Napoleon's Greatest Battle - Part 2

Very enjoyable to listen and all authors made good points, there I almost visited all battle fields and terrain of the first Italian campaign, from Montenotte to Leoben as well as Jena - AuerstEdt !!!!!! The battle of AuerstAdt is completely unkown to me 😉.

I don't know why the Anglo Saxons are so fixed on stadt instead of stedt, the French get it right, the Anglo Saxons seemingly cannot do it and even Vanya Bellinger who is spot on with the pronouncation of Italian names, listen how she pronounces AcrolE - falls into the Auerstadt trap, so please in case you like to learn two things - I would opt of Auerstedt and Arcole (glad nobody did Arcola).

So this rant apart, about Arcole, Vanya Bellinger - who makes great points is falling into the full propaganda trap of Boney myth making, Bonaparte was not on the bridge at all waving a colour, he fell off a horse and landed in the swamp and had to be dragged out by his soldiers, envision a mud covered Boney.

"Le général en chef et son état-major sont culbutés; le général en chef lui meme est renverse avec son cheval dans un marais, d'ou, sous le feu de l'ennemi, il est retire avec peine: il remonte a cheval, la colonne se rallie, et l'ennemi n'ose sortir de ses retrenchemens."
Berthier Dispatch [19.11.1796] Published in ' La Gazette Nationale, ou Le Moniteur [Dec 3 1796]
['The commander-in-chief and his staff are sent reeling back; the commander-in-chief himself, together with his horse, falls into a an area of marsh from which, under enemy fire, he is extracted with difficulty: he remounts his horse, the column rallies , [after which] the enemy does not dare sally from his defences.'] 

Il est bousculé et tombe dans le marais d'où il est retiré avec difficulté
Tulard, dictionnaire, volume I, p. 113

42 flanker on TMP provided this highly educative contribution

Perhaps 'self-agrandizing fiction' would a fairer summary. In the days after the battle Berthier's dispatches sowed the seeds of a narrative that, well watered by Gros's portrait of Buonaparte on the bridge at Arcole, evolved into an enduring myth.
From Sulkowski's eyewitness account we learn two things: that Buonaparte, in an further attempt to encourage the troops to resume the assault on Arcole, repeated Augereau's gesture of seizing a regimental standard (apparently shouting "Suivez votre général!"); and that in so doing he exposed himself and his headquarters group to the intense fire of the Austrian force holding the river crossing. 
Although General Buonaparte was not hit, men of his staff and escort fell all round him. Sukorowski, himself narrowly missing injury or death from a piece of caseshot, was then knocked out by debris from a bursting shell and so missed the denoument- the hasty retreat behind the river dijk which saw the slender general plunged into a draining ditch and narrowly avoiding capture when the Austrians counter attacked across the bridge.
From all the versions one can read, it seems clear that Buonaparte seized a flag intending to animate the men of Augereau's command. It is what happened afterwards that has been subject to the human capacity to create myths, not least that of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
A quick survey of images and popular accounts on the internet shows that the prevailing myth is that Buonaparte grabbing a flag and braving the hail of enemy fire, led his grenadiers to victory across the bridge at Arcola- or at the very least the attackers got some way acrosss the bridge before the weight of fire forced retreat, and that so inspired by their general's courage they went on to carry the passage.
General Buonaparte in his despatch of Nov 19 was much more modest. He simply describes his attempt to encourage the men, the casualties among his subordinates and the necessity to find another route of approach. Berthier in his despatch depicts the young Buonaparte shouting "Follow your general" and getting to within 30 paces of the bridge before the weight of fire drove them back – at the moment the enemy were about to turn and flee - a claim which strains logic if not credibility, particularly as the general ends up in a marsh under fire from that demoralised enemy on the other side of the river (and as it transpires with an dijk embankment intervening).
This also puts in question Sulkowski's disgusted report that the French infantrymen declined to be insired by their commander's repeat of Augerau's gesture with the flag and remained resolutely in cover, leaving him and his men to face to the fire of the Austrian guns alone.
Nevertheless, the image is clear. The attacking force did not get as far as the bridge but was turned back by fire on the causeway. 
However, by the time the Emperor Napoleon was dictating his memoirs on St Helena, the story had changed. The Emperor having seized the flag, raced forward and planted it on the bridge (presumably piercing the wooden roadbed). A column of men rose and rallied on the standard.
They had got half-way across the 80-foot bridge when they were hit in flank by fire that caused the attackers to falter then fall back. The grenadiers at the head of column dragged their general back with them into cover where he found himself up to his waist in a marsh and exposed to an enemy threat that appears from nowhere. In this version, it is while rescuing their general from the marsh and driving the enemy back across the bridge that his faithful staff are shot up.
It is interesting to consider the versions of two soldiers who were also present. André Estienne gained fame and was honoured by the Emperor as the 'little drummer of Arcole' for his role in a successful flanking attack at Arcola. A member of the 51e demi brigade which was the regiment in place at the bridge, Estienne wrote,"It was at this moment that Bonaparte, being on horseback, took the same flag and was able to carry it ten paces further." Not quite as far as halfway across the bridge. At what point did the general dismount we might ask, but no matter. He is on mounted once again when retreating back along the causeway and at the end of a long skid on the damp chaussee, the back legs of the general's mount slip from under him and both are thrown into the marsh beyond.
Meanwhile Auguste Marmont, at that time an ADC to General Buonaparte and one of the officers who attempted to shield him from enemy fire, in later life described a column of men rising to follow the general and getting within 200 paces of the bridge (He doesnt say how far they had run. Perhaps more than ten paces). 
Despite the murderous fire, it looked like they were going to make it across when one of the infantry officers grabbed Buonaparte and started wrestling him to the rear saying, "You're going to get yourself killed and that'll be the end of us all. You have no business being here." With this hiatus at the head of the column, the attack stalled with men dropping all about. The survivors, retreating in disorder, fell back to the shelter of the dijk- having got nowhere near the bridge.
Buonaparte ends up in a deep drainage ditch, is pulled out by Marmont and Louis Napoleon, and sent off to get a change of clothes. Marmont concludes with a shrug, "That's the story of the other flag which the prints show being carried by Bonaparte on the bridge at Arcole. This charge, really a confused scrimmage, achieved nothing."
Adolphe Thiers, writing in 1842 chose to describe the episode thus: 
'Bonaparte advanced, carrying the colours, amidst a shower of balls and grape-shot [generals and staff fall all about him] The column was, nevertheless, on the point of clearing the bridge, when a last discharge stopped it and threw it back….' 

