Qualla: First Battle of Polotsk

First Battle of Polotsk: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit zeitgenössischer Maler, unbekannt, Public domain. Forget the famous march. While Napoleon was driving his Grande Armée east toward Moscow in the summer of 1812, a separate French and Bavarian corps under Marshal Nicolas Oudinot was supposed to be marching north - up the Drissa-Dvina river system, toward Saint Petersburg, to threaten the Russian capital itself. They never got there. On August 17 and 18, on a low rise near the small Belarusian city of Polotsk, a Russian army half their size hit them hard enough to break the advance. Oudinot took a wound and handed command to Saint-Cyr. By the second night both sides had lost roughly 5,500 men each, and the road to Saint Petersburg was closed for the rest of the campaign.

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Image: zeitgenössischer Maler, unbekannt | Public domain

First Battle of Polotsk: The Northern Flank

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit artists: del. MARTINET, sc. RÉVILLE, Jean-Baptiste (1767-1825), Public domain. Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 was three armies, not one. The main force - 600,000 men at peak - aimed at Moscow through Smolensk. A southern wing under Schwarzenberg's Austrians worked the Pripyat marshes. And a northern corps under Oudinot, augmented by Saint-Cyr's Bavar...

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Image: artists: del. MARTINET, sc. RÉVILLE, Jean-Baptiste (1767-1825) | Public domain

First Battle of Polotsk: Day One: Oudinot Wounded

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Horace Vernet, Public domain. At dawn on August 17, Wittgenstein's 1st Infantry Corps attacked the French positions near the village of Spas, on the outskirts of Polotsk. The French line buckled. Oudinot fed in additional units, counterattacked through his center, and by nightfall both armies were holding mor...

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Image: Horace Vernet | Public domain

First Battle of Polotsk: Day Two: Saint-Cyr's Trick

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Horace Vernet, Public domain. On August 18, Saint-Cyr executed exactly the kind of operation he was famous for. He fed Wittgenstein false signals about where the main French blow would fall, regrouped his troops behind cover, and then suddenly attacked the Russian left flank and center with massed force. The ...

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Image: Horace Vernet | Public domain

First Battle of Polotsk: Who Died Here

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jelle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The official casualty count is 6,000 French and Bavarian soldiers killed or wounded, and 5,500 Russians - roughly 11,500 men in two days on a stretch of riverbank in what is now Belarus. The Bavarian losses were concentrated among senior officers in a way that was rare even in th...

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Image: Jelle | CC BY-SA 2.0

First Battle of Polotsk: The Argument and the Aftermath

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur, Public domain. Historians still disagree about who won. Gaston Bodart calls it a draw. George Nafziger writes that Saint-Cyr 'defeated Wittgenstein's numerically inferior force, but it was an inconclusive battle.' Dominic Lieven treats it as a Russian strategic victory. Hugh Seton-Watson notes ...

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Image: Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur | Public domain