OK, I'm not talking about their entire military households, I'm not interested here in logistics. By the way, it appears the George Washington has a much larger household at any given point than the king of Prussia or his CinC.
I just want to get an idea of the command assets available to a Prussian general officer on the battlefield in 1806, such as:
1) What resources were available to a corps or overall commander, (this would just be Brunswick,I think, everyone else was pretty much a last minute adhoc division commander (per Scharnhorst's recommendation)even if they were referred to in passing as a corps or were nominally in charge at Jena, etc.
2)What resources were available to division commanders?
3) What resources were available to Brigade commanders?
Let me preface this a bit so you know what I am asking.
Clausewitz writes about the CinC the Duke of Brunswick in, 'Notes On The Prussia Catastrophe of 1806', "The Quartermaster General of the Duke was Colonel Scharnhorst; and besides this officer there was no one else close to him. Captain von Muffling, General Staff, completely in agreement with Scharnhorst, had given the most precise idea to the plan of operations, as he knew best the Thuringian hills and especially Thuringia itself. He was therefore called in to a certain extent in different discussions, but on account of his rank he played only a subordinate role."
So when I ask what assets the CinC Brunswick had at his disposal I'm probably really asking, did his Chief of Staff, Scharnhorst have some kind of staff?
Please hold off answering and consider the following.
It appears that the Prussian high command was pretty starved for resources. Apparently, the QGS was reduced to 10 general staff officers and 14 civilian engineer geographers who were drawn from the building industry- though I think Schmetteau may have been one of these geographers until he was made a division commander shortly before the 1806 campaign. This inadequacy was recognized and so this war planning staff was supplemented by 20 members of the Feldjager to carry out staff functions. (Captain von Muffling?)
It is important to note that this staff was divided into three planning regions. Only Scharnhorst's region comprised the area of opening campaign that includes the battles of Jena and Auerstadt. However, for example, though Massenbach commanded the southern Austrian planning region he was at Jena as Hohenlohe's chief of staff. At a minimum some few of these engineer/builders and a couple of these Generals from the QGS may well have been working on fortress improvement or even be commanding the 3 or 4 divisions that were not at the Thuringian frontier. It seems clear that many of the Division and Brigade commanders persisted through the intervening years of peace and transition within the petit or gross nobility or as eponymous regimental commanders and often both.
As rife as the political struggle for position was, I can only assume that nobility and long held military rank largely determined who the brigade commanders were and this was probably understood well before the campaign. The division organizations however were a surprise allowing a few men of perceived ability, if without much experience, to have a shot command of these multiple arms. It seems to have done little good.
So the divisions were all parceled out some cavalry regiments with no real reserve created. The same is true for the artillery. Surely there were also engineers and gendarmes and such.
The impression I get is that beyond the 14 divisional commanders and a half dozen or so high dignitaries serving in the kings retinue, as an adhoc CinC/corps commander or as the outright CinC, and as their chief of staff, it was really up to the Division and Brigade commanders to draw a retinue of ADCs and advisors from those formations assigned to him.
Given the broad lamentation both before and after this campaign about the training of general officers, one has to wonder what appointments were made by these men either proscribed by doctrine (if any) or by their own good sense.
Clearly, these Division commanders did not use the three primary arms in concert very well. But without falling into the traditional dismal view of Prussian military doctrine during this period so often quoted, could it be that these men ran short or men to act as their eyes and ears and as their messengers?
Let us take the Duke of Brunswick at Auerstadt as an example. At times he is joined by the King and his retinue. Occasionally, Mollendorf gets the King to second guess the Duke (as Mollendorf had been doing for decades). At a certain point, as the fog begins to lift, the Duke determines, it appears, through his own travels about the battlefield, that taking a position on the heights to the French left would give him command of the plateau above. Right or wrong I get the impression that the duke himself rode to Rehehausen to determine the viability of this plan. Next he sends off Scharnhorst his chief of staff to watch over Schmettau who was taking the brunt of the the French artillery fire. Later he is found directing the schutzen of numerous battalions when he is shot from his horse through both eyes just before his plan is put into action. At this point the king is no longer with him. Though there were reports that the king had a horse shot from beneath him as well while directing some contingent. Not sure if this was before or after the Duke fell but he was not informed of his demise for some time. Mollendorf does not take command, not sure why, so the king eventually does. On and on.
A string of Rhetorical questions?
1. Why would the Duke have needed to scout out to Rehahausen himself?
2. Why would he have been directing the skirmishing activities up the road to Hassehausen? Was there just no trusted ADC?
3. If Scharnhorst was the Duke's chief of staff but was sent off personally to oversea Schmetteau, could he have in any way been processing written commands and reports for Duke as one would expect of a chief of staff? If so was this staff left behind when he left?
4. Many, many ADC/messengers were sent back, even as far as Auerstadt, by many Division and Brigade commanders ranging from Blucher down, pleading for more cavalry, or for the remainder of a brigade to be brought forward. Where did these ADC/messengers come from.
5. Early on, when the fog was still thick, many cavalry squadrons were parceled out for a time as pickets, patrols etc. Some of them backed of contingents of schutzen forcing the tirailleurs back from Taugwitz. If the cadre of ADC/messengers that Brigade commanders and higher used were drawn from the forces they were commanding would not much of these assets be drawn away by such duties leaving them short handed?
6. Artillery that got bogged down was pushed from the road. On whose orders? I'm guessing that ammunition and other logistics were handled by civilians as the French had largely done the year before.
Now I realize that any private can be sent as messenger. Heck when one messenger didn't return in time with reinforcements, Blucher sent his own son. Oh and this reminds me that Scharnhorst was sent out once to get news of Blucher even earlier in the battle, before being dismissed to Schmetteau latter on.
I feel like I can deduce quite a bit from all this. If there is some evidence I feel it must lie in a memoir or regimental history. Or deduced from something in passing from Die_Lehre_vom_Krieg by Ballantini, the Rangliste of Priesdorff, or from a manual. I have just grazed these sources.
So finally, here are my questions:
I. Did higher general officers draw around them a personal retinue the size of which was largely based on his wealth and social standing?
II. If a CinC had a chief of staff, did he have a staff? What kind of staff was it? How large?
III. On the battlefield itself, were orders written out, or were they sent verbally?
IV. Were cavalry and/or schutzen used as messengers more or were assets from the command structure of regiments sent/drawn to Brigade and thence even to division and above?
V. Often it seems desirable to have a messenger known to a regiment that has traveled from near that units deployment to the know location of the command post so that orders arrive without fail. Was this a standard practice?
VI. Was it common to use a dignitary or royal or well known and liked officer to take a situation in hand? Or cut through the politics?
VII. Was there anything like a command post? It would seem that if a commander were to change his location (mostly I am talking about the CinC here, it could be quite problematic, if no chain of communication were left in his wake.
VIII. Each Prussian battalion had a reserve of about 40 men that were usually more experienced and not a part of the file keepers or the third rank. There seems no shortage of messengers at this level. Though being mounted seems of importance. The battalion leader dismounted and marched with his men but it seems there were at least two or three mounted majors in a regiment. They seem to hold important positions but could they also be sent as messengers to command? It seems being mounted would be important.
You can see I am well infected by assumptions drawn from French practices.
In this light, does anyone have a handle on the Prussians when they were in the transition period and specifically during 1806?
Please hold forth.