its III Corps had 28,655 infantry, 1,538 cavalry, and 44 guns, its Imperial Guard had 4,900 infantry, 2,400 cavalry, and 36 guns, its Cavalry Reserve had 17,550 troopers and 30 guns. Not counted in the previous totals were 9,000 gunners, sappers, and others. The Prussian high command held several councils of war but no strategy could be agreed upon until a 5 October reconnaissance revealed Napoleon's forces were already moving north from Bayreuth toward Saxony. Then it was decided that Hohenlohe would move to Rudolstadt, Brunswick to Erfurt, and Rüchel to Gotha. The right wing would send forces to menace the French communications at Fulda. The Reserve under General Eugene Frederick Henry, Duke of Württemberg was ordered to move from Magdeburg to Halle. The Thuringian and Franconian Forests stretch northwestward from Bohemia. This area is composed of wooded mountains of about 750 meters altitude. In 1806, there were only a few poor roads through the tract. Napoleon selected his invasion route in the zone where the belt of rough terrain was narrowest, the Franconian Forest to the east. The French army crossed the Saxon border on 8 October, screened in front by light cavalry. Napoleon was not certain where the opposing Prussian-Saxon army was located, so his army was arranged in a battalion carré (battalion square), capable of concentrating against threats coming from any direction. Murat personally led the light cavalry screen in front of Napoleon's battalion carré. In the east General of Brigade Antoine Lasalle scouted toward Hof, while General of Brigade Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud probed toward Saalfeld to the west. Napoleon directed General of Brigade Pierre Watier to take one regiment from his brigade and push as far forward as possible in front of the I Corps. The objects of the light cavalry's attentions were the location of Prussian and Saxon units and details of the road net. On the 8th, Murat's horsemen seized the bridge at Saalburg-Ebersdorf. A small defending force fell back east to Gefell where it rendezvoused with General-Major Tauentzien as his division retreated north from Hof. That evening, Tauentzien assembled his troops at Schleiz. About 9,000 Saxons lay at Auma 15 kilometers north-northeast of Schleiz and Oberst Carl Andreas von Boguslawski's Prussian detachment was 18 kilometers north-northwest at Neustadt an der Orla. General-Major Christian Ludwig Schimmelpfennig's detachment of 600 cavalry was 20 kilometers to the northwest at Pößneck. Tauentzien's division counted 6,000 Prussians