Battle of Ostrołęka (1807)

The Battle of Ostrołęka was a meeting engagement fought on 16 February 1807 between a French force under General of Division Anne Jean Marie René Savary and a Russian force under Lieutenant General Ivan Essen.

After the Battle of Eylau, both armies settled down for the winter. The Russian commander-in-chief, General of the Cavalry Leonty Bennigsen, carried out an operation against the French with the aim of disorganizing them, and it was for this purpose that the Russian corps under Essen attacked. The operation failed due to a lack of timely support between Essen's units. Once at Castricum (1799), similar delays by Essen and Abercromby also led to setbacks for the Allied forces, costing the campaign its defeat. Savary and his men learned about the operation in advance, though, intercepting a courier officer with orders from Essen, therefore Savary was more prepared. The French defeated the Russians in detail, inflicting disproportionately heavy losses (as per a bulletin of the Grande Armée, Essen lost 1,300 dead and 1,200 wounded), and forced them to retreat to the east to Wysokie Mazowieckie. Weather conditions caused both sides to go into winter quarters immediately after the battle, which occurred during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. Ostrołęka is located in the northeast part of modern Poland, but in 1807 it belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia.