Battle of Eylau
Napoleon's armies smashed the army of the Austrian Empire in the Ulm Campaign and the combined Austrian and Russian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz on the 2nd of December 1805. On the 14th of October 1806, Napoleon crushed the armies of the Kingdom of Prussia at the Battle of Jena, Auerstedt and hunted down the scattered Prussians at Prenzlau, Lübeck, Erfurt, Pasewalk, Stettin, Magdeburg and Hamelin. In late January, Bennigsen's Russian army went on the offensive in East Prussia, pushing far to the west. Napoleon reacted by mounting a counteroffensive to the north, hoping to prevent their retreat to the east. After his Cossacks had captured a copy of Napoleon's orders, Bennigsen rapidly withdrew to the northeast to avoid being cut off. The French pursued for several days and found the Russians drawn up for battle at Eylau.
Marshal Soult's IV Corps and Marshal Murat's cavalry were the first French formations to reach the plateau before Eylau at about 14:00 on the 7th. The Russian rearguard under Bagration occupied positions on the plateau about a mile in front of Eylau. The French promptly assaulted the positions and were repulsed. During the afternoon, the French were reinforced by Marshal Augereau's corps and the Imperial Guard, giving him a force of about 45,000 soldiers in all. Under pressure of greatly superior forces, Bagration conducted an orderly retreat to join the main army. It was covered by another rearguard detachment in Eylau that was led by Barclay de Tolly. 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.
Dawn brought little warmth and no great improvement in visibility since the heavy snowstorms continued throughout the day. The opposing forces occupied two parallel ridges. 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. 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, Historian Francis Petre gives Augereau's official tally of 929 killed and 4,271 wounded; a total of 5,200.
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. 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.
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 Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov. Over the next three hours, Davout was halted and forced back to a line running from the village of Kutschitten to near the village of Anklappen towards Saint-Hilaire's right by Eylau. Davout, alert to the danger, formed a battery of his guns on the heights of Klein Sausgarten and personally rallied his troops while his guns drove the Prussians back into the woods.
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 to 20,000 killed or wounded and 3,000 men, 23 cannon and 16 colors captured. Count von Bennigsen estimated his losses at up to 9,000 dead and 7,000 wounded. The French lost somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. Connelly suggests probably over 15,000. Franceschi gives 14,000 and Adams, Petre and Dwyer give 25,000, 30,000 with five eagles lost. David G. Chandler suggested as many as 25,000 French casualties but concedes that it is impossible to be certain. 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. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Marshal Ney observed, Quel massacre! Et sans résultat! (What a massacre! And without result!). The surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon's Grand Army, Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, served the wounded with the flesh of young horses as soup and bœuf à la mode.
Antoine-Jean Gros painted Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau in Paris in 1808. The battle is included in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. 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 Le Colonel Chabert of French author Honoré de Balzac, Eylau is the battle where the colonel describes having been mistakenly reported as killed. 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.
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Common questions
When did the Battle of Eylau take place?
The Battle of Eylau took place on the 7th of February 1807. Heavy snowstorms and blizzards continued throughout the day, creating terrible cold conditions for both armies.
Who commanded the French forces at the Battle of Eylau?
Napoleon commanded the French army during the Battle of Eylau. Marshal Soult's IV Corps and Marshal Murat's cavalry were among the first formations to reach the plateau before Eylau at about 14:00 on the 7th of February 1807.
What was the outcome of the Battle of Eylau?
After 14 hours of continuous battle, the only result was an enormous loss of life with no decisive victory. Marshal Ney observed the aftermath as a massacre without result, stating Quel massacre! Et sans résultat!
How many casualties occurred during the Battle of Eylau?
Estimates of Russian casualties range from about 15,000 to 20,000 killed or wounded and 3,000 men captured. The German historian Horst Schulz estimated that the French lost 4,893 men killed, 23,598 wounded and 1,152 missing in action, for a total of 29,643.
Why did the French advance into the town of Eylau?
Napoleon later claimed that the advance was on his orders to pin the Russian force to prevent it from retreating yet again and to provide soldiers shelter against the terrible cold. Other evidence suggests the advance was unplanned and occurred as the result of an undisciplined skirmish.