Russia continues to expand.

The Congress of Vienna creates the Kingdom of Poland (Russian Poland), to which Alexander grants a constitution.

Thus, Alexander I becomes the constitutional monarch of Poland while remaining the autocratic tsar of Russia.

He is also the limited monarch of Finland, which had been annexed in 1809 and awarded autonomous status.

In 1813 Russia gains territory in the Baku area of the Caucasus at the expense of Persia.

The empire is by now firmly ensconced in Alaska also.

Alexander's primary focus is not on domestic policy but on foreign affairs, and particularly on Napoleon.

Fearing Napoleon's expansionist ambitions and the growth of French power, Alexander joins Britain and Austria against Napoleon.

Napoleon defeats the Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz in 1805 and trounces the Russians at Friedland in 1807.

Alexander is forced to sue for peace, and by the Treaty of Tilsit, signed in 1807, he becomes Napoleon's ally.

Russia loses little territory under the treaty, and Alexander makes use of his alliance with Napoleon for further expansion.

He wrests the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden in 1809 and acquires Bessarabia from Turkey in 1812.

The Russo-French alliance gradually becomes strained.

Napoleon is concerned about Russia's intentions in the strategically vital Bosporus and Dardenelles straits.

At the same time, Alexander views the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the French-controlled reconstituted Polish state, with suspicion.

The requirement of joining France's Continental Blockade against Britain is a serious disruption of Russian commerce, and in 1810 Alexander repudiates the obligation.

In June 1812, Napoleon invades Russia with six hundred thousand troops—a force twice as large as the Russian regular army.

Napoleon hopes to inflict a major defeat on the Russians and force Alexander to sue for peace.

As Napoleon pushes the Russian forces back, however, he becomes seriously overextended.

Obstinate Russian resistance combines with the Russian winter to deal Napoleon a disastrous defeat, from which fewer than thirty thousand of his troops return o their homeland.

As the French retreat, the Russians pursues them into Central and Western Europe and to the gates of Paris.

After the allies defeat Napoleon, Alexander becomes known as the savor of Europe, and he plays a prominent role in the redrawing of the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

In the same year, under the influence of religious mysticism, Alexander initiates the creation of the Holy Alliance, a loose agreement pledging the rulers of the nations involved—including most of Europe — to act according to Christian principles.

More pragmatically, in 1814 Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia had formed the Quadruple Alliance.

The allies create an international system to maintain the territorial status quo and prevent the resurgence of an expansionist France.

The Quadruple Alliance, confirmed by a number of international conferences, ensures Russia's influence in Europe.

With Danzig (modern day Gdańsk) secured, Napoleon is now free to turn against Bennigsen's army, yet it is the Russian who had struck first when he ordered his columns to converge on Marshal Michel Ney's exposed VI Corps on June 2.

Outnumbered sixty-three thousand to seventeen thousand, Ney fights a rear guard action at the Battle of Guttstadt-Deppen on June 5 and 6.

Though he loses his baggage train, two guns, and two thousand and forty-two men, Ney manages to escape to the southwest over the Pasłęka (Passarge) River with the bulk of his soldiers, leaving Bennigsen and his officers upset over the missed opportunity.

Within two days, Napoleon orders his one hundred and ninety thousand-man army to close in on the one hundred thousand Russians and fifteen thousand Prussians.

Detecting the approaching avalanche, Bennigsen orders his troops to retreat on Lidzbark Warmiński (Heilsberg).

The advance guard of Marshal Lannes reports seeing large numbers of Russian troops at the town of Friedland on June 13.

Both sides engage one another for the remainder of the day with no result.

Crucially, Bennigsen believes he has enough time to cross the Alle the following day, to destroy the isolated units of Lannes, and to withdraw back across the river without ever encountering the main French army.

Bennigsen's main body begins to occupy the town on the night of June 13, after Russian forces under General Golitsyn have driven off the French cavalry outposts.

The army of Napoleon marches on Friedland, but remains dispersed on its various march routes, and the first stage of the engagement becomes a purely improvisational battle.

Knowing that Napoleon is within supporting distance with at least three corps, Lannes sends aides galloping off with messages for help and wages an expert delaying action to fix Bennigsen in place.

With never more than twenty-six thousand men, Lannes forces Bennigsen to commit progressively more troops across the Alle to defeat him.

