Battle of Lyakhovo

Overview

The Battle of Liaskowa took place 9 November 1812 near the village of Liaskowa, where 3,500 Cossacks under the command of Vasily Vasilyevich Orlov-Denisov surrounded 2,000 soldiers of the Grande Armée under Jean-Pierre Augereau.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Lyakhovo marked a notable instance of coordinated partisan and Cossack action during the French withdrawal from Moscow. A Russian force of 3,500 under Orlov-Denisov, operating alongside partisan commanders including Denis Davydov, Aleksandr Figner, and A. Seslavin, succeeded in surrounding a French detachment of 2,000 men under Jean-Pierre Augereau. With French casualties recorded at 2,000 — equal to the entire engaged French force — the engagement illustrates the degree to which isolated French columns were vulnerable to encirclement during the retreat. Actions of this kind compounded the attrition the Grande Armée suffered as it withdrew westward, eroding its cohesion and reducing its effective strength beyond the losses sustained at Moscow and on the road itself.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (5)