Before opening the great campaign with Russia Napoleon received the explanation of the Elector of Saxony, who truly stated that Prussia had forced him to take part in the war. The apology was accepted, and from this time the Elector adhered to the league of the Rhine and was a faithful ally of Napoleon. On November 25th, 1806, the Emperor of France left Berlin and established himself on the 27th at Posen, a central town of Poland, which country began to manifest an agitation arising from the animating prospect of restored independence. The unfortunate but brave Poles entreated his aid; but Napoleon could not make them a positive promise of their restoration as a kingdom. His observation on the subject was, "that, if the match should once be lighted, there was no knowing how long it might continue to burn."

From the headquarters at Posen, Napoleon addressed his soldiers on December 2nd, saying: "It is a year ago to-day, at this very hour, that you were on the battlefield of Austerlitz. The dismayed Russian battalions fled in disorder, or, surrounded, gave up their arms to their victors. The next day they sued for peace, but we were imposed on: scarcely escaped by our, perhaps, overweening generosity, from the disasters of a third coalition, they ventured upon a fourth.... Soldiers, we will not lay down our arms until the general peace shall have fixed and assured the power of our allies and restored to our commerce its safety and its colonies." The proclamation produced an exhilarating effect on the soldiers and throughout Germany.

In the meantime Warsaw was put in a state of defense, and the auxiliary forces of Saxony and the new confederates of the Rhine were brought up by forced marches, while strong reinforcements from France repaired the losses of the early part of the campaign.

The French army at length advanced in full force and crossed successively the rivers Vistula, the Narew and Bug, forcing a passage wherever it was disputed, the Russian detachments being repulsed as often as they presented themselves. But it was not the intention of Bennigsen, the Russian general, to give battle to forces superior to his own, and he therefore retreated behind the Wkra. On the 23rd of December Napoleon arrived in person upon the Wkra and ordered the advance of his army in three divisions. He was fully aware that he was approaching a conflict of a very different kind from that which he had maintained with Austria, and more lately against Prussia. These troops, however highly disciplined, wanted that powerful and individual feeling which was a strong characteristic of the Russians,—a feeling that induces the soldier to resist to the last moment, even when resistance can only assure him of revenge. They were, in fact, those same Russians of whom Frederick the Great said, "that he could kill, but could not defeat them." They were also of strong constitution and inured to the iron climate in which Frenchmen were now fighting for the first time. The Cossacks are trained from early childhood to the use of the lance and sword, and familiarized to a horse peculiar to the country,—tractable, hardy, swift and sure-footed, beyond any breed perhaps in the world. On the actual field of battle the Cossack's mode of attack is singular; instead of acting in line, a body of them about to charge disperse at the word of command, and joining in a loud yell and hurrah, each acting individually upon the object of attack, whether infantry, cavalry or artillery, to all of which they have been in this wild way of fighting most formidable assailants.

In this campaign the Cossacks took the field in great numbers, under their celebrated hetman Platoff. The Russians also had in their service Tartar tribes who resemble the Cossacks in warfare; but they were little better than hordes of roving savages. On the plain between the town of Pultusk and the wood the right of the Russian position was formed, and on December 26th they were attacked by the French division of Lannes and Davoust with but partial success. The French lost nearly 8,000 men, killed and wounded, while the Russian loss amounted to about 5,000. The French retreated after nightfall. On the same day another division engaged in action at Golymin, driving back the French after which the Russian commander retreated for the purpose of concentrating his forces with the Grand Army. Both engagements were without immediate results, and instead of pressing their operations, the French retreated into winter quarters, Napoleon withdrawing his guard as far as Warsaw, while the other divisions were cantoned in the towns to the eastward.

Bennigsen was now placed in supreme command of the Russian forces, amounting to 90,000 men, and he at once resolved not to wait for Napoleon's onset, but chose rather to anticipate him, wisely concluding that his enemy's desire of desisting from active operation, as evinced by cantoning his troops in winter quarters, ought to be a signal to the Russians to again take the field. Thus the French Emperor found himself forced into a winter campaign, and he at once issued general orders for drawing out his forces for the purpose of concentrating them at Willenberg, in the rear of the Russians, who were then stationed at Mohringen. The duration of the winter quarters, in which the French troops had been placed, lasted no longer than the weather would permit. The army reposed almost the whole of the month of December, and towards the beginning of January 1807, movements on both sides seemed to indicate more serious operations. It appeared the Russians had adopted a vast plan of defense. Their generals seemed to have regained confidence, on seeing Napoleon stop amidst the advantages he had acquired, and imputed that to fear which arose in him from motives of prudence. They could not imagine what other reason he could possibly have for going into cantonments upon the Vistula.

Napoleon now proposed to force his enemies eastward towards the Vistula, as at Jena he had compelled the Prussians to fight with their rear turned to the Rhine. Bernadotte had orders to engage the attention of Bennigsen upon the right, and detain him in his present situation; or rather, if possible, to induce him to advance eastward so as to facilitate the operations he meditated.

