PRUSSIAN AND POLISH CAMPAIGNS Around the Prussian army, and particularly the cavalry, the prestige of Frederick the Great's glory still lingered ; but the younger generation had little experience of actual warfare, and the higher commanders were quite unable to grasp the changes in tactics and in the conduct of operations which had grown out of the necessities of the French Revolution. The individual officers of the executive staff were the most highly trained in Europe, but there was no great leader to co-ordinate their energies. The total number of men assigned to the field army was iio,000 Prussians and Saxons. They were organized in corps, but their leaders were corps commanders only in name, for none were allowed any lati tude for individual initiative. Ill-judged economies had under mined the whole efficiency of the Prussian army. Two-thirds of the infantry and one-half of the cavalry were allowed furlough for from ten to eleven months in the year. The men were un provided with greatcoats. Most of the muskets had actually seen service in the Seven Years' War, and their barrels had worn so thin with constant polishing that the use of full charges at target practice had been forbidden. Above all, the army had drifted entirely out of touch with the civil population. The latter, ground down by feudal tradition and law, and at the same time per meated by the political doctrines of the late 18th century, be lieved that war concerned the governments only, and formed no part of the business of the "honest citizen." In this idea they were supported by the law itself, which protected the civilian against the soldier, and forbade even in war-time the requisition ing of horses, provisions and transport, without payment. Up to the night of the battle of Jena itself, the Prussian troops lay starving in the midst of plenty, whilst the French everywhere took what they wanted. This alone was a sufficient cause for all the misfortunes which followed.
During the campaign of Austerlitz Prussia, furious at the viola tion of her territory of Anspach, had mobilized, and had sent Haugwitz as ambassador to Napoleon's headquarters. He arrived
on Nov. 30, and Napoleon, pleading business, put off his official reception till after the battle of Austerlitz. Of course the ulti matum was never presented, as may be imagined; Haugwitz returned and the king of Prussia demobilized at once. But Napoleon, well knowing the man he had to deal with, had de termined to force a quarrel upon Prussia at the earliest conven ient opportunity. His troops therefore, when withdrawn from Austria, were cantoned in south Germany in such a way that, whilst suspicion was not aroused in minds unacquainted with Napoleonic methods, they could be concentrated by a few marches behind the Thuringian forest and the upper waters of the Main. Here the Grande Armee was left to itself to recuperate and as similate its recruits, and it is characteristic of the man and his methods that he did not trouble his corps commanders with a single order during the whole of the spring and summer.
As the diplomatic crisis approached, spies were sent into Prussia, and simultaneously with the orders for preliminary con centration the marshals received private instructions, the pith of which cannot be better expressed than in the following two quotations from Napoleon's correspondence : "Mon intention est de concentrer toutes mes forces sur l'extremite de ma droite en laissant tout l'espace entre le Rhin et Bamberg entierement degarni, de maniere a avoir pres de 200,000 hommes reunis sur un meme champ de bataille ; mes premieres marches menacent le coeur de la monarchie prussienne" (No. 10,920). "Avec cette immense superiorite de forces reunis sur un espace si etroit, vous sentez que je suis dans la volonte de ne rien hasarder et d'attaquer l'ennemi partout ou it voudra tenir. Vous pensez bien que ce serait une belle affaire que de se porter sur cette place (Dresden) en an bataillon carre de 200,000 hommes" (Soult, No. 10,941).