The Battle of Eylau, or Battle of Preussisch-Eylau, was a bloody and strategically inconclusive battle on 7 and 8 February 1807 between Napoleon's Grande Armée and the Imperial Russian Army under the command of Levin August von Bennigsen near the town of Preussisch Eylau in East Prussia. Late in the battle, the Russians received timely reinforcements from a Prussian division of von L'Estocq. After 1945, the town was renamed Bagrationovsk as part of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The engagement was fought during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Friedland was a major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars between the armies of the French Empire commanded by Napoleon I and the armies of the Russian Empire led by Count von Bennigsen. Napoleon and the French obtained a decisive victory that routed much of the Russian army, which retreated chaotically over the Alle River by the end of the fighting. The battlefield is located in modern-day Kaliningrad Oblast, near the town of Pravdinsk, Russia.
The twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt were fought on 14 October 1806 on the plateau west of the river Saale in today's Germany, between the forces of Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Prussia. The defeat suffered by the Prussian Army subjugated the Kingdom of Prussia to the French Empire until the Sixth Coalition was formed in 1813.
Levin August Gottlieb Theophil, Grafvon Bennigsen was a German general in the service of the Russian Empire. Bennigsen made a name for himself in Russian history as the man who fought Napoleon Bonaparte with distinction at the Battle of Eylau; but, suffering from ill-health, he was then defeated at Friedland several months later. Bennigsen also played a pivotal role in decisively defeating Napoleon in the War of the Sixth Coalition.
The Battle of Saalfeld took place on 10 October 1806, at which a French force of 12,800 men commanded by Marshal Jean Lannes defeated a Prussian-Saxon force of 8,300 men under Prince Louis Ferdinand. The battle took place in Thuringia in what was the Ernestine duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The battle was the second clash in the Prussian Campaign of the War of the Fourth Coalition.
The War of the Fourth Coalition was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight against Napoleon's French Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners were Prussia and Russia with Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, some members of the coalition had previously been fighting France as part of the Third Coalition, and there was no intervening period of general peace. On 9 October 1806, Prussia declared war on France and joined a renewed coalition, fearing the rise in French power after the defeat of Austria and establishment of the French-sponsored Confederation of the Rhine in addition to having learned of French plans to cede Prussian-desired Hanover to Britain in exchange for peace. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign with France, massing troops in Saxony.
The Battle of Heilsberg took place on 10 June 1807 off the town of Heilsberg, during the Napoleonic Wars.
The siege of Danzig was the French encirclement and capture of Danzig during the War of the Fourth Coalition. On 19 March 1807, around 27,000 French troops under Marshal Lefebvre besieged around 14,400 Prussian troops under Marshal Kalckreuth garrisoning the city of Danzig.
The Battle of Schleiz took place on 9 October 1806 in Schleiz, Germany between a Prussian-Saxon division under Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien and a part of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's I Corps under the command of Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d'Erlon. It was the first clash of the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. As Emperor Napoleon I of France's Grande Armée advanced north through the Franconian Forest it struck the left wing of the armies belonging to the Kingdom of Prussia and the Electorate of Saxony, which were deployed on a long front. Schleiz is located 30 kilometers north of Hof and 145 kilometers southwest of Dresden at the intersection of Routes 2 and 94.
Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq was a Prussian cavalry general best known for his command of the Prussian troops at the Battle of Eylau.
The Principality of Erfurt was a small state in modern Thuringia, Germany, that existed from 1807 to 1814, comprising the modern city of Erfurt and the surrounding land. It was subordinate directly to Napoleon, the Emperor of the French, rather than being a part of the Confederation of the Rhine. After nearly 3 months of siege, the city fell to Prussian, Austrian and Russian forces. Having mainly been Prussian territory before the Napoleonic Wars, most of the lands were restored to Prussia by the Congress of Vienna.
