to the policy of complaisance to France.  His appointment aroused anger and consternation; and General Kalckreuth expressed to Gentz the general opinion when he said that the Duke was quite incompetent for such a command:  “His character is not strong enough, his mediocrity, irresolution, and untrustworthiness would ruin the best undertaking.”  The Duke himself was aware of his incompetence.  Why then, we ask, did he accept the command?  The answer is startling; but it rests on the evidence of General von Mueffling: 

“The Duke of Brunswick had accepted the command in order to avert war.  I can affirm this with perfect certainty, since I have heard it from his own lips more than once.  He was fully aware of the weaknesses of the Prussian army and the incompetence of its officers."[102]

Thus there was seen the strange sight of a diffident, peace-loving King accompanying the army and sharing in all the deliberations; while these were nominally presided over by a despondent old man who still intrigued to preserve peace, and shifted on to the King the responsibility of every important act.  And yet there were able generals who could have acted with effect, even if they fell short of the opinion hopefully bruited by General Ruechel, that “several were equal to M. de Bonaparte.”  Events were to prove that Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Bluecher rivalled the best of the French Marshals; but in this war their lights were placed under bushels and only shone forth when the official covers had been shattered.  Scharnhorst, already renowned for his strategic and administrative genius, took part in some of the many councils of war where everything was discussed and little was decided; but his opinion had no weight, for on October 7th he wrote:  “What we ought to do I know right well, what we shall do only the gods know."[103] He evidently referred to the need of concentration.  At that time the thin Prussian lines were spread out over a front of eighty-five miles, the Saxons being near Gera, the chief army, under Brunswick, at Erfurth, while Ruechel was so far distant on the west that he could only come up at Jena just one hour too late to avert disaster.

And yet with these weak and scattered forces, Prince Hohenlohe proposed a bold move forward to the Main.  Brunswick, on the other hand, counselled a prudent defensive; but he could not, or would not, enforce his plan; and the result was an oscillation between the two extremes.  Had he massed all his forces so as to command the valleys of the Saale and Elster near Jena and Gera, the campaign might possibly have been prolonged until the Russians came up.  As it was, the allies dulled the ardour of their troops by marches, counter-marches, and interminable councils-of-war, while Napoleon’s columns were threading their way along those valleys at the average rate of fifteen miles a day, in order to turn the allied left and cut the connection between Prussia and Saxony.[104]