The Prussians in 1806:
Dispelling the Myths
The Prussian Commanders
by James Gaite, UK
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Upon one main issue, most historians agree: the inefficiency, indecision and fractious nature of the Prussian leadership was a major factor in the downfall of the Prussian Army in autumn 1806. Both strategically and tactically, they are deemed as being both incompetent and internally divisive. Historically, the three main Prussian generals had met with a certain amount of success: the Duke of Brunswick during 1792 up until Battle of Valmy; Prince Hohenlohe at the Battle of Kaiserlautern in 1793; General Rüchel as a trusted divisional commander during the same period. It was boasted in certain circles that, in the autumn of 1806, Prussia had three generals each the equal of Bonaparte; however, in practice, they were shown to be disastrously inferior. Before launching in to a discussion on the actions of the assorted Prussian leadership during the crucial months of September and October 1806, it is, perhaps, necessary to outline the main personalities and their individual characteristics, both strengths and weaknesses. The Duke of BrunswickAs with any defeated army, the man who receives, and probably deserves, much of the criticism is the commander-in-chief, Charles William Ferdinand, the Duke of
Brunswick-Braunschwieg. [7]
A successful veteran of the Seven Years War, in 1792 the Duke of Brunswick had been considered the greatest general in Europe and had even been offered a commission to command the armies of Revolutionary France. However, by 1806, he was seventy-one and Maude claims that “his experience of war had hardly been fortunate, and though it had not seriously affected his reputation, it had certainly affected his nerves.” [TJC. 63] His biographers tend to treat him with ‘kid gloves’, depicting him as a grand old man, an enlightened ruler of his small dukedom and a man of great intelligence and learning; however, they all appear to concur with Haythornthwaite’s sentiments that by 1806, the Duke of Brunswick had “outlived his style of warfare.” [NSB. 332]
Nevertheless, why should his age and style of warfare necessarily make him a bad commander? General Mikhail Kutusov was older than Brunswick when he took
command of the Russian forces in 1812, was much broader in stature, prone to sleep most of the day, disliked by his subordinates and a disciple Suvurov, whose military principles had been perfected during the latter half of the eighteenth century and, by 1812, were considered outmoded, inappropriate for the defence of the Russian motherland and incapable of halting Napoleon’s march on Moscow. Yet, as events proved, his strategy and his cunning, the latter enhanced by his many years of experience, were exactly what were required in the prevalent circumstances.
The answer, according to a multitude of historical tomes, is that, unlike the vast majority of successful military commanders, the Duke of Brunswick failed to assert his authority over his subordinates. Haythornthwaite describes his conduct during the campaign as “inefficient” and Petre calls him “uninspiring.” As Maude claims, his nerves seemed to have been affected by his previous experiences of war and his resulting indecisiveness bestowed upon him an aura of incompetence.
Clausewitz, while praising his initial strategy for operating against the French army in Franconia, is vehement in his criticism of his leadership abilities once the
campaign began.
As a result, his reputation amongst his staff and fellow generals seems to have deteriorated to such an extent that, on one occasion, Clausewitz claims:
Constance Wright also supports this opinion, stating that, even before the campaign had commenced, he “had lost the respect of the younger generation of
Prussian officers.” [QLP. 115]
So why was this uninspiring and ineffective man Commander-in-Chief? In answer to this, there have been numerous theories put forward: Maude claims, “He
had made himself indispensable at Court, and the idea of superseding him seems never to have been entertained” [TJC. 63];
Constance Wright believes that “Over all command of the army had been forced upon the Duke of Brunswick, who had accepted it only from a sense of duty” [QLP. 115]; the Baron von Müffling, who was attached to his staff, asserts that “he had accepted the command in order to prevent war.”
[MBM. 14]
A simpler answer may be that, by the aristocratic principles of the day, he was the most senior general and was thus created Commander-in-Chief. This
principle was in no way unusual - Henry Bunbury, attached to the Anglo-Russian forces in Italy in late 1805, commented upon his Russian chief that:
The second most senior general, and commander of a mixed Saxon-Prussian force numbering around 50,000 men, was Frederick Ludwig, the Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. Of Württemberg descent, he was sixty-one years of age in 1806 and Maude describes him as well read but “lacking the intellectual capacity to assimilate his information,” and as being “easily led by a fluent conversationalist.” [TJC. 64] He had a distinguished military career and Chandler, in his many works on this period, lists the Battle of Kaiserlautern in 1793 as a victory gained purely by his personal merits and abilities as a commander. Unfortunately, his actions during the first part of the 1806 campaign did not mirror the potential he had displayed in 1792-3.