the hero who carried a colour was Augereau, even a painting exists

But also he failed abysmally to carry the bridge.

The decision fell on the third day when the bridge at Arcole was outflanked by Augereau's soldiers again when they crossed the Alpone much downriver and then the heroic stance of the Austrians was defeated, one can still see the bullet marks on the houses when approaching Arcole from the east bank and from the south.

Vanya Bellinger makes a good point to consider the strategical overall situation Bonaparte had to face, not only Alvincy but also Davidovich who comes down the Adige / Etsch valley from the north.

So forcing a bridge - I am surprised that the epic Lodi crossing isn't put up - which was a success in direct assault.

As to Jena / Auerstedt one of my other favourits, and just a close second to the first campaign of Italy as Nabulieone's best campaign, I cannot share any Prussian view that they could have won the campaign, they had no leader compared to Napoleon's operation art of war - they were a helpless mass of morons.

They maybe could have achieved a tactical victory without any strategic importance. The Prussian Army of 1806 was good regarding the soldiers and it is much victimized in that aspect - but from the operational art of war - they were nothing compared to how Friedrich let it in the 7YW.

Now to Bernadotte, another much victimized person, suffering from the big liar Nabulieone, he achieved what he was ordered to do so - he accomplished the order he was given exactly, he had to move his unit to Apolda and that is where he was at 16:00, cutting by the way the direct line of retreat of both armies.

The Prussian King (who had to take over from Braunschweig - when he war mortally wounded early in the battle) was let down by the chief of staff - Scharnhorst - he was taking over a Prussian division instead of doing his duty as staff officer - wanted to retreat via Apolda (to the south east) to re - unite with Hohenlohe (FWIII was unaware of the disaster at Jena) - but found his line of retreat blocked by Bernadotte.

By that no direct line of retreat was possible - but despite this Bernadotte had to fight the action at Halle one or two days later.

The scandal about the Prussian army was - in my view - not the defeat - but how the fortress commanders capitulated strongest fortresses without even trying to buy time for the survivors of the dual battle.

Scharnhorst was just a colonel and Gneisenau, wasn't he just a battalion or company commander?

Already at the end of 1807 the modern Prussian Army was born.

finally this is what I have to say in my chapter about the Prussian light infantry of 1806

It is difficult to assess the potential of the Prussian field army which fought the fatal campaign of 1806, especially for the two big battles at Jena and Auerstedt.
 
The Battle of Jena should not have been fought at all; Hohenlohe should not have accepted the battle. Still he got drawn into it. The Prussians acted in piecemeal fashion. The forces of Tauentzien, Holtzendorff, and finally Grawert fought on their own, against a more and more concentrating French army. Rüchel arrived much too late on the battlefield and too low in number, only about 10,000 strong, to be beaten in detail as well.
 
At Auerstedt the commander-in-chief the Duke of Brunswick was mortally wounded quite early in the battle, which caused confusion and lack of co-ordination. The command went to the Prussian King, who was not up to the task at all. Brunswick’s chief of staff Oberst Scharnhorst, instead of advising the King, took over command the Division Schmettau, whose commander was wounded as well. While the infantry fought almost on equal terms, first two, then three, Prussian divisions against those three of Davout – the other two Prussian divisions hardly saw any action at all at the main battle – the massive cavalry superiority of the Prussians gained hardly anything. The famous cavalry charge of Blücher was just 10 squadrons strong, from three different regiments. Clearly the days of decisive cavalry charges in the glory days of Seydlitz were over.

please note AuerstEdt.