Friedland

Context

Four months after Eylau the campaign resumed in spring. Bennigsen attacked at Heilsberg on 10 June without decisive result, then took his army across the Alle to fall on an isolated French corps — Lannes's, which held alone for several hours and gave Napoleon time to arrive.

Forces

France: about 80,000 men by the end of the day, the corps of Lannes, Ney, Victor and Mortier plus the Guard.

Russia: about 60,000 men, backed against the river with the town of Friedland and a few bridges as their only way out.

Course of the battle

Napoleon arrived during the day of 14 June, looked at the map and saw the mistake: the Russian army was shut into a loop of the Alle. He waited through the afternoon for the enemy deployment to be complete, then attacked with his right.

Ney broke the Russian left wing and folded it back on the town. General Senarmont's artillery then carried out the manoeuvre that gave the day its name: he pushed his batteries forward in bounds to a hundred and fifty metres and fired canister into the massed columns, opening gaps into which the infantry poured. The bridges burned; the Russian army was pinned against the river.

Consequences

Five days later Alexander asked for an armistice; eleven days later the two emperors met on a raft anchored in mid-Niemen at Tilsit. It is the only battle of the Empire that led directly to a reversal of alliances. The date was not indifferent: it was the anniversary of Marengo, and the Emperor had pointed it out before the action.