During the course of 25 May, Napoleon wrote to Durosnel, the commandant of Dresden. This letter stated that the emperor planned to go to Bunzlau that day and from there to Glogau and Frankfurt-am-Oder. This intention accounted for the orders early that morning for his right wing to march northeast toward Liegnitz. Assuming that the Allied army would retreat to Breslau along the Russian main line of communication, Napoleon returned to the idea of a great strategic envelopment and combined it with the core tenet of his master plan: the taking of Berlin. While he fixed the Allies at the Silesian capital presumably with his right, he would swing north with his left, cross the Oder at Glogau and then swoop south to fall on the rear of the Allies at Breslau. Meanwhile, the advance of the Grande Armée downstream the Oder probably would force the Prussians to evacuate Berlin. If not, a reinforced Oudinot would dispatch Bülow and take the capital.

Yet rumors reached Imperial Headquarters that a portion of the Allied army had marched north to unite with Bülow. Did this mark the long anticipated split between the Prussians and Russians? If, as Napoleon expected, the Allied army continued the retreat from Bunzlau through Breslau along the Russian line of communication, the Prussians certainly would recognize that they could not follow their allies into Poland. If the Prussians indeed separated from the Russians, he could return to the idea of defeating each in detail. If they did not separate and did not detach any forces to support Bülow, he could pursue his plan of a strategic envelopment on the Oder. Thus, to determine his next move, he needed accurate intelligence. Consequently, Napoleon ordered II Corps, which stood seven miles northwest of Bunzlau at Thommendorf (Tomisław), to march twenty-five miles further north to Sprottau (Szprotawa) on the Bober.