Mohrungen, Battle of
1807 CE
In the Battle of Mohrungen on January 25, 1807, most of a First French Empire corps under the leadership of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte fights a strong Russian Empire advance guard led by Major General Yevgeni Ivanovich Markov.
The French push back the main Russian force, but a cavalry raid on the French supply train causes Bernadotte to call off his attacks.
After driving off the cavalry, Bernadotte withdraws and the town is occupied by the army of General Levin August, Count von Bennigsen.
The fighting takes place in and around Morąg in northern Poland, which in 1807 is the East Prussian town of Mohrungen.
The action is part of the War of the Fourth Coalition in the Napoleonic Wars.
After demolishing the army of the Kingdom of Prussia in a whirlwind campaign in October and November 1806, Napoleon's Grande Armée had seized Warsaw.
After two bitterly fought actions against the Russian army, the French emperor had decided o place his troops into winter quarters.
However, in wintry weather, the Russian commander moves north into East Prussia, then strikes west at Napoleon's left flank.
As one of Bennigsen's columns advances west it encounters forces under Bernadotte.
The Russian advance is nearly at an end as Napoleon gathers strength for a powerful counterstroke.
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These were largely Russians under the command of the frail sixty-eight-year-old Field Marshal Count Mikhail Kamensky.
The old marshal had been unwilling to risk battle, and had continued to retreat, leaving the Grande Armée free to enter Poland almost unopposed.
Nevertheless, as the French pressed aggressively eastward across the Vistula, they had found the Russians defending the line of the Wkra River.
The French had seized a crossing over the Wkra on December 23 at the Battle of Czarnowo.
Russian resistance had soon stiffened and on December 26, the two armies clashed at the Battles of Pułtusk and Gołymin.
The result remained in doubt, but Levin August, Count von Bennigsen, had written to the Tsar that he had defeated sixty thousand French troops, and as a result had gained overall command of the Russian armies in Poland.
After these fierce engagements, Napoléon's troops had taken took up winter quarters in Poland to recuperate after a victorious but exhausting campaign.
In January 1807, Bennigsen attempts to surprise the French left wing by shifting the bulk of his army north from Nowogród to East Prussia.
Incorporating a Prussian corps on his right flank, he first bumps into elements of the VI Corps of Marshal Michel Ney, who had disobeyed his emperor's orders and advanced far north of his assigned winter cantonments.
Having cleared Ney's troops out of the way, the Russians roll down on the isolated French I Corps under Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte.
Tough fighting at the Battle of Mohrungen allows Bernadotte's corps to escape serious damage and pull back to the southwest.
He instructs Bernadotte to withdraw before Bennigsen's forces, and orders the balance of the Grande Armée to strike northward.
This maneuver might envelop the Russian army's left flank and cut off its retreat to the east.
By a stroke of luck, a band of Cossacks captures a messenger carrying Napoleon's plans to Bernadotte and quickly forwarded the information to General Pyotr Bagration.
At once Bernadotte is left unawares and a forewarned Bennigsen immediately orders a retreat east to Jonkowo to avoid the trap.
The Russians withdraw towards Allenstein, and later to Eylau.