Prince Hohenlohe was a different kettle of fish from the Duke of Brunswick; more in tune with the feelings of his subordinate officers, he had even been put forward for the overall command of the Prussian forces.during the abortive mobilisation of 1805, and was again nominated to be Commander-in-Chief for the military
operations in the autumn of 1806. His subsequent subordination to the Duke of Brunswick on both occasions has been cited as a major cause of his uncooperative
manner during the Jena-Auerstädt campaign.
However, historians appear to be almost unanimous in the opinion that the man most responsible for the contentious and fractious atmosphere at the summit of
Prussia’s military hierarchy was Hohenlohe’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Quartermaster General, Colonel Rudolf von Massenbach. The Duke of Brunswick is
reputed to have called Prince Hohenlohe “a vain and weak man, who suffered himself to be governed by Massenbach.” [MBM. 14]
Baron von Müffling describes the relationship between the Prince and his Quartermaster General as follows:
Massenbach has received much criticism from historians and contemporaries alike; Maude claims that he was often referred to as “the evil genius of Prussia”
[TJC. 64] and Petre claims that it was Massenbach “who frequently led him [Hohenlohe] to act in a manner little short of insubordinate.” [NCP. 29] Colonel
Maude offers a good description of this “evil genius”:
Apparently, throughout his military career, Colonel Massenbach had written many theses outlining the strategies that should be adopted in the event of Prussian
sovereignty being threatened by any of the Great Powers. However, whether through his own personal short-sightedness or the influence of the political atmosphere
engendered by ten years of neutrality, Petre states that “Massenbach made no provision for a war with France!” [NCP. 38] This seems to be enough for many historians to follow Petre’s lead in pronouncing Massenbach as a man of “narrow, unpractical military ideas.” [NCP. 37]
The last major Prussian general in Thuringia in autumn 1806 was General Ernest Philip von Rüchel. The best description of this general, who was in his
fifty-second year, comes from Maude’s account of the Jena campaign: “Last, stood the Prussian General, von Rüchel, the concentrated essence of the
Prussian army” as Clausewitz calls him. As a young officer, he had been singled out by Frederick the Great and had repaid that monarch by the most whole-souled devotion to his memory. “The King could do no wrong;” and though he had read, written, and seen much, everything had been referred back to this one standard, and
appreciated not by its conformity with existing conditions, but with the acts and sayings of his master; who of course had a totally different set of facts to deal with.
Placed in command of the 15,000 strong Prussian reserves, he played very little part in the formation of strategy and his late arrival on the field of Jena served
only to link the fate of his small command with that of Hohenlohe’s defeated army. He was, however, one of the few Prussian generals to escape the clutches of the
subsequent French pursuit, despite being seriously wounded, and he fought alongside the Prussian forces under General L’Estocq in Poland and East Prussia in the first half of 1807.
Accompanying the army in Thuringia were numerous members of the Prussian Royal Family. Frederick William III was there in his status as Head of State and thus head of the Prussian armed forces; his wife, Louise of Mecklenburg-Stretlitz, herself Colonel of the 5th (Queen’s) Dragoon Regiment, had accompanied him; and
Prince Louis Ferdinand, cousin to the King, was attached to Prince Hohenlohe’s command. [8]
As with the Prussian high command, there were divisions of opinion within the Royal Family. King Frederick William III was a great believer in the policy of
neutrality, which had been instigated by his father at the Treaty of Basle in 1795, and had only agreed to war with great reluctance. He has been described as
“weak-willed” and heavily influenced by the machinations of his beautiful queen, and he, himself, freely admitted that he was no Frederick the Great. He knew little about war, adhered with a fearful tenacity to the ‘old ways’ both militarily and politically, was reluctant to make major decisions or changes despite showing a willingness for reform and, in a similar vein to his contemporary in Russia, Tsar Alexander I, would have preferred the life of a country squire to that of a reigning monarch.
Directly opposed to the attitude, beliefs and actions of the Prussian monarch was his cousin, Prince Louis Ferdinand. The son of Ferdinand of Prussia, himself a brother of Frederick the Great, the Prince was an enigmatic man, much loved and admired by his men and fellow officers; the Baron de Marbot, on a visit to Berlin, was so impressed by his personal attributes that he described Louis Ferdinand as “the only member of the royal family who bore any resemblance to the great Frederick.” [MMa]
Despite having a fascination with Napoleon’s tactics and military achievements, he appears to have become an ardent Francophobe following the humiliation suffered by Prussia at the hands of the French Emperor the year before, itself a result of Prussia’s half-hearted involvement in the Third Coalition. He also was strongly in favour of an alliance with Austria, a policy Frederick William was loath to follow, and was party, in 1806, to a petition, along with General Rüchel and other prominent Prussian military and civilian dignitaries, demanding that the Prussian monarch change the structure and personnel of his ruling committee.
