In the Battle of Friedland fought in June 1807, Napoleon was successful in destroying the Russian army and forcing the Tsar to sue France for peace, bringing the War of the Fourth Coalition to an end.
Despite winning the Battle of Heilsberg, the French did not smash the Russian army and its fighting capability. Napoleon was eager to force a decisive battle with the Russians to conclude the war, and Russian General Henningsen began retreating his army to the east. Forward detachments of Marshal Lannes' Reserve Corps clashed with a cavalry detachment of the Russian army around Friedland on the evening of the 13th.
Lannes rapidly learned that a substantial chunk of the Russian army was in front of him on the other side of the Alle River, but his small force of about 15,000 men had little hope of stopping the Russian retreat to the east. He also knew that three French corps were within a day's march of his position and that if he could keep the Russians in front of him until the rest of the Grande Armée arrived, the French would be able to claim a decisive victory.
On the other side of the river, Russian General Henningsen saw an opportunity as well: an isolated French corps might be easily defeated if he sent his entire army of 65,000 soldiers to assault it. However, in his eagerness to smash the French, the Russian commander overlooked the tactical disadvantages of positioning his force with its back to a river.
Benningsen ordered the construction of pontoon bridges across the river, and by the 14th, he had got around 10,000 troops across the river, with the rest of the force also crossing as swiftly as possible. Marshal Lannes ordered his artillery to fire at the Russians even though they were out of range, expecting that the smoke from the guns would obscure the modest numbers of his army. During the night, Grouchy's dragoons and Nansouty's cuirassiers arrived, and General Oudinot's grenadiers successfully defended the Sortlack wood on the French right from repeated attacks.
The Russians had mostly crossed the river and drawn up by eight a.m., with General Bagration commanding four divisions on the Russian left, General Gorchakov commanding three divisions on the right, and two corps forming the center. Approximately 60,000 Russian forces engaged 16,000 French soldiers.
Marshal Lannes had frequently sent aides to Napoleon demanding reinforcements, but Napoleon did not appear convinced that Lannes faced more than a Russian advance guard. "Ride your horse into the ground if you have to, but tell the emperor we're fighting the entire Russian army!" Lannes said to one of his aides. Lannes began shifting his men behind ridges and cover, attempting to give the impression that his force was everywhere and that there were no weak areas in the line as a result of being spread so thin.
Benningsen authorized an attack, deploying General Uvarov and sixty horse squadrons towards Heinrichsdorf on the French left and two divisions against the Sortlack woodland on the French right. Oudinot defended the woods tenaciously against superior numbers, and whenever his soldiers were beaten back, he counter-attacked and retook the woods.
To the north, Grouchy knew he couldn't stand up to such a cavalry attack and retreated, hoping to tire out the Russian horses before they clashed. General Nansouty galloped up alongside him, and they immediately devised a strategy to deal with the Russian cavalry's greater numbers.
While Uvarov was pursuing Grouchy's dragoons, Nansouty's cuirassiers appeared and stormed into their flank. Grouchy turned around at the same time and charged headlong toward the Russian cavalry. Uvarov and his cavalry retreated, but both sides continued to attack and countercharge for the next two hours until Uvarov ultimately ran back to the Russian lines.
Verdier's division and Marshal Mortier's corps arrived in the thick of the conflict and were immediately thrown into the fray, bringing the French troops to a combined size of 35,000. Emperor Napoleon arrived on the battlefield just after noon, followed by the remainder of the Grande Armée.
Many of the imperial officials preferred to wait until the next day to try to defeat the Russians since the soldiers of Marshals Davout and Murat were too far away to reach until the 15th. Napoleon believed that fighting on June 14th, the anniversary of the Battle of Marengo, was a good omen because such a fantastic opportunity would not be repeated. In truth, Benningsen was considering withdrawing throughout the night because he had won no major victories in the conflict and more French forces were arriving by the minute.
While the combat raged on, the French spent most of the day repositioning reinforcements in preparation for Napoleon's planned onslaught. Lannes' worn-out Reserve Corps commanded the center, with Mortier's VIII Corps on the left and Ney's VI Corps in charge of the Sortlack woodland. The reserve consisted of General Victor's I Corps and the Imperial Guard, and Napoleon's strategy was for Ney to attack the right, rolling the Russians upward because they couldn't retreat owing to the river. The French force had grown to 80,000 soldiers by this point, with half of them fresh and ready to fight.
By 5:30, the battlefield had settled into a pause as the French prepared and the Russians began to evacuate. Marshal Ney launched his attack after a cannonade erupted from the French positions. The renewed onslaught startled Benningsen, who thought it was too late in the day for the French to launch any new attacks before darkness fell over the battlefield. Marchand's division attacked the Russians, but Benningsen ordered cavalry and artillery to repel the attack, and the French offensive was stalled.
When Napoleon saw this, he ordered Victor's corps to help Ney, and Dupont's division charged into the opposing cavalry. At the same time, General Senarmont ordered his horse artillery to charge the Russian lines, and they surged progressively closer to the Russian line, firing and covering each other as they went. Finally, his artillery reached within 60 paces of the Russian line and began firing at close range, practically annihilating the Russian soldiers.
Benningsen desperately tried to relieve pressure on his left by ordering Gorchakov to attack the French center and left, but the attack lacked pace and failed to gain traction. The French stopped the attack quietly, and Napoleon ordered Savary's fusiliers and some Imperial Guard cavalry to occupy Gortchakov's forces so they wouldn't interfere with the events to their south.
Ney regrouped his forces and resumed the charge, while Victor's corps continued to assist and press the offensive. The Russians were pushed back, crammed into a smaller area because they had nowhere to go. Because there were too many troops attempting to cross the bridge through Friedland at the same time, a bottleneck had arisen. Benningsen, desperate to avert the impending calamity, ordered the Russian Imperial Guard to oppose Ney's advance, but they were powerless to stop the French momentum. The Russians set fire to Friedland in order to divert the French, but the flames extended to the pontoon bridges, destroying most of their escape routes.
Fortunately for the Russians, a ford near Friedland was located, and soldiers began to pour across it. The French on the left, especially the cavalry under Grouchy, could have stormed into the hearts of the retreating Russians and denied them this ford, but they did not. While Grouchy had done miracles earlier in the day in holding off the superior numbers of Russian cavalry, it was possible that this was a foreshadowing of Grouchy's lack of initiative, which would come back to haunt the French eight years later at Waterloo and Wavre.
As the French pursued, Benningsen managed to get the rest of his force across the ford. It had been a tremendous victory for the French, who had suffered only about 8000 fatalities while inflicting roughly 20,000, or roughly one-third of the Russian army. They also took 80 cannons, but if they had closed Benningsen's escape path across the ford, the triumph would have been considerably bigger.
Regardless, the magnitude of the failure persuaded Czar Alexander to agree to negotiate a peace settlement with Napoleon, resulting in the historic settlement of Tilsit and the final demise of the Fourth Coalition. Unfortunately for Napoleon and the French, Alexander would openly flout the treaty's conditions within a few years, resulting in the devastating Russian campaign of 1812.
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