Interrogation of Captives (1897)

Jean-Baptiste Edouard Detaille: Interrogation of Captives

Napoleon on Campaign (1895)

Édouard Detaille: Napoleon on Campaign

Vive L'Empereur (1891)

Edouard Detaille: Vive L'Empereur. The Charge of the French 4th Hussar 

Regiment at the Battle of Friedland, June 14th 1807

The Battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807) was a major confrontation of the Napoleonic Wars between the armies of the French Empire commanded by Napoleon I and the armies of the Russian Empire led by Count von Bennigsen. Napoleon and the French obtained a decisive victory that routed much of the Russian army, which retreated chaotically over the Alle River by the end of the fighting. The battlefield is located in modern-day Kaliningrad Oblast, near the town of Pravdinsk, Russia.

The engagement at Friedland was a strategic necessity after the Battle of Eylau earlier in 1807 had failed to yield a decisive verdict for either side. The battle began when Bennigsen noticed the seemingly isolated corps of Marshal Lannes at the town of Friedland. Thinking he had a good chance of destroying these isolated French units, Bennigsen ordered his entire army over the Alle River. Lannes held his ground against determined Russian attacks until Napoleon could bring additional forces onto the field. By late afternoon, the French had amassed a force of 80,000 troops on the battlefield. Relying on superior numbers, Napoleon concluded that the moment had come and ordered a massive assault against the Russian left flank. The sustained French attack pushed back the Russian army and pressed them against the river behind. Unable to withstand the pressure, the Russians broke and started escaping across the Alle, where an unknown number of them died from drowning. The Russian army suffered horrific casualties at Friedland–losing over 40% of its soldiers on the battlefield. [Wikipedia]

The Dream (1888)

Edouard Detaille: The Dream

Detaille, like his friend de Neuville, specialised in military painting, celebrating the "glorious vanquished" of 1870-1871. Yet this large painting, presented at the 1888 Salon, is a direct political statement. The young conscripts manoeuvring, probably in Champaign, are dreaming of future revenge. This was the implicit program of the "brave general" Boulanger, whose popularity was then at a high point. The Boulangistes federated all the discontents and disappointments caused by the first decade of republican rule. Likewise, Detaille's soldiers associate reminiscences of the glorious French past : the victorious soldiers of the Revolution and Empire have the lion's share, but neither are neglected their comrades of the Restoration, whose white flag also carried the day in the Trocadero or Algiers, nor the "brave people" of Reichshoffen, under a hail of bullets, or the survivors of Gravelotte, gloriously vanquished. The Boulangiste stance of the painting was soon forgotten. The modern spectator finds in this great heroic painting a celebration of the army, the "holy ark" of the country.

Detaille was awarded a medal and his painting was bought by the state and presented at the 1889 World Fair. All republicans acclaimed this exaltation of the national army at a time when the Republic was instituting military service for all young citizens (law passed July 15, 1889). [Musée d’Orsay]

Champigny, December 1870 (1879)

Édouard Detaille: Champigny, December 1870

In this battle picture, shown in the Salon of 1879, Détaille depicts an incident that he had observed on December 2, 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. General Faron's soldiers are shown fortifying their new position at the town of Champigny-sur-Marne, near Paris, and breaking openings in the wall for cannons. General Faron is at the left, talking to an old gardener. The artist returned to the subject for a huge panorama of the battle (now destroyed) that he executed with de Neuville in 1882. [Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Cossacks Attacking (1870)

Édouard Detaille: Cossacks Attacking a Squad of the 

Gardes d'honneur from the Jeune Garde Imperiale