Another week in the books, another week closer to football season. And next week is the NFL draft, to boot. So, let’s celebrate with the very depressing battle of Eylau!
The Winter Campaign of 1807
As we discussed when we talked about Jena and Auerstadt last week, the War of the Fourth Coalition occurred rather suddenly, and rather late in 1806. As a result, it was deep in autumn when Davout broke the Prussian army and Auerstadt, and it took several weeks for Napoleon to complete securing most of Prussian territory, mopping up the remains of the Prussian army, other than a small detachment under Anton von L’Estocq. This detatchment, with the Royal Court of Prussia in town, marched east into Poland. The sudden and separate entry of Prussia into the war had surprised the Russians, who hustled an army as quickly as they could to Poland to reinforce, then rescue, the Prussians.
In November, Napoleon entered Warsaw, and decided to winter around the city. He moved the bulk of his army to the Russian side of the Vistula River, which runs through the city, so that he wouldn’t have to make an opposed crossing in the spring. In so doing, his men skirmished with the Russians around Christmas, holding their winter positions. Meanwhile, troops from the Confederation of the Rhine settled to protect the lines of communication and supply between the Grande Armee and France, while the Armee settled into winter quarters along the Vistula.
In early January, Levin August von Benningsen was promoted to command the Russian Army, replacing the much older general before him. Benningsen decided that, rather than establishing winter quarters, he would attempt to attack one of the separated French corps and destroy it in a surprise attack. Bernadotte’s corps was deployed to the northern end of the line, so it made sense to go after that isolated position. In mid-January, the Russians decamped and headed northwest.
The Russian maneuver would have come as a complete surprise, had not Ney, commanding another corps, decided to move out of position and against orders to a position north of his quarters. In so doing, his scouts spotted the Russian army and raised the alarm, allowing Bernadotte to organize his defenses and hold off the Russians. However, in spite of this fighting on January 25th, it wasn’t until the 27th that Napoleon realized the Russians were serious about a winter campaign, and the Emperor decided to get his act together.
Napoleon decided to have Bernadotte hold position, while he maneuvered the bulk of the army behind the Russians. However, the messenger that carried Bernadotte’s orders was captured by Cossacks, and failed to destroy his messages. Benningsen decided to abandon his plan, and stage a retreat to a stronger position while Napoleon began his maneuver on February 1st. It also meant that Bernadotte had no orders, and would miss the Battle of Eylau, just as he had missed both Jena and Auerstadt. If this were a soap opera, there would be a lot of dramatic scenes after the battle. (And this is a soap opera sometimes.)
Once the Russians begain their retreat, Napoleon reformed his army into a broad line. Davout and Soult proceeded on the left, Augereau at the center, and Marat and Ney on the right. As the march proceeded, Ney pursued L’Estocq’s Prussian troops, pulling him away from the main army, while Soult moved more to the center. On February 6th, the Russians and French skirmished outside of Landsberg. Napoleon, believing that the Russians would make a stand at Landsberg, recalled Ney from his shadowing of L’Estocq. Napoleon figured Bernadotte would replace Ney in blockading the Prussians, but Bernadotte had no idea where anyone else was. However, the Russians decided to pull back to the town of Eylau, and make their stand there.
The Battle of Eylau
February in East Prussia is cold today- highs in the mid 20s, on average. In 1807, it was even colder. The land around Eylau was blanketed in snow. There were many lakes, streams and waterways in the area, but all were frozen solid for the battle, creating a fairly broad area with little impediments to maneuver. The town itself lies in a valley between two low plateaus. In many ways, this area was designed for a bloody, drag out battle in the flintlock era, made extra miserable by the cold and wet. Over the course of the two days of the battle, the weather remained overcast, punctuated by winds blowing snow, and the occasional snow shower.
In was in these conditions that the battle met with a rather confused beginning. On February 7th, Napoleon, with Augereau and Soult, occupied the heights southwest of Eylau, with the Russians drawn up across the valley. Napoleon knew Davout was coming from the southwest, and Ney from the northeast, but they would not arrive until sometime the next day. Looking for a place to spend the night, Napoleon’s staff and baggage headed into Eylau to find some shelter. While there, they ran into a Russian patrol around 1400, and they began exchanging fire. Some of Soult’s men nearby marched to the sounds of shots, as did the Russians. As men marched on the town, reinforcements kept coming in from the two armies, and they spread out across the valley, exchanging fire across the snowy fields and assaulting the town. The town of Eylau changed hands seven times over the course of the afternoon and early evening, even into the darkness. The armies broke off around 2000, with the Russians retreating back to the northeastern heights while the French held the town.