Relations between Prince Louis Ferdinand and Frederick William III eventually became so strained that, by mid-1806, the former was swearing that he would never again enter into a dialogue with his King, whether verbal or written, until Napoleon had been made to pay for his treatment of the Prussian nation and her people. From that point forward, Louis Ferdinand, or more precisely the ideals he purported to champion, became a rallying point for those Prussian noblemen who shared his opinions and, despite his absence from Prussian headquarters throughout the disastrous 1806 campaign, [9] his presence with the army is claimed to have detracted from the already woolly authority exercised by the Prussian King.
The influence of Prussia’s Queen, Louise of Mecklenburg-Stretlitz, is a matter of great dispute amongst historians, both during the events leading up to and during
the autumn campaign of 1806. Napoleon Bonaparte was her primary detractor; he claimed that the war of 1806 was the outcome of the queen’s machinations and,.writing from the battlefield of Jena, once the battle had been won, he claimed, “She wanted to see blood, and the most precious blood in the kingdom had been shed.”
A few days later, upon occupying the room she had stayed at only a few days before in Weimar, he wrote:
Many historians have followed Napoleon’s lead by depicting the Prussian Queen as the power behind the throne: Alastair Horne implies that the ‘war party’
of Prussia was “headed by the spirited Queen” [NME. 181] and Cornelli Barnett claims that the Prussian ultimatum, issued to Napoleon prior to opening of hostilities,
“marked the triumph of the Prussian war party led by the fiery and beautiful Queen Louise.” [Bon. 122]
Napoleon went one step further. Upon occupying Louise’s suite at the main Royal residence in Berlin, he discovered numerous letters to Tsar Alexander, written in an amorous prose; after perusing a number of these epistles, he asserted that Queen Louise of Mecklenburg-Stretlitz was having an affair with the Russian Emperor and it was upon this relationship that her hatred for France was based. As with Louise’s supposed leadership of the Prussian war party, historians, in their appraisal of this period, have also replicated this smear on her character.
However, Constance Wright has challenged this historical portrayal of the Prussian Queen, originally engendered by Napoleon’s campaign to place the blame for
the 1806 debacle at Louise’s feet. She claims that Louise was besotted with Frederick William III from the moment she first met him and, although she attempted
on occasions to influence his policies for governing Prussia, she never overtly challenged his authority. Constance Wright goes on to claim that Louise’s reputation
within Prussia was starkly different from the portrait painted by Napoleon’s claims. Far from being seen as an intriguing and unfaithful consort to their beloved King, the
view of the Prussian people is concisely elucidated by one Parson Ermen when, confronted by Napoleon in Berlin and bombarded by the Emperor’s opinions of
Louise, he replied: “But, Your Imperial Majesty, we are used to hearing our Queen praised for her kindness and her good deeds.” [QLP. 135]
It would seem that, if Louise’s character had been in line with Napoleon’s portrayal, her reputation with her people should have been similar to the simple Frenchman’s appraisal of his erstwhile Queen, Marie Antoinette. Whatever the truth of the argument - whether Louise’s good name was smeared by Napoleon’s aspersions, or whether she did in fact play a dominant role in the politics of her husband’s kingdom - Louise’s presence with the army in 1806 has been seen by many historians as playing a significant contribution to the outcome of the campaign.
As well as the three main generals and the assortment of royalty who accompanied the Prussian Army in 1806, there were numerous other figures present at the Duke of Brunswick’s headquarters that were in a position to influence events.
The first of these was Colonel von Phull (or Pfeul) who was the General Chief of Staff. From the same academy as Massenbach, he has been tarred with the
same brush as ‘Prussia’s evil genius’. Although ignored by many historians of this period, he appears to have been a significant catalyst in the metamorphosis of Prussia’s grand plan into the chaotic nightmare of orders and counter-orders that thoroughly disorganised the army prior to the fateful encounters at Jena and Auerstädt.
