Napoleon’s last surmise was to prove correct, although not exactly in the location he expected. Riding to Allenstein later that morning, he learned that the Russian army was drawn up some seven miles northwest of the town, its left in the village of Mondtken, its center around Ionkovo covering the Liebstadt road. The Emperor’s reaction was immediate: the foe must be attacked without delay (in spite of the fact that much of the French army was still distant from the field) to prevent him from retreating out of range. Perhaps a decisive victory could still be won, and the campaign—even the war—brought to a triumphant conclusion with no further ado.
The short but sharp battle of Ionkovo on February 3, 1807, was destined, however, to dash these sanguine hopes. By then, besides part of the Guard and the reserve cavalry, Napoleon had only five infantry divisions (three of Soult’s corps and two from Ney’s) at his disposal. Augereau’s corps and the Guard were on the way but had not yet arrived. This notwithstanding, the plan took the usual form. Murat was placed in overall command of Ney’s formations together with Legrand’s division for the frontal, pinning attack—le combat d’immobilisation et d’usure—while Soult led up his remaining divisions (Lewal and Legrand) together with Grouchy’s cavalry to take the enemy in the flank and sever his line of retreat toward Königsberg by seizing the bridge at Bergfriede and deploying beyond across the main north-leading road. This, however, involved routing 12 Russian battalions stationed there.
At first all went well enough. Part of Soult’s cavalry under General Guyot succeeded in pushing up the Alle as far as Güttstadt, where they took possession of vast quantities of enemy baggage from the Russian depots, besides taking 1,600 prisoners. However, it was not until 3:00
P.M. that the French guns were ready to open the cannonade on the main battlefield. Despite the advanced hour, the frontal attack was reasonably successful, Ney, St. Hilaire and Murat all capturing their local objectives. Unfortunately, the early dusk of a February winter’s night soon began to close in, and only the heads of the various French columns were really in action before night descended. Moreover, the fact that Augereau had still not appeared in force deprived Napoleon of his masse de décision. Nightfall similarly compromised the effectiveness of Soult’s outflanking move over the Bergfriede crossing. Although the River Alle was frozen hard, it proved impossible to cross except by way of the heavily defended bridge because several feet of soft snow had fallen on the ice. Nevertheless, the 4th Line and the 24th Light Regiments, supported by one battalion of the 28th, succeeded in capturing the bridge at bayonet point, scattering the foe and taking four guns. The Russians rallied, however, and in their turn drove Soult’s men back, and it was not until just before nightfall brought effective operations to a close that Soult regained possession and established a small bridgehead on the western side.
Napoleon was confident that the following day would see a decisive victory, if the foe held his ground. Augereau had at last arrived followed by the Guard, and Davout’s divisions were fast approaching and would be in a position to join Soult early next morning and ensure the success of the encircling move. The enemy, however, were not compliant. During the bitter night of February 3-4, Bennigsen extracted one after another of his columns and set them off up the road to Landsberg. Dawn revealed an empty position; Lasalle’s light cavalry vainly scoured the plain but could only find small detachments of Russian cavalry and Cossacks. The bird had flown, and six invaluable leagues now lay between the hunted and the hunter. The trap had failed.
In this way, the maneuver upon the River Alle ended in anticlimax. It had been a very “close-run thing” for the Russians, but their invaluable knowledge for three days prior to the battle of Napoleon’s plans had enabled them to evade the full consequences of Bennigsen’s rash advance in January. On the evening of the 3rd, Russian survival or catastrophe had rested on the fortunes of the troops facing Soult’s divisions at Bergfriede, and by a very narrow margin the French had been held off until a freezing night brought safety. The soldiers of Imperial France cowered together for warmth in every lean-to, byre or cottage that they could find, while the troops of Holy Russia, comparatively innured to suffering from the cold by years of hard experience on the rolling Steppes, made good their escape. In the grey dawn of the 4th, therefore, Napoleon was compelled to recognize the unpalatable fact that he had missed by a hair’s breadth the decisive victory he had set out to win. Nevertheless, as the Bulletin of the Army issued on the 5th pointed out, attempting to gloss over the larger failure: “By these moves, the greater part of the Russian army’s lines of communication have been severed. The depots of Güttstadt and Liebstadt and part of the magazines of the Alle have been captured by our light cavalry.”33 This provided some practical consolation for the shivering and half-starved French soldiers, but it was fortunate that they were unable to foresee the sufferings the future held in store for them as their pursuing columns, enveloped in a haze of human breath, hurried forward towards Deppen. For down the road lay the field of Eylau.