Both armies drew up into a fairly formal arrangement. The Russians, with 65,000 men, drew up in a line across the heights overlooking the town, with 460 guns deployed along the line to await the French attack. At the base of the heights, the French arranged 45,000 men and 260 guns. Ostermann-Tolstoy’s men were on the Russian left, Sacken and Essen in the center, and Tuchkov’s division on the right. Soult’s corps lay on the French left, Augereau’s on the French right. Both sides held their cavalry and guards in reserve. The weather on the 8th was even worse than on the 7th, with snow constantly falling, occasionally rising to blizzard densities. Visibility was poor throughout the day, even more so in the early morning hours when the two sides deployed.
The battle began about 0800 with a Russian bombardment of the town of Eylau at the French center. The French responded with a counter-battery fire of fair effectiveness. This continued for an hour or so, when Napoleon ordered Soult to make an attack. Davout, on the French right, was close to entering the field. When he made it, Napoleon intended to envelop around the Russian line, and he hoped Soult’s attack would draw Russian reserves to the wrong side of the field.
The Russians stopped this plan cold. Soult’s attack went poorly, attacking up a hill into a strong Russian cannonade stocked with stout, disciplined defenders. As Soult’s attack faltered, Tuchkov deployed men from his second line of troops in a counterattack, driving Soult back and threatening to force the French left into retreat. Meanwhile, the lead division of Davout’s corps ran into Russian cavalry, who swarmed to the attack, halting their advance while they waited for support.
Napoleon decided the best way to support Davout’s men was with an attack against the Russian left. Augereau’s corps would attack to their front and right, pressuring the Russians, while his far right tried to link up with Davout’s men. The attack started off about 1000, and was a complete and total disaster. Augureau attacked into a full blizzard, and his men got lost. Rather than heading to their right, they drifted to the left, right in front of the main French artillery position. The French, blinded by snow, continued to fire, with no idea that their own men were in front of them. Meanwhile, the Russians responded first with a cannonade of their own, followed up with an assault from the Russian reserves. Smashed on all sides by cannon and assaults, Augereau’s corps dissolved completely, routing back to Elyau.
At 1030, a Russian column moved to Eylau itself, and brought Napoleon’s headquarters under fire. Napoleon’s bodyguard charged as he fled, and the Imperial Guard moved in to drive them back. Still, Napoleon was in a precarious place- his left was bending to the breaking point, his center had a giant hole in it, Davout was checked, and he had no idea where Ney was. He had two formations left- the Imperial Guard, who he decided to hold back, and 11,000 cavalrymen under Murat, who he did not. He ordered the horse to attack into the gap left in the line to clear it out.
The attack comprised one of the largest cavalry charges in history, and one of the more successful. Murat’s men swept up Ostermann’s attacking forces, which lay disordered in the poor visibility. Then they broke through Sacken’s lines. Once in the Russian rear, they doubled back as the Guard Cavalry charged from the front, catching Sacken’s division between them. Sacken’s troops collapsed, breaking and running as the French rode them down. Murat’s attack stabilized the French position, and allowed Davout to finally make his way onto the field.
Napoleon decided to hold the Guard in reserve, and ordered Davout to march against the Russian left. At 1300, Davout began his attack. The fugitives from Murat’s attack had to rally, as the Russian line stretched around to refuse its left flank. Reserves moved in that direction, loosening the pressure on Soult as the Russians scrambled for me. Davout kept moving north, extending his line until the Russians ran out of troops and he could turn the flank. By 1500, his men were fully deployed, and starting to bend the Russian flank back until it broke.
However, as Davout made his flank attack, L’Estocq’s men arrived on the field to the north. Benningsen ordered them to march behind the Russian army to face Davout. About 1600, he arrived on Davout’s flank, and began attacking in the fading light. The fighting turned bloody on the hills northeast of Eylau, as L’Estoq’s men drove Davout back and relieved the pressure on the Russian flank.
However, the battle was still not over. At 1900, Ney finally arrived in near darkness, and began a furious assault against the Russian right. The assault lost most of its momentum in the darkness, and fell into disorder. However, fighting in that area continued well into the night, finally breaking off around 2200. The two armies had spent 20 of the previous 28 hour in deadly combat all along the line. At 2300, Benningsen decided to retreat, moving out to the north. Napoleon decided to wait until morning to make his retreat, since his men were in too poor of shape to make any movement in the night. However, by 0300, he got word the Russians were gone. There was no pursuit possible for another day as his men tried to recover.
Eylau was one of the bloodiest battle of the era. Napoleon had won a frozen field with perhaps as many as 20,000 corpses on it, almost evenly split between Russian and French dead. Each side suffered another 15,000 or so wounded, out of a total fighting force of about 75,000 men per side- roughly 1 out of every 3 men in the battle were dead or seriously wounded by the end of February 8th.
Ney said it best on the morning of February 9th: "Quel massacre! Et sans résultat!”
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