The siege of Kolberg took place from March to 2 July 1807 during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. An army of the First French Empire and several foreign auxiliaries of France besieged the fortified town of Kolberg, the only remaining Prussian-held fortress in the Province of Pomerania. The siege was not successful and was lifted upon the announcement of the Peace of Tilsit.
Ernst von Rüchel was a Prussian general who led an army corps in a crushing defeat by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena on 14 October 1806. He commanded troops from the Kingdom of Prussia in several battles during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 and 1794. Afterward he held various appointments as a diplomat and a military inspector. In 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars he held an important army command but has been criticized for his actions at Jena. Wounded, he managed to escape the French pursuit, but never commanded troops in combat again.
The siege of Magdeburg took place from 25 October to 8 November 1806 during the War of the Fourth Coalition. A French force, initially under the command of Marshal Joachim Murat, then a French army Corps under the command of Marshal Michel Ney laid siege and eventually obtained the surrender of Franz Kasimir von Kleist's Prussian force that had taken refuge in Magdeburg, Prussia's second city.
In the Battle of Mohrungen on 25 January 1807, most of a First French Empire corps under the leadership of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte fought a strong Russian Empire advance guard led by Major General Yevgeni Ivanovich Markov. The French pushed back the main Russian force, but a cavalry raid on the French supply train caused Bernadotte to call off his attacks. After driving off the cavalry, Bernadotte withdrew and the town was occupied by the army of General Levin August, Count von Bennigsen. The fighting took place in and around Morąg in northern Poland, which in 1807 was the East Prussian town of Mohrungen. The action was part of the War of the Fourth Coalition in the Napoleonic Wars.
Jacques Desjardin or Jacques Jardin or Jacques Desjardins; enlisted in the French royal army as a young man and eventually became a sergeant. During the first years of the French Revolutionary Wars he enjoyed very rapid promotion to the rank of general officer in the army of the French First Republic. In May and June 1794 he emerged as co-commander of an army that tried three times to cross the Sambre at Grandreng, Erquelinnes and Gosselies and each time was thrown back by the Coalition. After that, he reverted to a division commander and saw more service in the north of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In the campaign of 1805, he led an infantry division under Marshal Pierre Augereau in Emperor Napoleon's Grande Armée and saw limited fighting. In 1806 he fought at Jena, Czarnowo and Gołymin. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Eylau on 8 February 1807 and died three days later. His surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 16.
The Battle of Allenstein, also known as the Battle of Jonkowo and the battle of Bergfriede, was a military engagement during the early stages of the 1807 Fourth Coalition Napoleonic campaign. While the battle resulted in a French field victory and allowed for a successful pursuit of the Russian army, it failed to produce the decisive engagement that Napoleon was seeking.
Ludwig August von Stutterheim served Frederick the Great and his successors in the War of Bavarian Succession, the Kościuszko Uprising, and the wars of the Fourth and Sixth coalitions. In 1794 he earned the prestigious Pour le Mérite award for his distinguished actions. He was promoted major general in 1807 after courageous behavior at the Battle of Eylau. He became a lieutenant general in 1811 and general of the infantry in 1824.
The fall of Berlin took place on 24 October 1806 when the Prussian capital of Berlin was captured by French forces in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. Berlin fell 15 days after the beginning of the war. The French Emperor Napoleon entered the city after three days, from which he issued his Berlin Decree implementing his Continental System. Large-scale plundering of Berlin took place.
The siege of Graudenz or siege of Grudziądz was a siege during the Napoleonic Wars between 22 January and 11 December, 1807. As part of the War of the Fourth Coalition the Prussian fortress at Graudenz in West Prussia in the Prussian Partition of Poland was besieged by forces of the French Empire and its allies. The garrison, commanded by General Wilhelm René de l'Homme de Courbière, withheld blockade and siege for some 11 months, long past the formal Peace of Tilsit. The French abandoned the siege after the borders between Prussia and the new Duchy of Warsaw were defined; Graudenz/Grudziądz staying a Prussian possession until Poland regained independence after World War I.
