Meanwhile, oblivious of the Russian retreat, the French pursued their intended manoeuvre, pushing their advance guard, elements of the Reserve Cavalry Corps of
Joachim Murat, supported by
Jean-de-Dieu Soult's Corps, towards the
Alle river. On February 3, these troops arrived at Allenstein and the Inkowo plateau, where they discovered a portion of the retreating Russian army. Napoleon himself arrived that morning, and seeing an opportunity for a major battle, ordered four more army corps to march to the battlefield. He detailed Murat to delay his attack in order to wait for reinforcements and, as soon as these reached the battlefield, attack the Russians frontally using
Louis-Vincent-Joseph Le Blond de Saint-Hilaire's division, while Soult would march to flank the enemy. On the Russian side, General
Nikolay Kamensky was forced to accept battle rather than retreat, in order to protect the strategic
Liebstadt road and the bridges over the Alle in
Bergfriede, which were key for the successful retreat of the rest of the army. He was helped in his task by the fact the French only attacked towards 15:00 hours, a delay caused by Napoleon's orders to Murat. When the French eventually attacked, the Russians were prepared and used their fifteen cannon and musketry to inflict heavy losses to the advancing enemy. Nevertheless, the Russian tactical disposition, defending a defilé rather than occupying high ground, soon forced them to give ground under the pressure. Towards the end of the afternoon, Soult, with the 24th Light and 4th Line regiments began his flanking attack and, after some ferocious combat, pushed the Russians beyond the Alle, capturing an intact
Bergfriede bridge. With night falling and his position completely compromised, Bennigsen decided to hasten his retreat and ordered Kamensky to extricate his force and withdraw to
Deppen. Both sides suffered relatively high losses, with the Russians forced to abandon six cannon and three hundred prisoners on the field of battle. ==Result==