The French, showing a bold front, and shifting troops where needed to stop Russian advances, engage the Russians first in the Sortlack Wood and in front of Posthenen in the early hours of the 14th.

Lannes holds Bennigsen in place until the French have massed eighty thousand troops on the left bank of the river.

Both sides now use their cavalry freely to cover the formation of lines of battle, and a race between the rival squadrons for the possession of Heinrichsdorf ends in favor of the French under Grouchy and Nansouty.

Bennigsen is trapped and has to fight.

Having thrown all of his pontoon bridges at or near the bottleneck of the village of Friedland, Bennigsen has unwittingly trapped his troops on the west bank.

In the meantime Lannes fights hard to hold Bennigsen.

Napoleon fears that the Russians mean to evade him again, but by 6 a.m. Bennigsen hasd nearly fifty thousand men across the river and forming up west of Friedland.

His infantry, organized in two lines, extends between the Heinrichsdorf-Friedland road and the upper bends of the river along with the artillery.

Beyond the right of the infantry, cavalry and Cossacks extend  the line to the wood northeast of Heinrichsdorf.

Small bodies of Cossacks penetrate even to Schwonau.

The left wing also has some cavalry and, beyond the Alle river, batteries come into action to cover it.

A heavy and indecisive fire-fight rages in the Sortlack Wood between the Russian skirmishers and some of Lannes's troops.

The head of Mortier's (French and Polish) corps appears at Heinrichsdorf and drives the Cossacks out of Schwonau.

Lannes holds his own, and by noon Napoleon arrives with forty thousand French troops at the scene of the battle.

Napoleon gives brief orders: Ney's corps will take the line between Postlienen and the Sortlack Wood, Lannes closing on his left, to form the center, Mortier at Heinrichsdorf the left wing.

I Corps under General Victor and the Imperial Guard are placed in reserve behind Posthenen.

Cavalry masses are collected at Heinrichsdorf.

The main attack is to be delivered against the Russian left, which Napoleon sees at once to be cramped in the narrow tongue of land between the river and the Posthenen mill-stream.

Three cavalry divisions are added to the general reserve.

The course of the morning's operations means that both armies still have large detachments out towards Königsberg.

The emperor spends the afternoon in forming up the newly arrived masses, the deployment being covered by an artillery bombardment.

At 5 o'clock all is ready, and Ney, preceded by a heavy artillery fire, rapidly carries the Sortlack Wood.

The attack is pushed on toward the Alle.

Marshal Ney's right-hand division under Marchand drives part of the Russian left into the river at Sortlack, while the division of Bisson advances on the left.

A furious charge by Russian cavalry into the gap between Marchand and Bisson is repulsed by the dragoon division of Latour-Maubourg.

Soon the Russians find themselves huddled together in the bends of the Alle, an easy target for the guns of Ney and of the reserve.

Ney's attack indeed comes eventually to a standstill; Bennigsen's reserve cavalry charges with great effect and drives him back in disorder.

As at Eylau, the approach of night seems to preclude a decisive success, but in June and on firm ground the old mobility of the French reasserts its value.

The infantry division of Dupont advances rapidly from Posthenen, the cavalry divisions drive back the Russian squadrons into the now congested masses of infantry on the river bank, and finally the artillery general Sénarmont advances a mass of guns to case-shot range.

The terrible effect of the close range artillery sees the Russian defense collapsing within minutes, as canister decimates the ranks.

Ney's exhausted infantry succeeds in pursuing the broken regiments of Bennigsen's left into the streets of Friedland.

Lannes and Mortier have meanwhile held the Russian center and right on its ground, and their artillery has inflicted severe losses.

When Friedland itself is seen to be on fire, the two marshals launch their infantry attack.

Fresh French troops approach the battlefield.

Dupont distinguishes himself for the second time by fording the mill-stream and assailing the left flank of the Russian center.

This offers stubborn resistance, but the French steadily forces the line backwards, and the battle is soon over.

The Russians suffer heavy losses in the disorganized retreat over the river, with many soldiers drowning.

Farther north, the still unbroken troops of the right wing withdraw by using the Allenburg road; the French cavalry of the left wing, though ordered to pursue, remains inactive.

French casualties number approximately ten thousand soldiers, while the Russians suffer at least twenty thousand casualties.