NAPOLEON vs the TSAR

At the Battle of Friedland, the emperor saw a chance to finally bring Russia to heel — but did he betray his own rules of war to become ‘Master of Europe’?

- MICHAEL STROUD

The Battle of Eylau, in February 1807, had been a wintry bloodbath, proving to be little more than a Pyrrhic victory at best for the French. French casualties were as high as 25,000, and when compared to the enemy’s 15,000 and their withdrawal from the field, Napoleon Bonaparte had been denied the most central tenet of his military maxims: a decisive battle. He had failed to knock the Russians out of the war by forcing them to the negotiating table, and would seek to remedy that before the end of the year.

Napoleon had one overriding objective after Eylau: the complete annihilation of General Levin August Bennigsen and his Russian army. To achieve this, he had to make the most of the winter months. Having taken up residence during this time at Finkenstein Palace just south of modern-day Susz, Poland, Napoleon set about creating a new army seemingly out of thin air to protect against potential incursion and refitting and reorganising his field forces for the coming campaign.

Looking to safeguard the heart of French territories and its holdings in Europe, Napoleon created the Army of Observation. This new army sprang to life by the stripping of French garrisons, which were backfilled with Allied troops, mass drafts from the Army of Italy and the strong-arming of Spain to provide over 18,000 troops to the new army. Even the French conscripts were ordered to French training depots a year-and-a-half early to fill its ranks. General Guillaume Brune was given the most important command, that of the 60,000-strong centre in Germany, with the emperor’s brother Jerome Bonaparte commanding the army’s right flank in Silesia and Marshal Edouard Mortier commanding the left based in Pomerania – this constituted the newly created 100,000-strong Army of Observation.