Heilsberg

First Encounters
The Armies
Preliminaries
The Battle
Other Resources

First Encounters

Early in November 1806, bald and short-sighted Marshal of France, Louise Nicholas Davout, soon to become Duc d'Auerstadt, marched his III Corps d'armee into Poland, a country that had been partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria in the latter half of the eighteenth century; thereafter the advance of the French, together with the results of Napoleon's campaigns against all three powers gave new hope to the Polish nobles who had already begun sending deputations to the French Emperor in which they put forward their desires for a restoration of the Polish monarchy. Napoleon's vague reply came in the form of a nominal share in the administration being doled out to some of the chief nobles, while he himself retained overall control of the military and government.

On the 26^th December Marshal Jean Lannes, Duc de Montebello, attacked the Russians at the town of Pultusk with his V Corps, while twelve miles northwest, at Golymin Davouts corps together with the VII Corps under Marshal of France Pierre Francois Charles Augereau, Duc de Castiglione, pushed back the Russian advance guard under General Friedrich Wilhelm, Count Buxhowden.

Map of the area around Heilsberg 

Neither of these encounters did any real damage to the Russian army, which, at this time, was under the command of old Marshal Alexander Kamenskoi who managed to extricate his forces in very good order, and the truth of the matter was that the French had become overextended. Kamenskoi was content to withdraw northwest, leaving the French groping about in conditions of alternating frost and torrential rain. The roads became quagmires. Soaked to the skin the French waded through a sea of mud; tempers flared which caused Napoleon to attach the sobriquet "grumblers" to his own Guard. On the 29^th December Napoleon decided that his troops should enter winter quarters.

Having caught the Russian's in a state of dispersal, Napoleon's 'Manoeuvres on the Narew' could not be said to be one of his most enlightened plans. True, he had gained some strategical pluses but his cavalry had been rendered useless in supplying information and French artillery never really got into action 'a la Napoleon', remaining for the most part suck up to their trunnions in the Polish mire.

The Russian army now began to reorganise, one of the main reasons being the murder of Marshal Kamenskoi by a peasant on 9^th January 1807. The command now devolved upon the German mercenary, General of cavalry Leonty (Levin) Leontyevich, Graf von Bennigsen, who had been in Russian service since 1773. Bennigsen had carved out a distinguished career in the cavalry before coming to the attention of Tsar Alexander I, not least, it was said, because of his part in the assassination of Alexander's father, Tsar Paul I. Bennigsen's looks have been described as: 'a pale, withered personage of high stature and cold appearance with a scar across his face'.

The new Russian commander had noted that the French left wing was scattered over an extended area and now put together a plan based on a surprise attack on that part of their position in the direction of Hohenstein. If this advance was successful the Russian's would be able to force the French beyond the Vistula River and make it possible for a fresh offensive in the spring, driving them back to the River Oder. In part, Bennigsen was assisted in his plan by the premature advance of Marshal Michel Ney's French VI Corps who, on the 2^nd January 1807, under the pretext of trying to find better winter quarters for his men, had pushed on to within thirty miles of the town of Konigsburg. Bennigsen had been informed of this movement and now broke the winter truce. With the Prussian Corps under General Lestocq on his right flank, he moved forward to cut off the French I Corps of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, prince of Ponto Corvo who had become isolated by Ney's movement. Bernadotte managed to extricate himself from the trap and repulsed the Russian's at Mohrungun; thereafter he fell back towards Strasburg.

Upon being informed of Ney's unauthorized repositioning, Napoleon flew into one of his rages - leaving the beautiful Polish Countess Marie Walewska to keep his bed warm - the Emperor quit Warsaw on the 30^th January to rejoin his army; thereafter a series of maneuvers were undertaken by both armies, culminating in the bloody and indecisive battle of Eylau on the 7^th - 8^th February 1807 in which some 25,000 men were killed or wounded on both sides.

Once again the French and Russians took up winter quarters, owing to the fact that a sudden thaw had once again turned the whole countryside into a vast morass. The French fell back to cover Danzig, which they were besieging, while Benningsen set up his headquarters at Bartenstein. Both armies now took steps to make good their losses.