I am not convinced of that - Berndotte's best position would have been to fight along with Davout - and that is the crunch. Napoléon completly failed to take into account that Davout would run into the main army (as for the Prussians pop up at Belle Alliance) and therefore failed to give those wonderfull assez claire instructions. All what he needed to do would be to just issue an order to Bernadotte to support Davout in case he is confronted by the enemy and disregard Napoléon completly. Such an order however was - according to the knowledge - Napoléon had - extremley unlikley there he was convinced to face a big Prussian army.
And then let us look how the battle at Jena devloped, it moved to the west to the last attack / stand of Rüchel.
When do you think would have been an approbriate time for Bernadotte to be at Apolda - at noon?

Hans-Karl:

I have no idea how appropriate it would have been. I also am not sure how 'along side' Davout Bernadotte could have been at Auerstadt if following Davout on the road out of Kosen. Unless Davout waited, Bernadotte would have been playing catch up with miles between the two forces. However, he certainly would have been in a better position at Alpolda to actually engage the enemy and/or cut off the retreat of both Prussian forces. There is no doubt that he would have been of better use to Napoleon and the French army if he had been either following Davout or at Apolda.

It is about 10 miles from the outskirts of Naumburg at the time to Dornburg. Bernadotte traveled only six miles on the 15th. So, his Corps was probably strung out on the road some four miles towards Dornburg, which is about right for a corps-sized force of all three arms.

The most reasonable course of action is marching to Dornburg when he received Davout's message at 4 am. With normal march speed, he *should* have been in Dornburg by 7 am and Apolda by 10am. Figure 12pm for all his forces to come up and finally shake out for battle.

Bill