page_title: Battle of Halle
section_title: Military
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Halle / Background / Military
context_page_description: In the Battle of Halle on 17 October 1806 a French corps led by Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte fought the Prussian Reserve under Eugene Frederick Henry, Duke of Württemberg. The French defeated their opponents, forcing the Prussians to retreat northeast toward Dessau after suffering heavy losses. The clash occurred in the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. The city of Halle is located about 30 kilometers northwest of Leipzig on the Saale River.
  Emperor Napoleon I of France invaded the Electorate of Saxony and inflicted two disastrous defeats on the Prussian-Saxon armies on 14 October 1806. As the beaten armies fled, Marshal Bernadotte's corps marched north and found Duke Eugene's unblooded Reserve located at Halle. At the beginning of the encounter, two French divisions rushed the bridges over the Saale on the west side of the city. They overran a weak defending force and quickly occupied the city. Later in the day, Bernadotte's troops stormed out of Halle and attacked Eugene's Reserve which was drawn up to the southeast of the city. The Prussians were driven from their positions and chased to the northeast.
context_section_description: As the Prussians advanced into territory belonging to the Electorate of Saxony, they absorbed 20,000 Saxon soldiers into their army. The combined forces coalesced into three semi-independent armies under Feldmarschall Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, General of the Infantry Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, and General Ernst von Rüchel. Brunswick took station at Erfurt in the center while Hohenlohe deployed near Rudolstadt in the east. Rüchel held Gotha and Eisenach at the western end of the line with General Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach's division probing south toward Meiningen and the French line of communications. Eugene of Württemberg's Reserve was well to the north at Magdeburg.
  On 8 October, Napoleon launched 180,000 troops across the Saxon frontier. His troops were massed in a batallion carré (battalion square) made up of three columns of two army corps each, plus the Imperial Guard, the Cavalry Reserve, and a Bavarian contingent. On 9 October, the leading division of Marshal Bernadotte's I Corps and Marshal Joachim Murat's cavalry forced Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien's division into a withdrawal in the Battle of Schleiz. The next day, Marshal Jean Lannes' V Corps attacked the 8,300-man division of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia at the Battle of Saalfeld. The young prince was killed and his division took to its heels after the drubbing it received.
  Napoleon became convinced that his enemies lay near Erfurt, so he ordered his batallion carré to make a left wheel on 12 October. The Prussian generals opted to fall back. Brunswick was to take the main army north from Weimar to Merseburg, while Hohenlohe protected the move by standing on the defensive near Jena. Rüchel's orders were to hold Weimar until Saxe-Weimar returned with his division. On 14 October, the double Battle of Jena-Auerstedt occurred as Napoleon attacked Hohenlohe while Brunswick ran head-on into the III Corps of Marshal Louis Davout. Both Prussian armies as well as Rüchel's corps were driven in rout from the two battlefields. Brunswick's army suffered 13,000 casualties and its commander was mortally wounded, while the combined forces of Hohenlohe and Rüchel lost as many as 25,000.
  When Davout marched from Naumburg to glory at Auerstedt, Bernadotte refused to join his fellow marshal despite positive orders to do so. Instead, he executed an earlier set of orders to march to Dornburg and missed the fighting at both Jena and Auerstedt. Bernadotte found himself in serious trouble with his emperor. In a conversation with General of Division Jean Rapp Napoleon guessed that Bernadotte's behavior was caused by professional jealousy. The emperor remarked to General of Division Anne Jean Marie René Savary, "This business is so hateful that if I send him before a court-martial it will be the equivalent of ordering him to be shot; it is better for me not to speak to him about it, but I shall take care he shall know what I think of his behavior. I believe he has enough honor to recognize that he has performed a disgraceful action regarding which I shall not bandy words with him." In the end, Bernadotte's career may have been saved because of Napoleon's fondness for his wife Désirée Clary, whom he almost married.
caption: Jena-Auerstedt Campaign, 8–14 October 1806.
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