Battle of Eylau
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2008) |
Battle of Eylau | |||||||
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Part of the War of the Fourth Coalition | |||||||
Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau by Antoine-Jean Gros | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
French Empire |
Russian Empire Kingdom of Prussia | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Napoleon Bonaparte Charles-Pierre Augereau (WIA) Louis-Alexandre Berthier Jean-Baptiste Bessières Louis-Nicolas Davout Joachim Murat Michel Ney Jean-de-Dieu Soult |
Levin August von Bennigsen Barclay de Tolly (WIA) Pyotr Bagration Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
75,000:[3][1] Napoleon: 45,000 Ney: 14,500 Davout: 15,000 300 guns |
76,000-83,000:[3][1] Bennigsen: 67,000 L'Estocq: 9,000 400 guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
15,000–29,643[1][b] | 15,000[11][12]–26,000[13][5][1] | ||||||
The Battle of Eylau, or Battle of Preussisch-Eylau, was a bloody and strategically inconclusive battle on 7 and 8 February 1807 between Napoleon's Grande Armée and the Imperial Russian Army under the command of Levin August von Bennigsen near the town of Preussisch Eylau in East Prussia.[14] Late in the battle, the Russians received timely reinforcements from a Prussian division of von L'Estocq. After 1945, the town was renamed Bagrationovsk as part of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The engagement was fought during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
Napoleon's armies had smashed the army of the
In late January,
In a vicious evening clash, the French captured the village, with heavy losses on both sides. The following day brought even more serious fighting. Early in the battle, a frontal attack by Napoleon failed, with catastrophic losses. To reverse the situation, he launched a massed cavalry charge against the Russians. That bought enough time for the French right wing to throw its weight into the contest. The Russian left wing was soon bent back at an acute angle, and Bennigsen's army was in danger of collapse. A Prussian corps belatedly arrived and saved the day by pushing back the French right. As darkness fell, a French corps tardily appeared on the French left. That night, Bennigsen decided to retreat, leaving Napoleon in possession of a snowy battlefield covered with thousands of dead and wounded.
Eylau was the first serious check to the Grande Armée, and the myth of Napoleon's invincibility was badly shaken.[15] The French went on to decisively defeat Bennigsen's army at the Battle of Friedland, four months later.
Background
With the Prussian army routed at Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon occupied the major cities of Germany and marched east in pursuit of the remaining forces opposed to him. These were largely Russians under the command of the frail 68-year-old
In January 1807, the new Russian army commander,
As Bennigsen hurriedly assembled his army at Jonkowo, elements of Marshal
By early February, the Russian army was in full retreat and was relentlessly pursued by the French. After several aborted attempts to stand and fight, Bennigsen resolved to retreat to the town of Preussisch-Eylau and there make a stand. During the pursuit, perhaps influenced by the dreadful state of the Polish roads, the savage winter weather and the relative ease with which his forces had dealt with Prussia, Napoleon had allowed the Grande Armée to become more spread out than was his custom. In contrast, Bennigsen's forces were already concentrated.
Battle
First day
Marshal
The rearguard action continued when French forces advanced to assault Barclay's forces in the town of Eylau. Historians differ on the reasons. Napoleon later claimed that was on his orders and that the advance had the dual aims of pinning the Russian force to prevent it from retreating yet again and of providing his soldiers with at least some shelter against the terrible cold. Other surviving evidence, however, strongly suggests that the advance was unplanned and occurred as the result of an undisciplined skirmish, which Marshals Soult and Murat should have acted to quell but failed to do so. Whether or not Napoleon and his generals had considered securing the town to provide the soldiers with shelter for the freezing night, the soldiers may have taken action on their own initiative to secure such a shelter. According to Captain Marbot, the Emperor had told Marshal Augereau that he disliked night fighting, that he wanted to wait until the morning so that he could count on Davout's Corps to come up on the right wing and Ney's on the left and that the high ground before Eylau was a good easily defensible position on which to wait for reinforcements.
