8 February in military history: Battle of Eylau, 1807

In the winter of 1806 to 1807 Napoleon carried his war against Prussia and Russia into Poland and entered Warsaw in December 1806. In January 1807 the Russian commander, General Levin von Bennigsen, went over to the attack, and the fighting moved north into East Prussia, across what are now the Polish regions of Warmia and Masuria, past Morąg and Olsztyn. Napoleon tried to cut the Russians off from Königsberg, and Bennigsen fell back until he turned to fight at Preussisch-Eylau, a small town south of Königsberg.¹

The numbers are disputed. The Fondation Napoléon gives 66,500 French against 82,500 Russians and Prussians; Petre and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia put Bennigsen's army at about 78,000, including 7,000 to 8,000 Prussians under General L'Estocq, and the encyclopedia gives Napoleon up to 70,000. Fighting began on the evening of 7 February, when the French stormed the village and its church and cemetery after a murderous struggle.²

8 February: snow, guns and cavalry

At first light on 8 February the Russian guns opened on Eylau. Napoleon sent Marshal Augereau's corps against the Russian center, and at that moment a snowstorm so thick that men could not see two paces swept over both armies. Augereau's columns lost their direction and were cut to pieces by the massed Russian artillery, and Augereau himself was wounded. To save his center Napoleon launched Murat's reserve cavalry, backed by the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, in a great charge that broke through the Russian lines and checked their advance.³

Meanwhile Marshal Davout's corps came up on the Russian left and drove it back. In the afternoon L'Estocq's Prussians reached the field, retook ground on that flank and stopped Davout, while Marshal Ney arrived on the French left only in the evening. During the night Bennigsen withdrew toward Königsberg, leaving the French in possession of the field.⁴

Victory without a decision

Eylau is usually recorded as a French victory because the Russians retreated, but the Fondation Napoléon calls it an appalling and inconclusive bloodbath, and the Polish historian Norbert Kasparek one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic era. The losses are disputed: Petre estimated about 25,000 Russians and Prussians killed and wounded and a few thousand more French, and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives 26,000 to 36,000 on each side. Napoleon's 58th bulletin admitted only 1,900 French dead and 5,700 wounded, figures Petre called clearly false. To Josephine Napoleon wrote on 11 February that he had beaten the enemy in a memorable day, “but one that cost me many brave men”.⁵

The exhausted Grande Armée went into winter quarters. The decision came only in June 1807 at Friedland, and in July the Treaties of Tilsit created the Duchy of Warsaw from Polish lands that Prussia had taken in the partitions. In Polish the town is Iława Pruska; since 1946 it has been called Bagrationovsk, and it lies in Russia's Kaliningrad region.⁶

8 February 1913 · 113 years ago

Bulair, 1913: a war resumed

The First Balkan War had gone badly for the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarians were besieging Edirne (Adrianople) and stood before the Çatalca lines outside Constantinople when an armistice was signed in December 1912 and peace talks opened in London. In January 1913 a coup brought the Committee of Union and Progress to power, and the war resumed on 3 February. The new government planned to land the 10th Corps at Şarköy on the Sea of Marmara, behind the Bulgarian lines, while the troops holding the Bulair lines on the neck of the Gallipoli peninsula attacked at the same time, with the aim of relieving besieged Edirne.⁷

At Bulair the Ottoman force was commanded by Fahri Pasha, with Major Ali Fethi (later Fethi Okyar) as chief of staff and Major Mustafa Kemal, the future Atatürk, as head of the operations branch. Its two divisions, a composite (Mürettep) division and the 27th Division, faced the Bulgarian 7th Rila Division of Major General Georgi Todorov, with its 13th Rila and 22nd Thracian Regiments.⁸

The attack in the fog

The attack began at about 6 a.m. on 8 February under cover of fog. The Ottomans made early progress, but in the early afternoon the Bulgarians counterattacked, still screened by the fog, and the 27th Division on the right fell back in disorder; the composite division on the left had to give way too. By evening the Ottoman command accepted that the battle was lost, and its troops withdrew behind the fortified Bulair lines.⁹

The landing that was meant to help came too late. The ships carrying the 10th Corps did not reach Şarköy on time, and the force at Bulair attacked without news of them. The first troops went ashore only in the afternoon of 8 February, when the attack at Bulair had already failed; the landing was then called off and the troops were taken back on board by 11 February. The plan to relieve Edirne had failed.¹⁰

Losses, dates and memory

Ottoman reports after the battle said both divisions had lost nearly half their men killed, wounded and missing, and Bulgarian accounts likewise say the attacking divisions lost half or more of their strength. The Bulgarian Ministry of Defense speaks of about 6,000 Ottoman dead, and the Austrian press of the time reported Ottoman losses of 6,000.¹¹

The battle was fought on 8 February 1913 in the Gregorian calendar, which is 26 January in the Julian (Old Style) calendar that Bulgaria then used; Ottoman documents give the same day number in their own calendar. Bulgaria still marks the anniversary every 8 February. Two years later the same peninsula became the scene of the campaign told in our article on Gallipoli.¹²