Result
After 14 hours of continuous battle, there was still no result but enormous loss of life. Authorities differ greatly, but a reasonable estimate of Russian casualties is about 15,000, the French somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 (some sources state as many as 25,000 casualties). The Russians left 3,000 prisoners for the French. The French had gained possession of the battlefield — nothing but a vast expanse of bloodstained snow and frozen corpses — but they had suffered enormous losses and failed to destroy the Russian army.
It was left to Marshal Ney to sum up. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Ney said, Quel massacre! Et sans résultat – "What a massacre! And all for nothing."
Eylau was not the decisive victory characteristic of Napoleon's earlier campaigns, prolonging the war with Russia, until his decisive victory at the Battle of Friedland forced Tsar Alexander I to the peace table at Tilsit.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Eylau
Famous quotes containing the word result:
“Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)