Phull was a great enthusiast of Roman history and Alan Palmer describes how he had “an engaging habit of verbally re-fighting the battles of the ancient world
as if he had personally participated.” [NIR. 29]
His reputation amongst the Prussian officer corps was mixed and Müffling gives a good impression of this Roman scholar:
Apparently, his exploits and experiences of 1806 changed neither his character nor his contemporaries’ opinions of his abilities. In 1812, while attached to the Russian Emperor’s assemblage, he suggested a fortified position around Drissa to draw Napoleon into an unequal contest and defeat him in detail. Despite the Tsar’s
great enthusiasm for the plan, Alan Palmer relates how all the Russian generals “were convinced that, since [the plan] had originated with the doctrinaire Pfuel, the whole concept must ipso facto be inherently wrong.” [NIR. 44]
Other figures attached to the Prussian party, ostensibly as the King’s advisors, were Field Marshal Count von Kalkreuth, Count Christian August Heinrich Curt von
Haugwitz, Marquis Hieronimo di Lucchesinni, Field Marshal Richard von Möllendorf and General von Zastrow. Kalkreuth, the hero of the siege of Mainz (or Mayence) in 1793, was sixty-nine at the time of the Jena Campaign. The Duke of Brunswick held a low opinion of him, labelling him “a cunning trickster” [MBM. 14] but, unlike other generals of his generation, his performance during 1806 has escaped severe censure. Along with Rüchel, he managed to evade the French pursuit and commanded the Prussian garrison of Danzig with great distinction in early 1807.
Count von Haugwitz was no military man, but the King’s trusted Foreign Minister and an architect of the Treaty of Basle in 1795. He had served under Frederick the Great and was highly respected by Frederick William III but, following his conceived failure at the talks of Schonbrunn and Paris earlier in the year, was much despised by the many of the Prussian aristocracy. Reportedly incapable of deciphering even the least significant details of a military map, his position with the army was purely diplomatic; however, due to his adherence to the policies of the Prussian ‘peace party’, many of his suggestions were treated with suspicion by the Prussian General Staff, the majority of whom believed in the doctrines and ideals of the opposing ‘war party’.
Lucchesinni had been the Prussian ambassador to Paris for many years and Constance Wright provides a vivid description of his personality:
He appeared to enjoy Paris and is accused of doing everything possible to prevent his recall: in 1803 he had played down Napoleon’s outburst at the British
ambassador, Lord Whitworth, which put an end to the Peace of Amiens and saw the resumption of war; he had advised against.Prussia’s entry into the Third Coalition of 1805; and in 1806, he had pooh-poohed the rumours from London claiming that Hanover was to be ceded to Britain as part of an Anglo-French peace agreement.
He was expelled finally from Paris in mid 1806 by Napoleon, who had never liked him for passing French state secrets to his masters in Berlin. Upon his return to
Prussia he completely changed his tone and stressed the inevitability of war with France, although he later seems to have cautioned a delay in mobilisation so not to provoke the French Emperor into retaliating.
During the 1806 campaign he served under Count von Haugwitz, in a diplomatic, not a military, capacity. Field Marshal von Möllendorf, hero of Leuthen and Torgau during the Seven Years War, “frankly admitted that he was no longer equal to the fatigues inseparable from an active command” [TJC. 66] at his advanced age of eighty-two. Branded a dotard by the Duke of Brunswick, his advice, however, was highly respected by Frederick William III and it would seem that his presence at the Prussian headquarters in 1806 was secured by his respect for his monarch’s wishes rather than by his own volition. His performance during the Jena campaign and mortal wounding upon the field of Auerstädt served as a sad epitaph to an otherwise distinguished career.
The endeavours of General von Zastrow are poorly documented by historians; what few references there are portray him as an obdurate, narrow-minded
individual, a general of average talent and, upon his appointment as Foreign Minister in late 1806, a politician of mediocre capabilities. His presence with the Royal
party in Thuringia remains a mystery to this author but, due to his uncompromising manner and his strict Frederickian beliefs, he deserves a mention in this narrative
Before departing from this dissertation on the members of the Prussian retinue, two further characters need to be mentioned: Colonel Gerhard Johann David von
Scharnhorst and General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Many historians have set aside much space documenting the actions of these two famous Prussian soldiers but, due to their junior positions in the Prussian military during the Jena campaign, they actually exerted little influence over the events and strategy employed. This fact, along with their future exploits in the war against France, appear to have allowed their reputations to escape the vehement criticism meted out upon the ‘major players’ of the Prussian generalship and, despite Blücher’s gallant, yet vain, actions upon the field of Auerstädt and during his remarkable fighting retreat to Lübeck, and Scharnhorst’s appointment as Lieutenant Quartermaster General to the Duke of Brunswick in preference to the socially superior von Phull, they play very little part in this discussion of the Prussian strategy during the 1806 campaign.
More Prussians in 1806
The Prussians in 1806 Part II
The Prussians in 1806 Dispelling the Myths Part III [FE63]
The Prussians in 1806 Dispelling the Myths Part IV [FE65]
Prussians in 1806 Dispelling the Myths Part Va: Tactics [FE66]
Prussians in 1806 Dispelling the Myths Part Vb: Jena [FE68]
1806: A Precis
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