Battle of Eylau (1807): Napoleon's Bloody Snowbound Stalemate

The Battle of Eylau was fought on 7 and 8 February 1807 around the town of Preussisch Eylau in East Prussia between Napoleon’s Grande Armee and a Russian army under General Levin August von Bennigsen, supported by a Prussian corps. Fought largely in snow and freezing wind, it was one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic Wars and the first major check to Napoleon’s run of victories. It ended in a costly stalemate.

Background

After destroying the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806, Napoleon advanced into Poland to meet the Russian armies that had come to support Prussia. The French occupied Warsaw in late November, and after inconclusive fighting in December both sides expected to rest in winter quarters.

In January 1807 Bennigsen launched a surprise winter offensive against the French positions in East Prussia. Napoleon gathered his corps to counter-attack and try to cut the Russians off from Konigsberg, and Bennigsen fell back until he chose to stand at Eylau.

The first day

On 7 February the French advance guard under Marshal Joachim Murat and Marshal Nicolas Soult pushed the Russian rearguard back into the town of Eylau. Fierce fighting for the town and its churchyard continued into the night, with heavy losses on both sides. By nightfall the French held most of the town, and soldiers of both armies spent the night in the open in bitter cold.

The second day and the great charge

On 8 February Napoleon had roughly 45,000-50,000 men on hand, with the corps of Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout approaching from the south-east and Marshal Michel Ney further away to the north. Bennigsen had around 65,000-70,000 Russians and some 450 guns, and expected a Prussian corps under General Anton Wilhelm von L’Estocq.

The battle opened with an artillery duel. To pin the Russians until Davout arrived, Napoleon sent Marshal Pierre Augereau’s VII Corps against the Russian centre. A sudden snowstorm blinded the attackers, who drifted off course into the fire of a massed Russian battery and were then charged by Russian infantry and cavalry. Augereau’s corps was shattered and Augereau himself was wounded. Russian troops pushed close to the Eylau churchyard where Napoleon stood.

To save the position, Napoleon ordered Murat to charge with the reserve cavalry, around 10,000 or more horsemen. The massed squadrons of dragoons and cuirassiers broke through the Russian lines and rode through them and back, in one of the largest cavalry charges in history. General Jean-Joseph d’Hautpoul was mortally wounded leading the heavy cavalry. The charge stopped the Russian advance and gave Napoleon time.

The afternoon and night

In the early afternoon Davout’s corps attacked the Russian left from the south and began to roll it back. Then, late in the day, L’Estocq’s Prussians, about 7,000-9,000 men, arrived after marching around Ney and counter-attacked Davout, halting his advance. Ney’s corps appeared on the northern flank only in the evening.

That night Bennigsen decided to withdraw towards Konigsberg. The French were too exhausted to pursue.

Casualties

Losses were enormous for a two-day battle, but figures are disputed. Many historians estimate French casualties at roughly 20,000-25,000 killed and wounded, and Russian casualties at about 15,000-25,000, while Napoleon’s official bulletins admitted only a fraction of the French losses. Thousands of wounded died of cold on the open, snow-covered field. The French chief surgeon, Dominique-Jean Larrey, and his staff worked through the night in freezing conditions, and survivors described the field the next morning as one of the most terrible sights of the wars. Napoleon stayed at Eylau for more than a week, partly to show that he held the field.

Consequences and legacy

Napoleon claimed victory because he held the field, but he had failed to destroy the Russian army, and both sides went into winter quarters. The campaign was decided only in June 1807, when Napoleon defeated Bennigsen at Friedland, leading to the Treaties of Tilsit.

Eylau’s horror shaped how it was remembered. The government held a competition to paint the scene, won by Antoine-Jean Gros with Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau (1808), now in the Louvre, which shows the emperor among the dead and wounded in the snow. Honore de Balzac set the story of his novella Colonel Chabert on a cavalry officer left for dead at Eylau. The battle foreshadowed the even bloodier encounters with Russian armies at Borodino in 1812.

Timeline

• 1806, 14 October: Battles of Jena and Auerstedt.
• 1806, 28 November: French troops enter Warsaw.
• 1807, January: Bennigsen’s winter offensive in East Prussia.
• 1807, 7 February: Fighting for the town of Eylau.
• 1807, 8 February: Main battle; Augereau’s corps is shattered and Murat leads the great cavalry charge.
• 1807, night of 8-9 February: Bennigsen withdraws towards Konigsberg.
• 1807, 14 June: Napoleon defeats the Russians at Friedland.

Why it matters

Eylau showed that the Russian army could stand up to Napoleon’s best troops and that his victories were becoming bloodier and less decisive. It remains a symbol of the human cost of Napoleonic warfare, remembered in painting and literature as much as in military history.