Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's Grande Armée crosses the Neman river beginning the invasion of Russia.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

The Grande Armée was the primary field army of the French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Commanded by Napoleon, from 1804 to 1808 it won a series of military victories that allowed the First French Empire to exercise unprecedented control over most of Europe. Widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled, it suffered catastrophic losses during the disastrous French invasion of Russia, after which it never recovered its strategic superiority and ended its military career with a total defeat during the Hundred Days in 1815.

The Neman, Nioman (Belarusian), Nemunas (Lithuanian), Niemen (Polish), or Memel (German), is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its southern channel. It drains into the Curonian Lagoon, narrowly connected to the Baltic Sea. The 937 km (582 mi) long Neman is a major Eastern European river. It flows generally west to Grodno within 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) of the Polish border, north to Kaunas, then westward again to the sea.