49
THE BATTLE OF EYLAU
On February 5, the pursuit of Bennigsen began to gather momentum, as Murat and Soult headed for Landsberg, Davout for Heilsburg (with orders to seize the bridges there) and Ney struck out for Wormditt, entrusted with the task of keeping Bennigsen and Lestocq separated. The next day, the Grand Duke of Berg and the Duke of Dalmatia caught up with the Russian rear guard at Hoff, and in a brisk action captured 5 guns and 2,000 men for the loss of 2,200 Frenchmen. It was a scrappy, piecemeal battle, and it was not long before the Russians resumed their retreat, reaching Eylau during the evening. There, Bennigsen halted and turned to face his pursuers; a two-day struggle of horrific proportions was about to begin.
In the words of Dodge, “The field of Eylau is well accentuated, with a few woods here and there; and between the hills run brooks which form ponds in places. These ponds had been frozen over and then covered with snow, so that the troops, including the cavalry, maneuvered over them without knowing what was under their feet. The French position on the hills which run from Eylau to Rothenen dominated the Russian, except at the heights of Klein-Sausgarten.”34
None of the great Napoleonic struggles is surrounded with more doubt and uncertainty than the battle of Eylau. Fact, myth and propaganda are almost inextricably intertwined, and different authorities give conflicting interpretations of almost every aspect and stage of the struggle. That it was a holocaust, fought under almost impossible weather conditions, all agree, but little else receives unanimous support. Nevertheless, it is possible to extricate the main outlines of the battle from the mass of conflicting evidence and build a pretty fair picture of what transpired.
Although Napoleon was pleased to hear that his quarry had turned at bay, the general dispositions of the French corps were far from favorable for an immediate battle. Since the struggle at Ionkovo, the French army had become considerably strung out, and this was to make a proper concentration on the field of battle very problematical. The first troops to reach the Eylau area were those of Soult and Murat (at about 2:00
P.M. on the 7th), and during the afternoon they were joined by Augereau and the Guard. Thus, by nightfall, Napoleon had at his disposal 45,000 troops in the immediate vicinity, 14,500 more (less detachments) under Ney some miles away to the north shadowing Lestocq, while Davout’s corps (15,100) was marching up at full speed from Bartenstein. Ney, however, was sent no definite order of recall until 8:00 o’clock the next morning. On the other side, General Bennigsen already had some 67,000 Russians deployed for battle and was hopeful that Lestocq’s 9,000 Prussians might materialize the next day. In terms of artillery, the Russians enjoyed a decided preponderance, 460 guns against 200.
These facts contain the clue to the first major contention regarding Eylau—whether or not Napoleon intended to open the battle on the 7th (as actually happened). According to “official French sources,” the Emperor deliberately ordered an attack against the town of Eylau for the purposes of denying its possession to the
enemy and acquiring some shelter for his army against the bitter night, thus pinning Bennigsen down by a show of force in order to ensure that he would not attempt another overnight escape. This view is strongly challenged by many historians and contemporaries, who assert that Napoleon was committed to a useless loss of life on the 7th by the errors of his immediate subordinates, Murat and Soult. This school of thought argues that it was not in the Emperor’s true interest to engage the enemy at such a numerical disadvantage before his outlying corps (Ney and Davout) had been given time to come up, and before Bernadotte had moved onto the left to take over the task of shadowing Lestocq. A material witness in support of this argument is our earlier informant, Baron Marbot, who, in 1807, was serving on Augereau’s staff as a newly promoted captain. Admittedly he was only twenty-four at the time, and a dashing young blade with a taste for romantic adventure into the bargain, yet the incident he later narrated on this subject has the ring of truth about it, although other parts of his memoirs are subject to considerable reservations regarding their factual accuracy.