Whatever the cause of the fight for the town, it rapidly escalated into a large and bitterly fought engagement, continuing well after night had fallen and resulting in about 4,000 casualties to each side, including Barclay, who was shot in the arm and forced to leave the battlefield. Among other officers, French Brig. Gen. Pierre-Charles Lochet was shot and killed. At 22:00 Bennigsen ordered the Russians to retreat a short distance, leaving the town to the French. He later claimed he abandoned the town to lure the French into attacking his center the next day. Despite their possession of the town, most of the French spent the night in the open, as did all of the Russians. Both sides did without food—the Russians because of their habitual disorganization, the French because of problems with the roads, the weather and the crush of troops hurrying towards the battle.
During the night, Bennigsen withdrew some of his troops from the front line to strengthen his reserve. That resulted in the shortening of his right wing.
Second day
Bennigsen had 67,000 Russian troops and 400 guns already assembled, but the French had only 49,000 troops and 300 guns. The Russians could expect to be reinforced by
Dawn brought light but little warmth and no great improvement in visibility since the heavy snowstorms continued throughout the day. The opposing forces occupied two parallel ridges. The French were active early on probing the Russian position, particularly on the Russian right. Bennigsen, fearing that the French would discover that he had shortened his right, opened the battle by ordering his artillery to fire on the French. They replied and the ensuing artillery duel lasted for some time, with the French having the best of it because of their more dispersed locations.
The start of the artillery duel galvanised Napoleon. Until then, he had expected the Russians to continue their retreat, but he now knew that he had a fight on his hands. Messengers hurriedly were dispatched to Ney to order him to march on Eylau and to join the French left wing.
Meanwhile, the French had occupied in force some
To forestall the perceived Russian attack on Eylau and to pin the Russian army so that Davout's flank attack would be more successful, Napoleon launched an attack against the Russian centre and left, with Augereau's VII Corps on the left and
Augereau was very ill and had to be helped onto his horse. Fate intervened to turn the attack into a disaster. As soon as the French marched off a blizzard descended, causing all direction to be lost. Augereau's corps followed the slope of the land and veered off to the left, away from Saint-Hilaire. Augereau's advance struck the Russian line at the junction of its right and centre, coming under the fire of the blinded French artillery and then point-blank fire of the massive 70-gun Russian centre battery. Meanwhile, Saint-Hilaire's division, advancing alone in the proper direction, was unable to have much effect against the Russian left.
Augereau's corps was thrown into great confusion with heavy losses,[20] gives Augereau's official tally[who?] of 929 killed and 4,271 wounded. One regiment, the 14th Ligne, was unable to retreat and fought to the last man, refusing to surrender; its eagle was carried off by Captain Marbot. Its position would be marked by a square of corpses.[21] Bennigsen took full advantage by falling on Saint-Hilaire's division with more cavalry and bringing up his reserve infantry to attack the devastated French centre. Augereau and 3,000 to.4,000 survivors fell back on Eylau, where they were attacked by about 5,000 Russian infantry. At one point, Napoleon himself, using the church tower as a command post, was nearly captured, but members of his personal staff held the Russians off for just long enough to allow some battalions of the Guard to come up. Counterattacked by the Guard's bayonet charge and Bruyère's cavalry in its rear, the attacking Russian column was nearly destroyed.[22] For four hours, the French centre was in great disorder, virtually defenceless and in imminent danger.[23]
With his centre almost broken, Napoleon resorted to ordering a massive charge by Murat's 11,000-strong cavalry reserve. Aside from the Guard, that was the last major unbloodied body of troops remaining to the French.
