Battle of Gross - Jägersdorf The Battle of Gross - Jägersdorf ( August 30 , 1757 ) was a victory for the Russian force under Field Marshal Stepan Fedorovich Apraksin over a smaller Prussian force commanded by Field Marshal Hans von Lehwaldt , during the Seven Years ' War . Background . An invading Imperial Russian army of 70 , 000 – 75 , 000 men , led by Field - Marshal Stepan Fedorovich Apraksin , took Memel after a five - day bombardment and , using the fortress as a " place d ' armes " , invaded East Prussia . Apraksin , cautious and lacking war experience , was reluctant to commit his troops to battle . Instead of marching on Wehlau , as was expected , he ordered his forces to cross the Pregel River in safety , near the village of Gross - Jägersdorf ( Abandoned in 1945 and away 5 km southwest from Mezhdurechye ( Norkitten ) and placed on municipality of Svoboda ( Jänischken , Jänichen between 1938 – 1945 ) in Chernyakhovsky District ) . The Russians set the surrounding villages on fire in order to conceal their actions . Battle . A Prussian army of 25 , 500 men , led by Field - Marshal Hans von Lehwaldt , decided to surprise the much larger enemy and attacked a corps of men under General Vasily Lopukhin while it was crossing the Pregel . The general was bayonet ed by the Prussians and died in the arms of his comrades . General Pyotr Rumyantsev , on hearing about Lopukhin ' s plight , scrambled through a thicket and fell upon the right wing of the Prussian infantry . Another detachment attacked the rear of Lehwaldt ' s army . While the Prussians retreated slightly , the centre of the Russian army recovered from the shock of the initial assault and counter - attacked . The Kalmyk cavalry and the Don Cossacks , on the Prussian left , pretended to retreat so as to trap the attacking Prussians under heavy artillery fire . Aftermath . By the end of the day it became clear that the Russians won the battle and the Prussians had to abandon the battlefield . The Austrians present in the Russian army reported to Vienna that it was the bloodiest battle that " the 18th century has yet seen " . The Prussians lost 4 , 600 men , the Russians lost almost 6 , 000 men . The Prussian army ' s defeat was primarily due to smoke from burning villages , which made it hard to distinguish friend from foe , and caused the attack to lose momentum and coordination . Despite this , the Prussians seized a number of positions from numerically superior forces , inflicted equivalent losses on an enemy more than twice as strong , and left the field in perfect order . As at Zorndorf , Prussian discipline enabled them to dominate stronger Russian forces in close - quarter fighting . In the aftermath of the victory , it was widely expected that Apraksin would overrun all of East Prussia , but the cautious general stopped his advance on to Königsberg and withdrew back into Russia , apparently to support Peter III as heir to the throne . Another explanation for his retreat is an epidemic of smallpox , which hit the Russian army , especially the Kalmyks , and resulted in 8 . 5 times more deaths than all the battles fought in 1757 . In commemoration of the 240th anniversary of the Russian victory , a panoramic painting representing the battle was installed in the Friedland Gate of Kaliningrad . The battle is also commemorated on the Transnistrian ruble .