Berckheim led a cavalry brigade during the French invasion of Russia in 1812. The brigade was part of Jean-Pierre Doumerc's 3rd Cuirassier Division in the III Cavalry Corps under Emmanuel de Grouchy. Like all three of Doumerc's brigades, Berckheim's brigade consisted of only one strong regiment, the 4th Cuirassiers, with 35 officers and 821 rank and file. The other two brigades were led by Samuel-François Lhéritier (7th Cuirassiers) and Ignace Laurent Oullenbourg (14th Cuirassiers). At the First Battle of Polotsk on 18 August 1812, Marshal Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr surprised the Russians and drove them back. The Russian commander Peter Wittgenstein ordered a cavalry counterattack led by elements of the Chevalier Guard Regiment that broke through a gap in the Franco-Allied lines. Saint-Cyr repulsed the Russians when he threw in a Swiss infantry regiment and Berckheim's 4th Cuirassiers.