Cavalry charge at Eylau
Thus began one of the greatest cavalry charges in history. Somewhat obscured by the weather, Murat's squadrons charged through the Russian infantry around Eylau and then divided into two groups. The group on the right, Grouchy's dragoons, charged into the flank of the Russian cavalry attacking Saint-Hilaire's division and scattered them completely. Now led by Murat himself, the dragoons wheeled left against the Russian cavalry in the centre, and, joined by d'Hautpoult's cuirassier division, drove the Russian cavalry back on their infantry. Fresh Russian cavalry forced Murat and the dragoons to retire, but d'Hautpoult's cuirassiers burst through everything, and the broken Russians were cut to pieces by fresh regiments of cuirassiers.
D'Hautpoult then rode through the Russian guns, chased off or sabered the gunners, and broke through the first line of Russian infantry. He meanwhile trampled a battalion that had attempted to stand. The cuirassiers forced their way through the second line of Russians, and it was only after 2,500 yards that the charge finally expended its force in front of the Russian reserves. A second wave of cavalry consisting of the Guards, and Grouchy's dragoons now charged the Russians as they attempted to reform and rode through both lines of infantry. Another group charged into the Russian infantry in the area in which Augereau's corps had made its stand. Not content with the heavy blows, the cavalry reformed, wheeled and charged back again. It finally retired under the protection of the Guard cavalry. Murat had lost 1,000–1,500 well-trained troopers[24] but relieved the pressure on Augereau, Saint-Hilaire and Soult, paralyzing the Russians long enough to allow Davout to deploy in strength. Rarely had French cavalry played such a pivotal part in a battle. That was in part because for the first time, Murat's men were now mounted on the best cavalry horses in Europe, which had been freshly requisitioned in the aftermath of the conquest of Prussia.
Davout's corps, about 15,000 strong, was now in position and began to drive in the Russian left. Despite the disarray of the Russian centre, Napoleon declined to follow up Murat's charge by advancing with the Guard. Such a move might have decisively won the battle, but Napoleon, well aware that 9,000 Prussians under L'Estocq and his chief of staff, Gerhard von Scharnhorst were still unaccounted for, judged it wise to retain the Guard in reserve. Through the afternoon Soult, Augereau and Murat managed to hold their ground while Davout, assisted by Saint-Hilaire, gradually bent the Russian left back further and further, pushing it to a right angle with the Russian centre. By 15:30, it seemed that the Russians' cohesion would soon break, as their left was in full retreat.[25]
For several crucial hours, Bennigsen could not be found. He had personally ridden to L'Estocq to urge that general to hasten the march of his Prussian corps to the battlefield. His mission was successful since L'Estocq's 9,000-man Prussian force, having lost a third of its strength to Ney's pursuit, approached the battlefield via the Russian right and passed completely behind the Russian position to its left wing. It gathered strength in doing so by collecting Russian stragglers and adding them to the 6,000 remaining Prussian troops. At 16:00, L'Estocq counterattacked by falling on Davout's exposed right flank, and the heartened Russians soon launched a fresh attack against Davout. The Russian situation was also improved by the accurate fire of 36 guns under
By then, the roar of cannons on the Russian right had announced Ney's arrival. Napoleon had not recalled Ney until 08:00 of the 8th, when he realised that the Russians intended to fight. Although Ney was within marching distance of the battle, the heavy snow had muffled the sound of cannon fire, and he was completely unaware of the events until a messenger reached him around 10:30. Somewhat delayed by L'Estocq's rear guard, the leading division of Ney's corps did not reach the battlefield until around 19:00 and immediately swept forward into the Russian right and rear. Bennigsen counterattacked, and bitter fighting continued until 22:00, when both sides drew off a little. After a contentious council of war in which several of his generals forcefully argued for continuing the fight for a third day, Bennigsen at 23:00 decided to withdraw, and covered by the Cossacks, the Russians silently began to leave. The exhausted French did not even notice until 03:00 and were in no condition to pursue.
