Though forced to give ground, the Prussians successfully kept the French from inflicting serious loss or cutting off any units in this War of the Fourth Coalition action.

The Battle of Prenzlau on 28 October 1806 ended with the capitulation of General of Infantry Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen with his surviving 10,000 Prussian troops to Marshal Joachim Murat.

[5] The commander of the I Corps, Marshal Bernadotte[6] picked up news of Hohenlohe on the 25th when he was at Brandenburg an der Havel and determined to follow the Prussians.

[7] Bernadotte sent Colonel Étienne Maurice Gérard with his 2nd Hussar Regiment[8] to harass the Prussian retreat and turned his corps northwest on the 30th.

[9] Winning's force, originally led by General Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, missed the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt on 14 October and had been trailing Blücher ever since.

[10] Winning wanted to reach Rostock to the north, and, to this end, he ordered General-Major Karl Georg Friedrich von Wobeser to move ahead and prepare the port for evacuation.

Blücher moved to the northeast via Hohen Wangelin, covered by a rear guard under General-Major Friedrich Gottlieb von Oswald.

Winning marched east along the north shore of several lakes, covered by Oberst von Pletz's rear guard.

That morning in Waren,[13] Colonel Claude-Étienne Guyot with the 400-strong 22nd Chasseurs à Cheval from Soult's corps surrounded and captured Major Schmude and 170 dragoons.

For a loss of only one killed, 15 wounded, and 10 missing, the Prussian hussars threw Guyot's cavalry back into Waren and freed Schmude and his men.

[15] On the outskirts of Waren, the French light cavalry began a series of skirmishes with the Prussian horsemen that lasted from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

[a] While historian Francis Loraine Petre notes that Pletz was the rear guard commander, he credits Yorck with the tactical control of the battle.

Savary detected Oswald's rear guard at Sommerstorf northwest of Waren and prepared to attack, but Bernadotte recalled him to Jabel.

The cavalry attack failed amid marshes and water-filled ditches, but Drouet drove Yorck's men out of the village after a hard fight.

Petre, who gives no casualty figures, suggested that the Prussians had only about 2,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry available, in addition to a half battery of horse artillery, plus regimental guns.

[21] Petre credits the Prussian success to Yorck's tactical competence and the fact that his troops missed the Jena-Auerstedt disaster.