General Levin August von Bennigsen
Levin August von Bennigsen was a Hanoverian who commanded Russian armies against Napoleon and fought him to the first draw of his career. Born in Brunswick in 1745, he served as a page and then in the Hanoverian army, and entered Russian service in 1773 at twenty-eight, fighting the Turks and the Poles and rising to general. He was among the conspirators who murdered Tsar Paul I in March 1801, entering the bedchamber with the others; his exact role is disputed and he never denied being present. He was given a corps against the French in 1806 and took over the Russian army after Napoleon's rapid destruction of Prussia. At Pułtusk in December he fought a large action he claimed as a victory. On 7-8 February 1807 at Eylau in East Prussia, in a blizzard, his army fought Napoleon to a standstill. A French corps lost its bearings in the snow and marched into the Russian centre and was destroyed; Murat's massed cavalry charge of some eleven thousand horsemen saved the French line. Both sides lost perhaps twenty-five thousand men, and Bennigsen withdrew in good order. It was the first battle Napoleon did not clearly win. He was decisively beaten at Friedland in June 1807, which produced the Treaty of Tilsit. He was recalled in 1812, serving as chief of staff under Kutuzov and fighting at Borodino and Tarutino, and quarrelled with him bitterly. He commanded the reserve army at Leipzig in 1813 and was made a count. He retired to Hanover in 1818 and died in 1826.
- Lived: 1745 CE – 1826 CE
- Nationality: Russian
- Roles: general