Aftermath
After 14 hours of continuous battle, the only result was an enormous loss of life. Authors differ greatly in their assessments of the relative losses: estimates of Russian casualties range from about 15,000[11][12] to 20,000 killed or wounded and 3,000 men, 23 cannon and 16 colors captured.[5] Count von Bennigsen estimated his losses at up to 9,000 dead and 7,000 wounded.[27] The French lost somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. Connelly suggests probably over 15,000.[6] Franceschi gives 14,000[28] and Adams, Petre and Dwyer give 25,000–30,000[29][8][9] with five eagles lost. David G. Chandler suggested as many as 25,000 French casualties[11] but concedes that it is impossible to be certain.[4] According to estimates of the German historian Horst Schulz, the French lost 4,893 men killed, 23,598 wounded and 1,152 missing in action, for a total of 29,643.[10]
The French had gained possession of the battlefield, which was nothing but a vast expanse of bloodstained snow and frozen corpses, but they had suffered enormous losses and failed to destroy the Russian army. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Marshal Ney observed, Quel massacre! Et sans résultat! ("What a massacre! And without result!").[30]
The Battle of Eylau was a major contrast to the decisive victories that characterized Napoleon's earlier campaigns. By halting the French advance and leaving the two sides exhausted but evenly matched, it served only to prolong the war. After the battle, Napoleon sent General Bertrand to the King of Prussia to offer a separate peace, which would see French forces withdraw from Prussia and her borders completely restored. Prussia, wishing to continue its alliance with Russia, quickly rejected that offer.[31] Hostilities continued until the decisive French victory at the Battle of Friedland in June 1807 forced Tsar Alexander I to the negotiating table. After a personal meeting between the two emperors, both sides signed the peace Treaties of Tilsit. They were much harsher on Prussia than the earlier peace offer and resulted in the loss of almost half of its territory.
The surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon's Grand Army, Baron
In literature and the arts
Antoine-Jean Gros painted Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau in Paris in 1808.[33]
The battle is included in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.[34]
The Battle of Eylau forms the early part of the novel The Schirmer Inheritance (1953) by Eric Ambler. The brutal battle and its immediate aftermath are depicted from the point of view of an ordinary soldier, a Prussian cavalry sergeant, who is severely wounded by a French saber in the later part of the confused fighting and whose only chance of saving his life is to desert and find shelter with Polish peasants in the neighborhood.
In the novel
The Battle of Eylau was reconstructed in the home computer strategy game Napoleon at War released by C.C.S. in 1986 and written by Ken Wright.
The second day of the battle was shown in the miniseries Napoléon.[35]
Explanatory notes
- ^ This was administered by Poland as Iławka between 1945 and 1946. It is now in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast and was renamed Bagrationovsk in 1946, after the Russian general who commanded part of the Russian army.
- ^ Chandler suggests that casualties may have been as high as 25,000 but concedes the actual number cannot be determined;[4] Franceschi gives 14,000;[5] Connelly suggests probably over 15,000.[6] Other sources suggest that their losses approached almost 30,000.[7][8][9] According to the estimates of the German historian Horst Schulz, the French lost 4,893 men killed, 23,598 wounded and 1,152 missed in action, which makes a total of 29,643.[10]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Bodart 1908, p. 380.
- ^ "Napoleon's Costly Victory at Eylau".
- ^ a b Chandler 1966, p. 536.
- ^ a b Chandler 1966, p. 548.
- ^ a b c Franceschi & Weider 2007, p. 118.
- ^ a b Connelly 2005, p. 137.
- ^ Murphy 2014.
- ^ a b Petre 2001, p. 205.
- ^ a b Dwyer 2013.
- ^ a b Schulz 1983, p. 99.
- ^ a b c Chandler 2009, p. 1119.
- ^ a b Petre 2001, p. XI.
- ^ Asprey 2008, p. 58.
- ^ Haythornthwaite 1996, Chapter 3.
- ^ Chandler 1966, p. xxxiii.
- ^ a b Petre 1976, pp. 150–151.
