Battle of Vitebsk ( 1812 ) The Battle of Vitebsk , sometimes spelled Witepsk , was a military engagement that took place on 26 and 27 July 1812 during the French invasion of Russia . The battle put a French force , under the command of Emperor Napoleon I , in combat with Russian rearguard forces under General Petr Konovnitsyn ( on 26 July ) and Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen ( on 27 July ) and ended with the Russian forces making a strategic retreat from the battlefield . The battle occurred as Napoleon was trying to envelop the Russian First Army at Vitebsk and force them to accept battle . The commander of the Russian First Army , General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly , was himself aiming to fight and thus massed the bulk of his forces at Vitebsk , even though he was aware that his chances to win against Napoleon were not good . Barclay ' s motivation to make a stand resulted from political pressures and from his own desire to improve the army ' s morale , after weeks of retreating without a fight . The fighting on 26 July had General Konovnitsyn ' s rearguard division fighting elements of the French IV Corps and ended with the Russians managing to delay the enemy for the entire day , allowing the bulk of the army to mass at Vitebsk . Meanwhile , Barclay received intelligence that Pyotr Bagration ' s Second Army had been defeated three days earlier , which meant that Barclay was forced to abandon his plan to fight a major action against Napoleon . Barclay ' s main concern for the day of 27 July was to keep the French at bay for long enough , in order to allow his main force to escape towards Smolensk , where he planned to unite with Bagration . The task of delaying the French was assigned to General Pahlen , who succeeded in frustrating any French breakthrough attempts for half a day , before Napoleon decided to stop the fighting and wait for reinforcements , convinced that he would be able to renew battle the next day . Unbeknownst to Napoleon , the Russian army retreated during the afternoon and night , which meant that the Emperor ' s plans for a major battle collapsed . Meanwhile , the Russian army made a hasty retreat and safely reached Smolensk , where they were able to unite with Bagration , just as planned . Background . During the early stages of the Russian campaign , Emperor Napoleon I sought to force the Russian army to commit the bulk of its forces to a major battle , in order to defeat it and thus avoid a protracted campaign . Towards mid - July , he thus launched a part of his forces in an enveloping action towards Vitebsk , with the first engagement taking place at Ostrovno on 25 July . There , a French force under Marshal Joachim Murat and General Etienne de Nansouty tried to pin down a superior force under Russian General Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann - Tolstoy . While the Russians registered relatively high casualties , they were able to retreat in good order and the French did not manage to concentrate enough forces to launch an immediate pursuit . The Russians themselves inflicted significant casualties on the enemy and crucially , delayed them for long enough to allow the concentration of significant forces around Vitebsk . Meanwhile , with the Russian army having continually retreated before the enemy ever since the campaign started a month earlier , morale among the rank and file had begun to decline . Discontent was also growing at the Russian Imperial Court in Saint - Petersburg , with courtesan s failing to understand why the commander of the Russian field army , General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly , was abandoning vast territories of the Empire to the enemy without making a stand . Barclay was thus under serious pressure to fight and decided to do so at Vitebsk , where he had managed to concentrate a large part of his forces . However , Napoleon ' s superior numbers and the weaknesses of Barclay ' s battlefield position meant that the chances for a Russian victory were very weak at best . Battle . Following the engagement at Ostrovno , Ostermann - Tolstoy ' s IV Corps retreated towards Kakuviachino , where they were relieved by the 3rd Infantry Division under General Petr Konovnitsyn , who took up the rearguard responsibilities . Konovnitsyn was extremely adept at leading rearguard actions and he managed to block all the enemy ' s attempts to advance , delaying them for an entire day . The French were thus unable to make contact with the bulk of the Russian forces on 26 July . Meanwhile , at nightfall , Prince Aleksandr Meshikov , " aide - de - camp " to General Pyotr Bagration arrived at Barclay ' s headquarters . Meshikov brought alarming news of the defeat of Bagration ' s Second Army at the Battle of Saltanovka , three days earlier , at the hands of Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout . Davout ' s victory meant that Second Army would not be able to link up with Barclay ' s First Army and there was a danger that Napoleon might drive a wedge between the two armies , separating them for good and getting to the strategic city of Smolensk before them . The Russians thus needed to abandon any plans to give battle , urgently break contact with the pursuing enemy and