Battle of Eylau
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| Battle of Eylau | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | Napoleonic Wars | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | February 1807 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Eylau, Poland | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Inconclusive | ||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Eylau, fought on February 7–8, 1807, was a bloody and inconclusive contest between the forces of Napoleon and a mostly Russian army under General Benigssen.
Eylau was the first serious check to the French Grand Armee, which in the previous two campaigning seasons had carried all before it, demolishing the armies of the established great powers of Europe at Austerlitz in December 1805 (Austria assisted by Russia), and Jena-Auerstedt (Prussia) in October 1806.
With the Prussian army reduced to a handful of harried fugitives after Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon occupied the major cities of Germany and marched on east in pursuit of the remaining forces opposed to him: largely Russians under the command of the frail 75-year-old Marshal Kamenskoi. Kamenskoi was unwilling to risk battle, and continued to retreat, leaving the Grand Armee free to enter Poland almost unopposed. After a series of inconclusive encounters, Napoleon's troops took up winter quarters in Poland to recuperate after a victorious but exhausting campaign.
In January 1807 the Russian forces, now under the command of General Benigssen, attempted to surprise the isolated French I Corps under Bernadotte. With his customary inventiveness, Napoleon turned the situation to his own advantage, instructing Bernadotte to withdraw before Benigssen's forces, and secretly manouvering with the balance of the Grand Armee to cut off the Russian retreat. The French plans fell into Russsian hands, however, and Benigssen was just able to retreat once more and avoid the trap.
By early February, the two armies were once again in close proximity, and the Russians turned at bay near Eylau. 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 Grand Armee to become more spread out than was his custom. In contrast, Benigssen's forces were already concentrated.
Soult's corps and Murat's cavalry were the first French formations to reach Eylau, at about 2:00PM on the 7th. During the afternoon, they were reinforced by Agereau's corps and the Imperial Guard, making up about 45,000 soldiers in all. Benigssen had 67,000 Russian troops with 460 guns already assembled. (The French had only 200.) The Russians could expect to be reinforced by the Lestocq's detachment of 9000 Prussians; the French by Davout's depleted III Corps — proud victors of Auerstedt but now only 15,000 strong — and Ney's 14,000-strong VI Corps, which was shadowing the Prussians. Bernadotte's I Corps was too far distant to take part.
The battle began when French forces advanced to occupy the town of Eylau. Authorities differ on the reasons. Napoleon later claimed that this was on his orders; that the advance had the dual aims of pinning the Russian force to prevent them retreating yet again, and 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 but did not act to quell. According to Captain Marbot — not always the most reliable of witnesses — the Emperor told Marshal Agereau 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 defendable position on which to wait for reinfocements.
Whatever the cause of the fighting on the first day, it rapidly escalated into a large and bitterly fought engagement, continuing well after night had fallen and resulting in about 4000 casualties to each side before Benigssen ordered the Russians to retreat a short way. Despite their possesion 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 disorganisation, the French because of problems with the roads, the weather, and the crush of troops hurrying towards the battle.
Dawn brought light but little warmth and no great improvement in visibility: the heavy snowstorms continued throughout the day. The opposing forces occupied two parallel ridges, and shortly after 8:00 an artillery duel commenced, the French having the best of it because of their more dispersed locations. Left without the manpower to develop any better plan, Napoleon opened the second day's infantry fighting with a frontal attack by Soult's IV Corps, supported by as much artillery as could be assembled. Though sure to be expensive, this was calculated to delay the Russian attack until Davout's corps had time to arrive on the right.
In reply, Benigssen launched a heavy attack on the French left, which soon forced the outnumbered Soult back, and a series of calvary actions against the first of Davout's troops, who were beginning to arrive on the extreme right. With an early defeat distinctly possible, Napoleon had little choice but to employ his major reserve force, Agereau's IV Corps, adding St Hilaire's division to it and flinging it into the Russian left with the intention of allowing Davout to deploy, and relieving the pressure on the opposite wing.
Agereau was very ill, having had to be helped onto his horse, and perhaps for this reason employed a complex formation that soon became hopelessly lost in the snow. IV Corps veered off line and advanced straight into the Russian centre, coming under the fire of the blinded French artillery, and then directly in front of a massive 70-gun Russian battery. Meanwhile, St Hilaire's division, advancing in the proper direction, was unable to have much effect.
Agereau's corps was almost wiped out. Benigssen took full advantage; falling on St Hilaire's division with more cavalry, and bringing up his reserve infantry to attack the devestated French centre. Agereau and the three or four thousand survivors fell back on Eylau, where they were attacked by about 5000 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 the brigades of the Guard to come up.
With his centre almost broken, Napoleon resorted to a desperate gamble, ordering a frontal charge by Murat's 11,000-strong cavalry reserve — aside from the Guard, the last unbloodied body of troops remaining to the French.
Thus began one of the greatest cavalry charges ever recorded. Murat's squadrons swept through the Russian infantry around Eylau and then divided into two wings. One charged into the flank of the Russian cavalry attacking St Hilaire's division, the other into the Russian infantry in the area where Agereau's corps had made its stand. Not content with these heavy blows, the cavalry reformed and charged straight through the Russian centre, reformed, wheeled, and charged back again, cutting down the gunners who had destroyed the IVth Corps, before retiring under the protection of the Guard cavalry. Murat had lost 1500 well-trained troopers, but relieved the pressure on Agereau, St Hilaire, and Soult and staved off a Russian victory for long enough to allow Davout to take a part. Never before had French cavalry risen to such heights. In part this was because, for the first time, Murat's men were now mounted on the best cavalry horses in Europe, freshly requisitioned in the aftermath of the conquest of Prussia.
Davout's corps was now in position and began to exert heavy pressure on 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 may have won the battle, but Napoleon was well aware that 9000 Prussians under Lestocq were still unaccounted for, and judged it wise to retain the Guard in reserve. Through the afternoon, Soult, Agerau, and Murat managed to hold their ground while Davout, assisted by St Hilaire, gradually bent the Russian left back further and further. By 3:30 it seemed that the Russian cohesion would soon break.
Meanwhile Lestocq's Prussian force had approached and passed behind the Russian position, gathering strength in doing so by collecting Russian stragglers and adding them to the 9000 Prussian trioops. At 4:00 Lestocq's fell on Davout's exposed flank, and the heartened Russians soon launched a fresh attack on the opposite wing. Over the next three hours Davout was forced back towards his original position and once again it seemed that Napoleon would be defeated unless more help could arrive.
For unexplained reasons, the Emperor had failed to recall Marshal Ney the previous evening, and only sent a messenger at 8:00 AM on the morning of the 8th. Although within marching distance of the battle, the heavy snow had muffled the sound of gunfire and Ney was completely unaware of events until the messenger reached him around 2:00PM. The leading division of Ney's corps reached the battlefield around 7:00PM and immediately swept forward into the Russian right. Bitter fighting continued until 10:00 PM, at which point both sides drew off a little.
After 14 hours of continuous battle, there was still no result bar enormous loss of life. Authorities differ, but a reasonable estimate of Russian casualties is about 15,000, the French somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000. At 11:00 PM, Bennigsen decided to withdraw and, covered by the Cossacks, the Russians silently began to leave. The exhausted French did not even notice until 3:00 AM and were in no condition to consider a pursuit. Technically, the French had gained possesion of the battlefield — nothing but a vast expanse of bloodstained snow and frozen corpses — but they had suffered enormous losses and failed to destroy the Russian army.
It was left to Marshal Ney to sum up. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Ney said Quell massacre! Es sans resultat.