Battle of Friedland, 1807: the victory that brought Russia to Tilsit

Friedland ended a campaign that had gone badly for Napoleon. After crushing Prussia at Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806, he pushed into Poland and East Prussia, where the Russian army stood between him and the Prussian base at Königsberg. The winter brought only costly fights such as Pułtusk and the bloody draw at Eylau on 7 and 8 February 1807, after which both armies went into winter quarters along the rivers Passarge and Alle.²

A Russian chance

In spring Napoleon rebuilt his army and planned to resume the offensive on 10 June, but the Russian commander, General Levin August von Bennigsen, struck first on 5 June against Marshal Ney's isolated corps. Ney escaped, and the French followed the Russians north along the Alle. On 10 June Bennigsen repulsed costly French attacks on his fortified camp at Heilsberg, then fell back again.³

Napoleon now misjudged where his enemy was going. Expecting Bennigsen to make for Königsberg, he sent a large part of his army north under Murat and Soult and ordered Marshal Lannes toward Friedland to seize the bridges there. On 13 June the Russian advance guard reached the town first, drove off Lannes's cavalry and occupied it. Bennigsen saw a chance to destroy an isolated French corps and began passing his army over the river to the west bank.⁴

Lannes holds the plain

It was a dangerous place to fight. The Alle loops around Friedland on the south and east, a millstream with steep banks splits the plain in front of the town, and every Russian bridge, the permanent one and the pontoons, led back into the town itself. Fighting began in the small hours of 14 June. By 9 a.m., according to John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org, Lannes had about 9,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry facing some 46,000 Russians. He spread a thick screen of skirmishers through the tall crops and marched units in and out of the woods to look stronger than he was.⁵

Bennigsen did not press the attack while he had the advantage. Mortier's corps arrived from about 9.30 a.m., and by 10 a.m. Lannes had some 40,000 men. Napoleon reached the field around noon. He saw that the Russian army stood with its back to the river and was cut in two by the millstream, and he refused to wait for the next day. It was 14 June, the anniversary of Marengo, and Andrew Roberts, quoted by the World History Encyclopedia, has the emperor muttering "Marengo day. Victory day".⁶ › Napoleon Bonaparte

The evening attack

At about 5.30 p.m. (some accounts say 5 p.m.) a salvo of 20 guns signaled the attack. Ney's corps came out of the Sortlack Wood and drove the Russian left back into the narrowing loop of the Alle. A Russian cavalry counterattack threw Ney's men into disorder, and Rickard records that the eagle of the French 69th Line was captured, but General Victor's corps came up in support.⁷

Then came the most famous episode of the day. Victor's artillery commander, General Alexandre de Sénarmont, took 30 guns forward in two batteries and kept advancing, firing and limbering up again, from about 1,600 yards to within 60 yards of the packed Russian infantry. His guns fired some 3,000 rounds, and the Russian cavalry that tried to stop them was cut down by grapeshot. Bagration's men fell back into Friedland, which caught fire. The flames spread to the bridges, and many Russians drowned trying to swim the river. North of the millstream Gorchakov's divisions were held by Lannes and Mortier and pinned against the water. A ford found downstream saved part of the army and many of its guns, and the fighting died down around 11 p.m..⁸

Counting the cost

The figures depend on who is counting. Rickard puts French losses at around 8,000 and Russian at around 20,000 killed and wounded, perhaps a third of Bennigsen's army; the World History Encyclopedia gives 18,000 to 20,000 Russian losses, about 30 percent. Napoleon claimed much more. That evening he wrote to Joséphine that his "children" had worthily celebrated the anniversary of Marengo and that the Russians had lost 80 cannon and 30,000 men dead or captured.⁹

From Friedland to Tilsit

The French crossed the Alle on 15 June, and Königsberg surrendered to Soult on 16 June. Alexander asked for an armistice, and on 25 June the two emperors met on a pavilion floated in the middle of the Niemen at Tilsit, as an eyewitness in the town described it. The treaties signed there in July ended the War of the Fourth Coalition. In Rickard's summary, Prussia lost everything west of the Elbe, its Polish provinces became the Duchy of Warsaw, and Russia joined the Continental System against Britain. For Poles, the Duchy was the first Polish state since the partitions. For Napoleon, Tilsit was the height of his power, and France and Russia stayed at peace until his invasion of Russia in 1812, which ended in retreat after Borodino.¹⁰ › Copenhagen, 1807