- ^ Smith 1998, p. 240.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 152.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 154–155.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 178.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 197.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 180.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 202.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 183.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 188.
- ^ Petre 1976, p. 194.
- ^ Майков 1990, p. 148.
- ^ Franceschi & Weider 2007.
- ^ Adams 2014, p. 155.
- ^ Fezensac 1863, p. 149.
- ^ Lloyd 1906, p. 287.
- ^ Béraud 1841–1842.
- ^ Prendergast 1997, La Bataille d’Eylau.
- ^ Tolstoy 1949, pp. 204, 219.
- ^ "Saint John Gazette".
References
- Adams, M. (2014). Napoleon and Russia. A&C Black.[ISBN missing]
- Asprey, Robert (2008). The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-7867-2537-3.
- Béraud (1841–1842), "Études Hygiéniques de la chair de cheval comme aliment", Musée des Familles (in French), archived from the originalon 16 April 2021
- Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618–1905) (in German). Retrieved 23 June 2021.
- Broers, Michael (2014). Europe Under Napoleon. I.B. Tauris.[ISBN missing]
- ISBN 0-02-523660-1.
- Chandler, David (2009). The Campaigns of Napoleon. Simon and Schuster.
- Connelly, Owen (2005). The Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1792–1815. Routledge. p. 137. ISBN 0-415-23983-4.
- Crawley, C. W. (1965). The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume 9, War and Peace in an Age of Upheaval, 1793–1830. Cambridge University Press.[ISBN missing]
- Dowling, Timothy C. (2014). Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan. ABC-CLIO.[ISBN missing]
- Dwyer, Ph. (2013). Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power 1799–1815. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1408837818.
- Fezensac, Raymond Aymery Philippe Joseph de Montesquiou, Duc de (1863). Souvenirs militairies de 1804 à 1814.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Fisher, Todd (2001). The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise of the Emperor 1805–1807. Taylor & Francis.
- Franceschi, General Michel; Weider, Ben (2007). The Wars Against Napoleon. New York: Savas Beatie. ISBN 978-1-932714-37-1.
- Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2006). The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: a political, social, and military history. Vol. I. ABC-CLIO.
- Haythornthwaite, Philip J. (1996). Die Hard! Famous Napoleonic Battles. London: Cassell.
- Lloyd, Colonel (1906). "Chapter 10". The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 9. New York: The MacMillan Company.
- Майков, П. (1990). Записки графа Л. Л. Беннигсена о войне с Наполеоном 1807 года (in Russian). СПб. P. M. Maikov. Notes of Count L. L. Bennigsen on the 1807 War with Napoleon.
- Longley, David (2000). Longman Companion to Imperial Russia, 1689–1917. Routledge.
- Murphy, Major Edward J. (2014). A Tarnished Eagle: Napoleon's Winter Campaign In Poland, December 1806 Through February 1807. Pickle Partners Publishing. ISBN 978-1782898702.
- Nicholls, David (1999). Napoleon: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO.
- Petre, F. Loraine (2001). Napoleon's Campaign in Poland 1806–1807. Frontline Books.
- Petre, F. Loraine (1976) [1907]. Napoleon's Campaign in Poland 1806–1807. London: Lionel Leventhal.
- Prendergast, Christopher (1997). Napoleon and History Painting: Antoine-Jean Gros's. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Schulz, H. (1983). Der Kreis Preußisch-Eylau. Geschichte und Dokumentation eines ostpreußischen Landkreises. Verden/Aller.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ISBN 1-85367-276-9.
- Tolstoy, Leo (1949). War and Peace. Garden City: International Collectors Library.
- Woolf, Stuart (2002). Napoleon's Integration of Europe. Routledge.
External links
- Media related to Battle of Eylau at Wikimedia Commons
Preceded by Battle of Mohrungen |
Napoleonic Wars Battle of Eylau |
Succeeded by Battle of Ostrołęka (1807) |