleverly telling the Emperor what he wanted to hear. With only Berthier directly included, Napoleon assessed the intelligence picture and issued the orders. Not only were confusing instructions despatched, but Napoleon made a series of misjudgements, especially about a source of information essentially unknown even to his senior commanders. Bernadotte it would seem carried the can for more than just Berthier's clerical incompetence, but then there was no-one else who knew the details of the Emperor's dealings with this spy. Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #51 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com