page_title: Capitulation of Stettin
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Capitulation of Stettin / Background
caption_attribution_description: Fragment of portrait of Joachim Murat, Prince d’Empire, Grand Duke of Clèves and of Berg, King of Naples under the name of Napoleon in 1808 (1767-1815), Marshal of France in 1804
context_page_description: In the Capitulation of Stettin on 29–30 October 1806, Lieutenant General Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm von Romberg surrendered the garrison and fortress to a much smaller French light cavalry brigade led by General of Brigade Antoine Lasalle. This event was one of a number of surrenders by demoralized Prussian soldiers to equal or inferior French forces after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt on 14 October. Stettin, now Szczecin, Poland, is a port city on the Oder River near the Baltic Sea, about 120 kilometres northeast of Berlin.
  After Jena-Auerstedt, the broken Prussian armies crossed the Elbe River and fled to the northeast in an attempt to reach the east bank of the Oder. Following a two-week chase, Marshal Joachim Murat intercepted over 10,000 Prussians at the Battle of Prenzlau and bluffed them into surrendering on 28 October. The following day, Lasalle's and another French light cavalry brigade induced 4,200 more Prussians to lay down their weapons in the Capitulation of Pasewalk. On the afternoon of the 29th, Lasalle appeared before the fortress of Stettin and demanded its surrender.
context_section_description: Emperor Napoleon I of France's Grande Armée shattered the Prussian-Saxon armies at the Battle of Jena-Auerstadt on 14 October 1806. In the wake of this catastrophe, the Prussian forces retreated to the Elbe River. Feldmarschall Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commander of the main Prussian army at Auerstedt, was fatally wounded and died on 10 November at Altona. General of Infantry Ernst von Rüchel, badly wounded at Jena, left the army and later recovered. The commander at Jena, General of Infantry Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen assumed command of a large portion of the defeated Prussian army, while Lieutenant General Gebhard von Blücher took command of another column. Lieutenant General Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who had missed Jena-Auerstedt, brought up the rear with 12,000 troops.
  At Magdeburg, Hohenlohe joined Lieutenant General Eugene Frederick Henry, Duke of Württemberg whose Reserve was routed by Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's I Corps at the Battle of Halle on 17 October with heavy losses. Leaving a large garrison in Magdeburg, Hohenlohe struck out for the Oder on 21 October. Blücher and Saxe-Weimar crossed the Elbe at Sandau between the 24th and 26th. Oberst Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg fought a successful rear guard action at Altenzaun on the latter date against Marshal Nicolas Soult's IV Corps. Meanwhile, Murat's cavalry, Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout's III Corps, and Marshal Jean Lannes' V Corps marched east toward Berlin, with Marshal Pierre Augereau's VII Corps not far behind. On 25 October, Davout's troops marched through Berlin and headed east for Küstrin and Frankfurt an der Oder. Meanwhile, Marshal Michel Ney's VI Corps began the Siege of Magdeburg. Seeing an opportunity to cut off Hohenlohe, Napoleon sent Murat, Lannes, and Bernadotte north from Berlin.
  Murat routed General-Major Christian Ludwig Schimmelpfennig's 1,300-man flank guard at Zehdenick on 26 October. After losing 250 men, the survivors fled along the highway until they reached Stettin. The next day, General of Brigade Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud got across Hohenlohe's escape route at Boitzenburg. After a three-hour action, Hohenlohe drove off the French light cavalry brigade, but not before Murat's dragoons captured most of the Gensdarmes Cuirassier Regiment Nr. 10 which was acting as a flank guard. On 28 October, Murat finally ran Hohenlohe to earth at the Battle of Prenzlau. General of Division Emmanuel Grouchy's 2nd Dragoon Division cut a swath through the Prussian column of march, after which General of Division Marc Antoine de Beaumont's 3rd Dragoon Division captured the rear guard. With 3,000 of Lannes' infantry on hand in addition to Lasalle and the dragoons, Murat bluffed Hohenlohe into surrendering his remaining 10,000 troops by falsely claiming that the Prussians were surrounded by overwhelming forces.
  After the surrender Lasalle rode on to Löcknitz on the road between Pasewalk and Stettin, reaching the village in the afternoon of the 28th. Milhaud's brigade marched north on the west bank of the Uecker River until he reached Pasewalk early on 29 October. Discovering Oberst von Hagen's force in the town, Milhaud demanded an immediate surrender. Hagen, finding Lasalle ahead of him and Milhaud behind him, surrendered 4,200 soldiers and eight guns in the Capitulation of Pasewalk.
caption: Joachim Murat
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