Napoleon strained his eyes to make out the details of the battlefield to Lannes’s front. There was still a good deal of smoke obscuring both sides. But then he could see that Berthier was right.The enemy line had indeed halted, and even as Napoleon raised his telescope to look more closely he could make out the sergeants dressing the Prussian formations as if they were on a parade ground. As French fire plucked men out of the line, so they dressed ranks again and stood to attention, waiting.

‘What on earth are they playing at?’ asked Berthier. ‘Why don’t they continue to advance?’

‘God knows,’ Napoleon replied, and then swung his telescope across the battlefield. Ney was barely holding his own against the enemy cavalry but the Prussian artillery and infantry that had been advancing to trap his corps had also halted and were standing still, almost within musket range of the nearest French square. At first Napoleon could not understand it. Why would the Prussians throw away such a splendid opportunity to send the French line reeling back? Why delay? What were they waiting for?

Napoleon swept his telescope across the landscape, and then steadied it on a fresh mass of Prussian soldiers approaching the battlefield from the west. He estimated their strength to be at least ten thousand, and smiled as he realised what was happening. The enemy general was waiting for reinforcements before he launched what he hoped would be the decisive attack on the battered French line. So, the Prussians were performing true to form, Napoleon mused. Still the same cautious, plodding foe. Well, they would pay for their foolishness. Indeed, they already were. Lannes’s men sheltering in the buildings of the hamlet were pouring a withering fire on the smartly dressed Prussian lines. As soon as Lannes became aware that the enemy had halted he had given the order for his artillery to unlimber in range of the Prussians and open fire. Now, blast after blast of case shot smashed into the enemy lines, leaving ten or more men dead and wounded with each discharge. Napoleon watched with a grudging sense of admiration as the enemy stood their ground in the face of such fire. All the time they were being steadily cut down by French fire, each battalion contracting amid the carnage dealt by the cones of heavy iron balls blasted at them from the muzzles of the French guns.