Lannes holds

Bennigsen means only to cover his march north to Wehlau, but on the morning of 14 June he sees Lannes’s corps standing apparently alone west of Friedland and orders his army across the Alle to destroy it. His pontoon bridges are all at or near the town, the only way back. By 6 a.m. nearly 50,000 Russians are across, two lines of infantry between the Heinrichsdorf road and the bends of the river, with cavalry and Cossacks on the right towards Heinrichsdorf and batteries beyond the river covering the left.

Napoleon gives orders to General Oudinot at Friedland, painting by Horace Vernet, 1835Wikimedia Commons, Horace Vernet, Public domain (Napoleon friedland.jpg)

Lannes, with never more than 26,000 men, sends aides to call for help and holds his ground, moving his troops wherever the Russians press. His skirmishers fight in the Sortlack Wood and in front of Posthenen. Grouchy’s and Nansouty’s cavalry win the race for Heinrichsdorf, and the head of Mortier’s French and Polish corps arrives there and drives the Cossacks out of Schwonau. By noon Napoleon is on the field with 40,000 more men.

Sources

David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
Christopher Summerville, Napoleon’s Polish Gamble: Eylau and Friedland 1807 (2005).

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