Читать книгу Battlefields - Michael Rayner - Страница 22

VISITING THE BATTLEFIELDS TODAY

Оглавление

Both battlefields are easily accessible and relatively unspoiled. Recommended maps are the German Topographische Karte series 1:25 000 numbers 4835 Eckartsberga, 4935 Apolda and 5035 Jena (plus 5034 Weimar to cover the final stages of the Jena battle). The street map of Jena (Stadtplan Jena mit Umgebungskarte) published by Falk-Verlag is also very useful for the Jena battle, particularly the Umgebungskarte side at 1:100 000 which covers the whole area from Jena to Weimar to Apolda to Eckartsberga and Naumberg.

At Jena, the route taken by V Corps to ascend the Landgrafenberg begins at a turning off the Humboldt Strasse called ‘Am Steiger’. At first a pleasant residential street, this road eventually becomes a forest track (closed to private vehicles) which leads up to the Windknölle, the highest point of the Landgrafenberg. It was here that French Army HQ was established on the evening of 13 October. The sadly graffiti-disfigured Napoleonstein is alleged to be the site of Napoleon’s tent, but this seems unlikely – a better campsite would surely be in the hollow below the stone. Furthermore, the site does not offer a view of the Prussian front line, for which one needs to walk about 200m to the northern edge of the Windknölle.

In the village of Cospeda is the excellent small museum (Gedenkstätte 1806), with good models of phases of the battle. The whole of the Jena battlefield is marked with standing stones marking the positions of units at various times. A sketch map is displayed at numerous points to help visitors who wish to ‘walk the battlefield’.

For the Auerstädt battlefield (modern spelling Auerstedt), the visitor is recommended to follow Davout’s route from Naumburg, across the bridge at Kösen and up the steep hill to the plateau and the village of Hassenhausen. The site of Davout’s tactical headquarters is about 600m (650 yards) north of the village, and is marked with a stone similar to those at Jena. This spot offers a splendid viewpoint.

At Eckartsberga there is a fine model diorama at the Schloss, with a commentary in German. At the Schloss Auerstädt, which was the Prussian HQ at the start of the battle (and Davout’s after), there is another small museum with interesting exhibits.

The memorial to the Duke of Brunswick, on the spot where he was mortally wounded, can be found at grid reference 751656, midway between Hassenhausen and Taugwitz.


Memorial to the Duke of Brunswick. As a result of his death Brunswick units adopted black uniforms, which would prove to be doubly appropriate in 1815 when the then Duke of Brunswick fell mortally wounded at the battle of Quatre Bras, two days before Waterloo.


Battlefields

Подняться наверх