Battle of Eylau
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.[13] 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 Austrian Empire in the Ulm Campaign and the combined Austrian and Russian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz on 2 December 1805. On 14 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.
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.[14] The French went on to decisively defeat Bennigsen's army at the Battle of Friedland, four months later.
Aftermath[edit]
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[10][11] to 20,000 killed or wounded and 3,000 men, 23 cannon and 16 colors captured.[4] Count von Bennigsen estimated his losses at up to 9,000 dead and 7,000 wounded.[26] The French lost somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. Connelly suggests probably over 15,000.[5] Franceschi gives 14,000[27] and Adams, Petre and Dwyer give 25,000–30,000[28][7][8] with five eagles lost. David G. Chandler suggested as many as 25,000 French casualties[10] but concedes that it is impossible to be certain.[3] 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.[9]
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!").[29]
The Battle of Eylau was a major contrast to the decisive victories that characterized Napoleon's earlier campaigns, and would be a sign of the brutal slugfest for battles that were to come. 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.[30] 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 Dominique-Jean Larrey, served the wounded with the flesh of young horses as soup and bœuf à la mode. The good results encouraged him to promote the consumption of horse meat in France. Larrey is quoted in French by Béraud.[31]
In literature and the arts[edit]
Antoine-Jean Gros painted Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau in Paris in 1808.[32]
The battle is included in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.[33]
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.[34]