“The marshal [Augereau] mounted the plateau to find the Emperor already there, and I heard Napoleon say to Augereau: ‘Some of them want me to storm Eylau this evening; but I do not like night fighting, and besides, I do not wish to push my center too far forward before Davout has come up with the right wing and Ney with the left; consequently I shall await them until tomorrow on this high ground, which can be defended by artillery, and offers an excellent position for our infantry; when Ney and Davout are in line, we can march simultaneously on the enemy.’”35 in Marbot’s expressed opinion, the tale of a deliberate attack on Eylau was “a very great mistake.”
Marbot then goes on to relate what apparently happened. It seems that the Emperor’s personal attendants arrived in Eylau with their master’s baggage, field kitchen and the like, without being warned that Napoleon had decided to spend the night near Ziegelhof,* and that the Russian outpost line was only a few yards beyond the town. As they were busily unpacking the Imperial comforts, “they were attacked by an enemy patrol, and would have been captured but for the aid of the detachment of the Guard which always escorted the Emperor’s effects. At the sound of firing, the troops of Marshal Soult, who were posted at the gates of the town, ran up to the rescue of Napoleon’s baggage and found the Russian troops already plundering it. The enemy’s generals, thinking that the French wished to take possession of Eylau, sent up reinforcements on their side, so that a bloody engagement took place in the streets of the town….”
In modern parlance, an outpost skirmish “escalated” into a heavy engagement. The action opened shortly after two o’clock, and raged on for eight hours until well after dark. Soult and Murat committed more and more of their men to the struggle; the bitterest fighting centered around the town cemetery, which changed hands several times before the French established undisputed control of the area, and with it, of Eylau. Each side lost some 4,000 casualties before Bennigsen called off his men, and the ruffled Russian columns filed back through the intervals of Barclay de Tolly’s covering division to the ridge beyond Eylau. As the shooting died down, the French took up their positions for the night. According to the official bulletin: “Legrand’s division occupied bivouacs in front of the town, the division of St. Hilaire on its right, Marshal Augereau’s corps on the left. Marshal Davout’s corps had since the previous day been wheeling to outflank Eylau—and fall on the enemy’s left flank—if they did not shift their position. Marshal Ney was marching to turn their right.† Such was the position in which the night was spent.”36
The hours of darkness proved among the most miserable and uncomfortable yet experienced on this campaign. According to Petre, there were 30 degrees of frost before morning. Some of the French were fortunate enough to have a roof over their heads in Eylau and the neighboring villages, indeed the ferocity of the previous evening’s fighting was probably in part caused by the men’s understandable eagerness to secure some form of shelter, but for the remainder, and for all the Russians, it was a night in the open. Both sides were also short of food; the Russian commissariat was in any case hopelessly disorganized, but the more elaborate French arrangements also broke down completely, the wagon convoys being unable to progress up the troop- and gun-choked roads. It was a night hard to forget, although the horrors of the morrow would soon eclipse it in the minds of the survivors.
Dawn on the 8th brought little immediate relief to the men’s miseries, and almost continuous snowstorms made it difficult to pick out the enemy’s positions. Eventually, it was discovered that the Russians were occupying a ridge running some 1,200 yards to the east of Eylau, parallel to the French position on the Western Heights. There is much controversy as to how many men each commander eventually controlled, estimates ranging from 63,000 to 90,000 for the French, and from 60,000 to 90,000 men for the Russians. The exact truth will never be known, but it seems probable that after Davout and Ney had made their appearance in strength,* Napoleon could dispose of 75,000 men (allowing for a couple of thousand stragglers), while Russian strength rose from an initial 67,000 to perhaps 76,000 after the arrival of Lestocq. In terms of overall numbers, therefore, there was little advantage to either side, but the Russian artillery was far stronger. However, Napoleon was certainly seriously outnumbered in every respect throughout the morning of the 8th before his outlying subordinates came up to redress the balance.
