Battle near Saalfeld
| date | October 10, 1806 |
|---|---|
| place | Saalfeld , Germany |
| output | French victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 14,000 men 14 guns |
9,000 men and 39 cannons |
| losses | |
|
200 dead and wounded |
1700 dead and wounded |
.svg){kind=small}
Schleiz - Saalfeld - Jena and Auerstedt - Lübeck - Greater Poland - Czarnowo - Golymin - Pułtusk - Dirschau - Prussian Eylau - Ostrolenka - Stolp - Danzig - Kolberg - Guttstadt - Heilsberg - Friedland
In the battle of Saalfeld on October 10, 1806, the Prussian-Saxon army fought against French troops near Saalfeld . The battle was part of the 4th Coalition War (1806 to 1807).
prehistory
In 1805, Prussia had secured the Electorate of Hanover, which was occupied by France, through an alliance with France. As a result, Prussia took possession of the area, which - as Napoleon secretly intended - led to a British declaration of war against Prussia. In negotiations Napoleon then offered Great Britain the return of the electorate as a price for peace in 1806 and, through this disloyalty, drove isolated Prussia to declare war on France (October 9, 1806). On the side of Prussia only Saxony and Saxony-Weimar took part. The hope of participation of the already mobilized Kurhessens was not fulfilled. Russia pledged support.
The Prussian-Saxon army marched on the edge of the Thuringian Forest. Napoleon concentrated his troops on the upper Main in the Bamberg area and then pushed quickly northwards in several corps columns across Hof along the Saale at the beginning of October.
Lineup
On the French side fought the corps of Marshal Lannes , 23,000, consisting of the divisions Gazan and Suchet and the Cavalry Division Treilhard. Lannes had stood at Graefenthal on October 9, 1806 . The French leadership, d. H. primarily Napoleon himself did not know where the main Prussian power was.
On October 9, 1806, the Hohenlohe Corps , consisting of 19,000 Prussians ( Tauentzien and Grawert divisions ) and 20,000 Saxon troops ( Zezschwitz division ), stood near Mittelpöllnitz .
A detachment (avant-garde) of 9,000 Prussians and Saxons of the “Elector” regiment under the command of Prince Louis Ferdinand secured the Saale crossing in Rudolstadt . Louis Ferdinand was ordered to retreat to Orlamünde in the event of an enemy attack .
At noon on October 9, 1806, 7,000 Prussian troops who belonged to the Hohenlohe Corps, Tauentzien Division and had originally been at court , unexpectedly encountered Marshal Bernadotte's corps near Schleiz . They lost over 500 dead, wounded and prisoners and after a short battle they withdrew towards Mittelpöllnitz, where Hohenlohe was standing. In view of the French march, he ordered the retreat to Kahla . It was no longer necessary to secure the Saale crossing at Rudolstadt. Louis Ferdinand was again ordered not to go beyond Rudolstadt and, if necessary, to withdraw to Orlamünde.
Course of the battle
On October 9th, Louis Ferdinand received the order to march with the avant-garde to Rudolstadt. As his outermost outpost he sent the Neidhardt battalion from Gneisenau to Saalfeld, which at that time was still completely unknown. On the night of October 9th to 10th, 1806, he was on a field watch and recognized by the French watch fire that he had already been bypassed on the right bank of the Saale, i.e. on the left.
The Prussian advance of the avant-garde on the left bank of the Saale beyond Rudolstadt to Saalfeld on the orders of Louis Ferdinand put his troops in a tactically unfavorable position in the narrow Saale valley, while the enemy held the dominant heights. He wanted to repel the attack on Gneisenau and at the same time cover the Saale crossing at Saalfeld. He could not have known that the enemy was already on both sides of the Saale and that the defense of the bridge was unnecessary. It was not considered necessary to inform him about this, since he should withdraw from the outset on Orlamünde in the event of attacks.
The fighting began when it got light around 5:30 a.m. with a rifle battle lasting several hours, the main burden of which was carried by the Gneisenau battalion. At 9:30 a.m. Louis Ferdinand came to Saalfeld in person and spoke to Gneisenau. Not only was he able to repel the French attack, but he even launched a counter-attack contrary to orders. Marshal Lannes had only noticed the Prussian detachment very shortly beforehand and was therefore only able to bring 14,000 men of his corps into battle. Constant frontal attacks and from the heights occupied and held the Prussians while two French regiments bypassed the Prussians' right flank. Saxons of the "Elector" regiment were able to recapture the village of Beulwitz temporarily in close combat.
Prince Louis Ferdinand now ordered, d. H. around 2 p.m., the retreat. This led to disorder on the Prussian side: the Prussian cavalry failed in its task of covering the retreat and backed away from the French cavalry. The Prussian batteries had received orders to leave; they saw the French horsemen deploy at the best possible range to attack the infantry; Nevertheless, the fire was not stopped, but the order to leave was followed stubbornly, with the result that the batteries got stuck in a ravine. In the beginning panic only Gneisenau seemed to have not lost his head. Louis Ferdinand personally ordered him and his men to pull the cannons out of the ravine. Gneisenau got a graze on the left leg and had to go back.
Between 3 and 4 p.m., French cavalry then blew up the Prussian corps completely. The French bypass column pushed the fleeing away from the retreat path, so that the Prussians had to flee through the Saale and lost their entire artillery (39 guns), in addition to 1,700 dead and wounded. The French had about 200 men killed or wounded. Prince Louis Ferdinand fell in a cavalry battle shortly before 4 p.m. The prince was killed by the French NCO Guindey of the 10th Hussar Regiment, who received the Legion of Honor for this . Napoleon noted, however, that a captured prince would have been better. If so, he would have promoted Guindey to officer.
consequences
The battle near Saalfeld had no direct influence on the strategic situation of the campaign. Napoleon still did not know where the main Prussian power was.
On the other hand, the moral effects of the battle on the Prussian side were considerable. On the night of October 10th to 11th, 1806, disorder and symptoms of panic broke out, especially in Jena. Saxon and Prussian troops of the Hohenlohe corps took each other for French and fired at each other. At the (false) news of the French approaching, the Prussian field bakery threw the dough for 60,000 loaves into the Saale near Jena. In the confusion after the battle in Saalfeld, even the escort for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III went. (the Pelet fusilier battalion and three squadrons of Brandenburg hussars) lost. Only in the course of the 12./13. October the panic subsided again.
literature
- Karl-Horst Bichler: Napoleon's war against Prussia and Saxony 1806 (Schleiz, Saalfeld, Jena and Auerstedt) . Verlag trafo, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89626-604-7
- Colonel Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon as a general . Mittler & Sohn publishing house, Berlin 1909
- Gerhard Werner: Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia and the battle near Saalfeld on October 10, 1806 . Thuringian Local History Museum, Saalfeld 1996, ISBN 3-9804772-1-5
- Georg Wilhelm von Valentini : The battle near Saalfeld on the Saale . cit. 1807 ( books.google.com ).
- Frank Bauer: "Saalfeld October 10, 1806". The prelude to the drama of Jena and Auerstedt (Small series History of the Wars of Liberation, no.16), Potsdam 2006.
