Battle of Friedland

1807 CE.

Shown on the map at 54.450°, 21.017°.

The Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807) was a major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars between the armies of the French Empire and the Russian Empire, led by Napoleon I and General Levin August von Bennigsen respectively. 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 engagement at Friedland was a strategic necessity after the Battle of Eylau earlier in 1807 had failed to yield a decisive verdict for either side. The battle began when Bennigsen noticed the seemingly isolated reserve corps of Marshal Lannes at the town of Friedland. Bennigsen, who planned only to secure his march northward to Wehlau and never intended to risk an engagement against Napoleon's numerically-superior forces, thought he had a good chance of destroying these isolated French units before Napoleon could save them, and ordered his entire army over the Alle River. Lannes skillfully held his ground against determined Russian attacks until Napoleon could bring additional forces onto the field.

Text from the Wikipedia article Battle of Friedland, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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