On 25 January 1807, near the East Prussian town of Mohrungen (today Morąg in northern Poland), Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's corps fought the Russian advance guard of General Yevgeny Markov. The French drove Markov back, but Russian cavalry slipped into the town behind them and plundered the French baggage. The fight was a small French victory inside a larger Russian winter offensive that led, two weeks later, to the Battle of Eylau.
A winter offensive
After the inconclusive battles of Pułtusk and Gołymin on 26 December 1806, Napoleon put the Grande Armée into winter quarters in Poland. The main Russian army in Poland, commanded by General Levin August von Bennigsen, did not wait for spring. It marched north and then turned west, aiming at the exposed left wing of the French army, which was held by Bernadotte's I Corps.1
Warned of the danger, Bernadotte concentrated his scattered divisions. By noon on 25 January he stood north of Mohrungen with about nine infantry battalions and eleven cavalry squadrons, drawn mainly from the divisions of Generals Dupont and Drouet. The chronology of the Fondation Napoléon puts Markov's force at about 10,000 men.2
The fight at Pfarrersfeldchen
Fighting began around one o'clock in the afternoon with a French cavalry charge on the Russian hussars. Artillery on both sides checked the cavalry. French infantry then attacked the village of Pfarrersfeldchen (today Plebania Wólka). The first attack was repulsed, and in the woods a battalion of the 27th Line, according to HistoryOfWar.org, briefly lost its eagle before recovering it. Reinforcements drove the Russians out of the village, and when Dupont's division struck the Russian flank, Markov withdrew.3
Among the Russian dead was General Reinhold von Anrep, known in Russian as Roman Karlovich Anrep. According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, he had been sent with cavalry to help Markov, who was hard pressed by Bernadotte, and was killed while examining the position. The Deutsche Biographie also gives Morąg as his place of death.4
A raid in the rear
While Bernadotte was fighting north of the town, Russian cavalry entered undefended Mohrungen from the east and seized the French baggage. HistoryOfWar.org reports that the raiders took about 360 French prisoners and freed about 200 Russian and Prussian captives. When Bernadotte heard firing behind him he broke off the pursuit and turned back, and the raiders withdrew.5
Losses are uncertain. The French admitted 700 to 800 casualties and claimed to have inflicted 1,600 on the Russians. Other estimates put losses as high as about 2,000 on each side, and the Fondation Napoléon chronology gives about 1,000 French and 1,500 Russian losses.6
Road to Eylau
Bernadotte fell back the next day and Bennigsen occupied Mohrungen. Days later Cossacks captured a courier carrying Napoleon's orders for a counterstroke against the Russian flank and rear, and the warning allowed Bennigsen to retreat in time. HistoryOfWar.org adds that the captured orders were Bernadotte's own, so he received no fresh orders until 3 February and missed the bloody Battle of Eylau on 7 and 8 February 1807. For the wider campaign, see our guide to the greatest Napoleonic battles and our profile of Napoleon Bonaparte.7
