Note 330 — BOOK V

Of the two battles that took place on the 14th of October 1806, the more important was that of Auerstädt, where Marshal Davout had on his hands the greater part of the Prussian Army, commanded by the King of Prussia in person and the Duke of Brunswick; at Jena, Napoleon, with superior forces, had to do with the weaker portion of the enemy's army. Davout had 60,000 men in front of him and Napoleon only 40,000. The Emperor, in his 5th Bulletin, completely inverted the state of things. While reducing the numbers of the army which Davout had to fight against from sixty to forty thousand, he raised those to which he himself was opposed from forty to eighty thousand, making of the Battle of Auerstädt only a very secondary episode in the Battle of Jena, whereas it was really a capital and decisive event. It was thus that the admirable victory of Auerstädt came to be effaced and eclipsed by that of Jena.—B.