This circumstance largely determined the plan and battle formation adopted by Napoleon. Soult’s divisions (two on the French left, one on the right), supported by every available gun, were to undertake the unenviable role of the pinning attack, with orders to inflict the maximum casualties on the Russian hordes, and above all to delay the commencement of the main Russian onslaught until at least Davout had materialized on the further flank. The latter’s role included the isolation of the Russians from the River Alle to the east, the harassment of their northerly line of retreat towards Königsberg by means of a turning movement, and (it was hoped) the driving of Bennigsen’s survivors toward the Frisches Haff. Augereau and Murat were to form la masse de décision, to be committed at the critical moment against the Russian left. The Imperial Guard was, as always, placed in reserve. Napoleon also hoped that Ney would arrive from the north in time to complete the encirclement of the Russians, and to sever the road to Königsberg.
The Battle of Eylau, February 8, 1807: the morning battle
To implement this intended double envelopment, which might have rivaled Hannibal’s achievement at Cannae had it fully materialized, the French were drawn up in the following positions. Two divisions of Soult’s corps were stationed immediately to the north of Eylau, Lewal on the left occupying Windmill Hill, with Legrand on his right. St. Hilaire’s division was placed near Rothenen, 1,000 yards to the south of Eylau. The northern and southern flanks of the French front, which extended over some four kilometers of ground, were entrusted to forces of cavalry under Lasalle and Milhaud respectively. Augereau was instructed to draw up his two divisions between Eylau and Rothenen, with the remainder of Murat’s reserve cavalry to his right. The Imperial Guard was stationed immediately behind and to the south of Eylau; on this one occasion, the “corps d’élite” was allotted a battle station far further forward than usual, substantial proof that Napoleon was worried about his weakness of numbers. He had consequently decided to expose his beloved Guard to the full view of the enemy in the hope of impressing them with an apparent show of French force, thus concealing his true situation.
Between the flurries of snow, the black outlines of the Russian formations could be picked out against the white landscape. Bennigsen had divided his army into four main parts. On his right, facing Soult and Lasalle, stood the divisions of Tutchkov, stretching towards Schloditten township. In the center, Generals Essen and Sacken held command of the largest grouping of Russian troops, with two massive batteries of 60 and 70 guns respectively to their immediate front. On the left were drawn up the forces of General Tolstoi
with Kamenskoi’s* division in reserve. As in the case of the French, formations of cavalry guarded both extremities of the line, while in central reserve the Russian commander placed the experienced Doctorov and two divisions together with 60 more guns, many of them belonging to the horse artillery. Headquarters were situated in the village of Anklappen, immediately behind this reserve. The balance of the Russian artillery was distributed along the rest of the front.
There is some doubt as to which side actually discharged the first shot on the 8th, but it would seem that the Russians opened fire at eight in the morning, pouring a hail of roundshot into the town of Eylau. The French gunners were not slow in making reply, and soon a full-scale bombardment was in progress, although the din was greatly muffled by the falling snow. On balance, it appears that the Russians suffered more heavily than their opponents, despite their superior weight of metal, for through necessity the French formations were considerably more extended and consequently presented smaller targets than the dense Russian masses. Some of Napoleon’s troops, moreover, were sheltered by the houses of Eylau and Rothenen, but toward nine o’clock both towns were set on fire by Russian mortar fire, and soon a pall of dark smoke was adding to the pervading gloom.
Half an hour after the opening of the bombardment, Napoleon ordered Soult and Lasalle to make a threatening demonstration against the Russian right in an attempt to draw Bennigsen’s attention away from his left flank, where in the fullness of time the main French blow would be delivered. Already General Friant’s division (at the head of Davout’s IIIrd Corps) was approaching the field from the south, but it would clearly be some time before all was ready there for the main onslaught. Soult’s divisions accordingly advanced with great bravado for some 600 yards, and as Napoleon had hoped, this proved too much for Tutchkov’s patience. About nine o’clock the Russian right wing rolled forward over the frozen marshes and lakes to fall on Lewal’s division. A desperate struggle developed, most of Soult’s men being driven back toward Eylau, although Windmill Hill remained in French possession. At the same time, masses of Russian cavalry began a heavy attack against Friant’s deploying columns on the further wing.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 67