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Updated: May 9, 2025
Their commissariat was wretched: the soldiers had often no food, except such frozen roots as they could dig out of the ground; and, tortured with toil and famine, they at length demanded battle so vehemently, that, against his own judgment, General Bennigsen consented to grant the prayer.
In the confusion of so great a movement, a division designed by Bennigsen to occupy the town itself, misunderstood the order, and evacuated it at the approach of the enemy's van.
How can he tolerate such vile people around him an Armfeld, an intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who is known only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia; a Stein, driven from his country like an outcast, a miscreant with a price on his head; a Bennigsen, who, it is said, has some military talent, of which I know nothing, but whose hands are steeped in blood? .... Let him surround himself with the Russians and I will say nothing.... Have you no Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached to him than these mercenaries?
Danzig surrendered to the French on May the 24th, and Neisse in Silesia a little later; and it was not till the besiegers of these fortresses came up to swell the French host that Bennigsen opened the campaign. He was soon to rue the delay. His efforts to drive the foe from the River Passarge were promptly foiled, and he retired in haste to his intrenched camp at Heilsberg.
The question I have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow without a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well as Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion," and he sank back in his chair. The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.
But the course of this river favoured Napoleon as much as it hindered Bennigsen. The Alle below Heilsberg makes a deep bend towards the north-east, then northwards again towards Friedland, where it comes within forty miles of Königsberg, but in its lower course flows north-east until it joins the Pregel.
Lannes came unexpectedly upon the mass of the Russian army, two columns forming the center and right, and engaged them from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. At that hour a reserve arrived under Gudin, and attacked the Russian right. But Bennigsen, the commander of that column, had ready a fresh reserve, and with its aid the newcomers were repulsed.
But Bennigsen, having learned the plan from an intercepted despatch, immediately countermarched his army with masterly skill, and thus involved Napoleon in a long series of manœuvres, not to be executed in such a country at that dismal season without the extremity of hardship.
If our army is well organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to be superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his incapacity already in 1807."
The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on to make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign. Chernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor, who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the left, was listening with a dissatisfied air.
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