move southeast , in an attempt to draw closer to Bagration ' s force . Despite these considerations , Barclay still wanted to give battle the next day and was only dissuaded from doing so by his advisers , late on 26 July . That night , the commander issued orders for retreat , but the proximity of Napoleon ' s force meant that a retreat would not be easy to operate . At daybreak on 27 July , Napoleon set his troops in motion , thrilled that he finally faced a massed enemy army , apparently willing to fight . Napoleon was unaware that the bulk of the Russian force was already making arrangements for an immediate retreat and that they had pushed forward only a rearguard , under General Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen , with orders to fight a delaying action and thus allow the army to slip away unmolested . The battlefield at Vitebsk was a vast and flat plain and only the river Dvina separated the French forces from the Russians , who were occupying a slightly elevated position on the eastern bank . From his position , Napoleon could see the steeples of the town of Vitebsk , as he watched his forces begin to cross the ravine that separated them from the enemy . Napoleon only had two infantry divisions ( 13th and 14th ) from Viceroy Eugène ' s " Army of Italy " ( also called IVth Corps ) , under his immediate command and was aware that the enemy possessed superior numbers of some 90 , 000 men . Elements of Etienne de Nansouty ' s mighty Ist Cavalry Corps were also in the vicinity , but these forces were by far insufficient for a pitched battle , so the Emperor planned to pin down the enemy forces , without pushing them to commit significant forces , and then wait for reinforcements of his own . The French 14th division , under General Jean - Baptiste Broussier moved forward first , with its left leading but he was attacked by surprise by enemy cavalry . The Russian commander , General Pahlen , first launched the Life Guard Cossacks , and then the bulk of his cavalry against Broussier ' s men . Pahlen ' s cavalry skillfully harassed the French infantry , preventing them from moving forward and brilliantly traded ground for time . The Russian cavalry organised repeated actions , which lasted for several hours . Broussier did his best to push through , using his divisional artillery , which fired deadly salvos at the Russian horse , but , without cavalry support of his own , he was not able to break through . Three hundred voltigeur s from the 9th Line regiment , which had been sent forward to skirmish were caught in an awkward position by superior Russian forces , but the French valiantly held their ground against all odds . The timely arrival of Alexis Joseph Delzons ' s 13th infantry division and most of all the cavalry from Nansouty ' s Ist Cavalry Corps persuaded Pahlen to cross to the other bank of the small Luchenza river , where the bulk of his forces waited , ready for battle . Towards 11 : 00 , Napoleon realised that the forces under his immediate control were insufficient for a prolonged battle and stopped the advance . The men bivouacked where they stood , while the Emperor went off to reconnoiter the situation in person . Napoleon was pleased to see that the Russians had taken battle positions , which seemed to reconfirm that they were finally ready to fight . The Emperor made arrangements for the continuation of the battle the next day , and praised the voltigeurs of the 9th Line for their gallantry . The Russians took advantage of this respite and began to move out towards 16 : 00 , leaving behind Cossack parties , which kept camp fires burning at night , in order to deceive the French into thinking that the army had not moved . Aftermath . The Russian were able to extricate themselves from a dangerous position and make a dash for Smolensk , where Barclay planned to unite his force with Bagration ' s Second Army . For a while , however , Barclay feared that Napoleon might get there before him and thus made dispositions for a particularly hasty retreat , which was nevertheless conducted in perfect order . Napoleon was in fact in no position to get to Smolensk before the Russians , as he needed to rest his exhausted troops and actually had no intelligence as to the direction of the Russian retreat . The Battle of Vitebsk was in fact no more than a rearguard combat and French casualties , some 400 dead , 900 wounded and 70 captured , were relatively light . The French lost Colonel Liédot , a distinguished officer , commander of the general staff of the army ' s military engineer corps , who was killed in action . Russian losses amounted to some 3 , 000 men , killed and wounded but their main strategic goal , namely to fight a delaying action aimed at allowing the army to retreat unmolested , was achieved . General Pahlen received high praise for this action from an otherwise reserved Barclay de Tolly . The battle is often seen by French historians as a missed opportunity for Napoleon , who failed to press Pahlen hard and thus render the Russian retreat difficult . Indeed , Napoleon took for granted the fact that the Russians would fight the next day and stopped his attack early on , unwilling to risk high losses against an enemy who vastly outnumbered the forces that he had available .