The shock was terrible; but the pent-up fury of the French carried all before it, and the grenadiers were wellnigh destroyed.

The battle might still have ended in a French victory; for Davoust was obstinately holding the village which he had seized in the morning, and even threatened the rear of Bennigsen's centre.

But when both sides were wellnigh exhausted, the Prussian General Lestocq with 8,000 men, urged on by the counsels of Scharnhorst, hurried up from the side of Koenigsberg, marched straight on Davoust, and checked his forward movements.

Ney followed Lestocq, but at so great a distance that his arrival at nightfall served only to secure the French left.
Thus darkness closed over some 100,000 men, who wearily clung to their posts, and over snowy wastes where half that number lay dead, dying, or disabled.

Well might Ney exclaim: "What a massacre, and without any issue!" Each side claimed the victory, and, as is usual in such cases, began industriously to minimize its own and to magnify the enemy's losses.