November 1806 to 7 February 1807
Into Poland and East Prussia
In November the Grande Armée marches east into Prussian Poland, where many Poles greet it as a liberator. The Russian general Levin von Bennigsen gives up Warsaw and withdraws over the Vistula, and Murat enters the city on 28 November. On 11 December, by the Treaty of Posen, Saxony becomes a kingdom, joins the Confederation of the Rhine and leaves the coalition.
Joachim Murat, equestrian portrait by Antoine-Jean Gros, about 1812Wikimedia Commons, Antoine-Jean Gros, Public domain (Equestrian portrait of Joachim Murat.jpg)
The Russian army under the 68-year-old Field Marshal Mikhail Kamensky holds the line of the Wkra north of Warsaw. Davout forces a crossing at Czarnowo on the night of 23 December. On 26 December Lannes with 25,000 to 27,000 men attacks Bennigsen’s 40,000 to 45,000 at Pułtusk, and on the same day Golitsyn’s Russians at Gołymin hold off Murat, Augereau and Davout and get away. Both armies then go into winter quarters.
In January Bennigsen, now in command, moves the bulk of his army north into East Prussia, joins the Prussian corps of Anton von L’Estocq, and strikes west at the French left. Bernadotte’s corps fights his advance guard at Mohrungen on 25 January and falls back. Napoleon orders the rest of his army north to cut the Russians off from the east, but Cossacks capture a messenger with his orders to Bernadotte, and Bennigsen retreats in time.
General Levin von Bennigsen, portrait by George Dawe, 1820Wikimedia Commons, George Dawe, Public domain (Bennigsen.jpg)
After a fight at the Alle bridge near Allenstein on 3 February, the French follow the Russians north-east for several days through snow. Bennigsen decides to stand at Preussisch Eylau with about 67,000 men and 400 guns. Napoleon’s corps, spread out on the frozen roads, reach the plateau in front of the town on the afternoon of 7 February.
Sources
- F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland 1806–1807 (1901).
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
- Christopher Summerville, Napoleon’s Polish Gamble: Eylau and Friedland 1807 (2005).
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