The Russian commander learned Bonaparte's intention from an intercepted dispatch, and changed his purpose of advancing on Ney and Bernadotte. Marches and counter-marches took place, through a country at all times difficult, and now covered with snow. Bennigsen was aware that it was to his advantage to protract the campaign in this manner, as he was near his reinforcements, and the French were distant from theirs:—every loss therefore telling more in proportion to the enemy than to his own army.

Notwithstanding this apparent advantage, the distress of the Russian army was so extreme from the lack of suitable provisions that it induced General Bennigsen, against his judgment, to give battle at all risks, and for this purpose to concentrate his forces at Preuss-Eylau, which was decided upon as the field which he proposed to contest with Napoleon.

It had been the intention to maintain the town itself which Bennigsen had entered on the 7th of February, and a body of troops had been left for that purpose; but in the confusion attending the movement of so large an army, the orders had been misunderstood, and the division designed for this service evacuated the place as soon as the rear-guard had passed through it. A Russian division was hastily ordered to re-occupy the town; but they found the French already in possession, and although they dislodged them, they were themselves driven out in turn by another division of French to whom Napoleon had promised unusual rewards. A third division of Russians now advanced, Bennigsen being desirous of protracting the contest for the town until the arrival of his heavy artillery which joined him by a different route. When it came up he would have discontinued the struggle for Eylau but it was impossible to control the ardor of the Russian columns who persevered in advancing, with drums beating, rushed into the town and surprised the French in the act of sacking it,—putting many of them to death by the bayonet.

Another division of the French now advanced under cover of the hillocks and broken ground which skirt the village, threw their fire upon the streets and the Russians once more retreated with considerable loss. The town was now once more and finally occupied by the French. Night fell and the combat ceased only to be renewed with increased fury the next day.

The Russians occupied a space of uneven ground, about two miles in length and a mile in depth, with the village of Serpallen on their left. In the front of their army lay the town of Preuss-Eylau, situated in a hollow and in possession of the French. The latter occupied Eylau with their left, while their centre and right lay parallel to the Russians, upon a chain of heights which commanded, in a great measure, the ground possessed by the enemy. The French also expected to be reinforced by Ney's division which had not yet come up, and which was destined to form on the extreme left. The space between the hostile armies was open and flat, covered with snow and intersected with frozen lakes. The soldiers could trace each other's positions by the pale glimmer of watch lights upon the snow.

Napoleon, who slept but three or four hours that night in a chair in the postmaster's house, placed the corps of Marshal Soult at Eylau itself, partly within the town, partly on the right and left of it, Augereau's corps and the Imperial Guard a little in the rear, and all the cavalry upon the wings till daylight should enable him to make his final disposition of the fifty odd thousand men, exclusive of Ney's corps, and which were to meet the ninety thousand Russians and Prussians.

At daybreak on the 8th of February, 1807, two strong columns of the French advanced for the purpose of turning the right and storming the centre of the Russians, who had commenced the firing at one and the same time; but they were driven back in great disorder by the heavy and sustained fire of the Russian artillery. An attack on the enemy's left was equally unsuccessful. The Russian infantry stood like stone ramparts, each time repulsing the French assault—their cavalry then came to the support, pursued the retiring assailants and took standards and eagles.

About mid-day a heavy snowstorm set in, which the wind drove right in the faces of the Russians, adding to the obscurity caused by the smoke of the burning village of Serpallen that rolled along the line. The snow having now ceased, a melancholy spectacle presented itself. Thousands of dead and wounded lay on the ground, and several of the divisions were still hors de combat. Augereau's two divisions had been swept down by an unmasked battery of seventy-two pieces, and Augereau, wounded himself, but more affected by the disaster of his corps than by his personal danger, was carried to the cemetery of Eylau to the feet of Napoleon. To the Emperor he complained, not without bitterness, of the failure to send him timely succor. Silent grief pervaded every face in the imperial staff. Napoleon, calm and firm, addressed a few soothing words to Augereau, then sent him to the rear, and took measures for repairing the mischief.

Dispatching in the first place the chasseurs of the Guard and some squadrons of dragoons which were at hand, he sent for Murat and ordered him to make a decisive effort on the line of the infantry which formed the centre of the Russian army, and which, taking advantage of Augereau's disaster began to press forward. At the first summons Murat came up at a gallop: "Well," said Napoleon, "are you going to let those fellows eat us up?" He then ordered the heroic chief of his cavalry to collect the chasseurs, the dragoons, the cuirassiers, and to fall upon the Russians with eighty squadrons, to see what effect such a mass of horse, charging furiously, would have on an infantry reputed not to be shaken. The cavalry of the Guard was brought forward ready to add its shock to that of the cavalry of the army.

The moment was critical, for if the Russian infantry were not stopped it would soon attack the cemetery, the centre of the French position, and Napoleon had but six foot battalions of the Imperial Guard to defend it. Murat galloped off, collected his squadrons, made them pass between the cemetery and Rothenen where Augereau's corps had marched to almost certain destruction. Charge after charge was made and successfully resisted. At length one of them, rushing on with more violence, broke the enemy's infantry at one point and opened the breach through which cuirassiers and dragoons rushed, each eager to penetrate first. The Russians' first and second lines being broken, they turned the batteries of their artillery on the confused mass, killing as many of their own soldiers as those of the French, not caring whether they killed friends or foes so that they got rid of the formidable French force; but their efforts were useless.

Napoleon, graver than usual, in a gray riding-coat and Polish cap, sat motionless in the cemetery, in which were heaped bodies of a great number of his officers; his Guard was behind him and before him the chasseurs, the dragoons, the cuirassiers; they formed anew and were ready to devote themselves as he might direct. The Emperor waited long before determining definitely on his last attack. Never had he nor his soldiers been engaged in such a hotly contested fight. The bullets whistled around and a shell burst within a few paces of him. Augereau's arm was broken and Lannes was wounded but not severely.

Under cover of darkness six columns of the French now advanced with artillery and cavalry and were close on the Russian position ere they were opposed. Bennigsen, at the head of his staff, brought up the reserve in position, and, on uniting with the first line bore the French back at the point of the bayonet. Their columns, partly broken, were driven again to their own position where they rallied with difficulty. A French regiment of cuirassiers, which during this part of the action had made an opening in the Russian line, were charged by the Cossacks, and found their defensive armor no protection against the lance. All but eighteen were slain.

At the moment when the Russians appeared to be the victors Davoust's division, which had been manoeuvring since the beginning of the action to turn the left and gain the rear of the Russian line, now made its appearance on the field. The effect was sudden and demoralizing to the Russians; Serpallen was lost, the Russian left wing, and a portion of its centre were thrown into disorder, and forced to retire and change front.

At this point in the contest the Prussian reinforcements, long expected, appeared in turn suddenly on the field, and passing the left of the French and right of the Russians, pushed down in three columns to redeem the battle on the Russian centre and rear. The Prussians, under their gallant leader L'Estocq, never fired until within a few paces of the enemy and then used the bayonet with fearful effect. They redeemed the ground which the Russians had lost and drove back in their turn the troops of Davoust and Bernadotte who had lately been victorious. Ney, in the meantime appeared on the field with his advanced guard and occupied Schnaditten, a village on the road to Konigsberg. As this endangered the communication of the Russians with that town, it was thought necessary to carry it by storm; a resolution which was successfully executed, the enemy's rear-guard retreating in disorder.

This was the last act of that bloody day at Eylau. It was ten o' clock at night and darkness put an end to the combat. After fourteen hours of fighting both armies occupied the same positions taken in the morning. It was in fact the longest and by far the severest battle Napoleon had yet been engaged in. At the beginning of the contest, Augereau was scarcely in his senses, from the severity of rheumatic pain to which he was subject; but the sound of the cannon awakens the brave: he flew at full gallop at the head of his corps, after causing himself to be tied to his horse! He was constantly exposed to the hottest of the fire, and was only slightly wounded.

A few days after the battle Napoleon sent to Paris sixteen stands of colors taken on that occasion and ordered the cannon to be melted down and made into a statue of General d' Haulpoult, in the uniform of his regiment, he having gallantly commanded the second division of cuirassiers, when he was killed in the action.

In three letters which the Emperor wrote to Josephine during the month of February he alluded with the deepest affection to the horrors of this engagement. "We had yesterday," he said, "a great battle. The victory was mine, but I have been deprived of a great many men. The loss of the enemy, still more considerable, does not console me." "The land is covered with dead and wounded," he adds in a second letter; "This is not the noble portion of war. One is pained, and the soul is oppressed at the sight of so many victims."

In the biting frost, in face of thousands of dead and dying, when the gloomy day was sinking into a night of anguish, the Emperor had said: "This sight is one to fill rulers with a love of peace and a horror of war," and in his bulletin of the engagement he said: "Imagine, on a space of a league square, nine or ten thousand corpses, four or five thousand dead horses, lines of Russian knapsacks, fragments of guns and sabres; the earth covered with bullets, shells, supplies; twenty-four cannon, surrounded by their artillerymen, slain just as they were trying to take their guns away; and all that in plainest relief on the stretch of snow!"

Twelve of Napoleon's eagles were in the hands of the Russians, and the field between them was covered with 50,000 corpses, of whom at least half were French. Each leader claimed the victory. The Russians retired from Eylau towards Konigsberg the very night after the battle, and the French made no effort to pursue but remained on the field nine days to allow the troops some repose.

It was in truth a drawn battle. The point of superiority on this dreadful day would have been hard to decide, but the victory, if rightly claimed by either party, must be pronounced to have remained with Napoleon; for Bennigsen retreated and left him master of the field of battle where he slept and remained for days; but it was a ghastly triumph. During the whole time the contest lasted Napoleon's countenance was never observed to change; nor did he show any emotion whatever; but all accounts agree that he was deeply impressed with the horrors of the succeeding night.

Finally, on the 19th of February, Napoleon left Eylau and retreated with his whole army to Osterode on the Vistula. Here he established his headquarters, living in a sort of barn, governing his Empire and controlling Europe. The doubtful issue of the battle of Eylau had given a shock to public opinion and it required all the Emperor's prudence and address to overcome it. Great despondency was produced in Paris by the bulletin of the battle and a marked depression took place in the funds.