The Battle of Leipzig

The Battle of Leipzig, fought from October 16 to 19, 1813, was a decisive conflict in the Napoleonic Wars. Also known as the Battle of Nations, it saw Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces clashing with the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden. Taking place near Leipzig in Saxony, it was the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I, involving over 600,000 troops. The defeat marked a turning point in the war, leading to the eventual downfall of Napoleon. The battle ended with the retreat of French forces and the liberation of German territories.

Leipzig: The Grand Coalition

Introduction

What was the largest battle fought in Europe before the First World War? The answer is the Battle of Leipzig, which took place in 1813 and involved more than half a million soldiers. It was a gigantic clash that included the armies from most of the leading nations of Europe at the time. More than any other battle of the era—even the much more famous Battle of Waterloo—Leipzig was the decisive moment when Napoleon’s dreams of European dominance were finally defeated.

The Campaign

• (1) After the defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar destroyed Napoleon’s hopes of invading England, he turned his attention to new conquests on the mainland, cleverly exploiting longstanding rivalries and resentments among his potential enemies to keep them from uniting against him.
• (2) Eventually, Napoleon focused on Russia as a target, and in 1812, he led his army of more than half a million men into Russia. Although Napoleon won several battles and even managed to capture Moscow, his frozen and debilitated army was eventually forced to retreat, suffering severe hardships and more casualties. The campaign ended with the almost total annihilation of Napoleon’s army.
• (3) Back in France, Napoleon rebuilt his army with astonishing speed. The battle-hardened survivors of the Russia campaign gave him a solid core of officers and veterans. To amass sufficient numbers of new soldiers, he had to draw on every possible source, even calling up several classes of young men ahead of schedule. By these means, he was apparently able to bounce back from the brink of disaster in a remarkably short time.
• (4) On the surface, it looked as if Napoleon was now just as strong as ever, but there were several key underlying weaknesses in his new army.
  (a) First, the new conscripts truly represented the bottom of the manpower barrel—if Napoleon lost these men, there would be no replacing them.
  (b) Second, he had lost nearly 200,000 horses and most of his cavalrymen in Russia, and it proved to be much more difficult to replace these trained horses and riders than to find new infantry recruits. Thus, when Napoleon’s new army went to war, it would be badly under strength in cavalry.
• (5) One of the most important roles of cavalry in Napoleonic warfare was to run down and wipe out a defeated enemy to ensure that it did not survive to fight another day, but at key moments over the next several years, Napoleon would be unable to finish off a beaten foe for lack of adequate cavalry.
• (6) Another consequence of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia was the loss of several powerful continental nations that, up to this time, had been his reluctant allies; these nations now felt safe to desert Napoleon and join up with the enemies of France. The most significant of these was Prussia.
• (7) The Prussians signed an agreement with England, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden to work together in a joint effort to bring down Napoleon. This alliance was known as the Sixth Coalition—its very name a testimony to how many times Napoleon had survived international attempts to unseat him.
• (8) The great question remaining was which side Austria would join. The opposing alliances were so closely matched that whichever one could add Austria’s large army to its strength would have the advantage. Throughout the late spring and summer of 1813, the Austrians waffled while the fate of Europe hung in the balance.
• (9) Russia and Prussia moved aggressively, sending a combined army against Napoleon’s numerically superior force. In two battles, Napoleon defeated them, each time compelling the combined army to retreat, but partially because of his lack of cavalry, he was not able to destroy them or take the initiative himself. Thus, although these battles technically counted as victories, they also revealed Napoleon’s weakness. This outcome sufficiently emboldened Austria to side with the Sixth Coalition.
• (10) In the late summer and early autumn of 1813, Napoleon sparred with coalition forces all across greater Germany. He won a clever victory at Dresden, but this was balanced out by the defeat of nearly all his marshals in other battles. Again, Napoleon’s ability to track the various coalition armies was severely hampered by his shortage of cavalry. Eventually, the remaining French forces, numbering about 185,000 soldiers, coalesced around Napoleon at Leipzig.
• (11) Closing in on the city were four separate coalition armies, totaling approximately 330,000 men. The largest of these was a Russian-Austrian force of about 150,000: the Army of Bohemia. The others were the predominantly Russian Army of Poland with about 50,000 men, the Army of the North with 65,000, and the Army of Silesia with another 65,000.

The Battle

• (1) The Battle of Leipzig lasted from October 16 to October 19, unfolding in a number of separate stages. On the morning of October 16, Napoleon launched his main offensive, which he personally oversaw, against the Army of Bohemia to the south. Meanwhile, he ordered Marshal Marmont to conduct a holding action against the allied forces coming toward Leipzig from the north.
• (2) Much of the fighting centered on the village of Wachau and its surrounding fields and woods. The ferocious duel in this sector sawsawed over the course of the day, with ownership of the village changing hands no fewer than three times.
• (3) In the early afternoon, after a particularly intense French barrage had weakened the Russian lines, Napoleon ordered Murat to charge at the head of 10,000 cavalry. The Russians managed to bring up reserves to blunt the attack, but as night began to fall, Napoleon’s forces had pushed deep into the enemy lines and gained a considerable amount of territory.
• (4) Although the Army of Bohemia was battered and driven back by Napoleon’s day-long assault, in the end, its lines did not break. Napoleon’s great offensive had failed and, along with it, his best chance to win the Battle of Leipzig.
• (5) Meanwhile, Marmont was desperately trying to stave off the attack of the Prussian General Blucher and his Army of Silesia in the north. Again, several of the villages outside Leipzig became focal points of the struggle, especially the hamlet of Mockern, which served as a French strongpoint. Finally, Marmont was wounded in a Prussian cavalry charge, and Blucher captured Mockern.
• (6) On October 18, the coalition launched an all-out assault, with all the armies advancing on the encircled French. Their plan was simple: attack until victory was achieved. In the afternoon, the tide began to turn against the French. As night fell, it was clear that the French had lost the battle. Napoleon himself was described as being in a depressed state, and inadequate preparations had been made for a retreat from Leipzig. The only remaining question was whether the French could escape the ring that was closing in around them.
• (7) Napoleon had suffered a significant defeat, and his army had taken a severe beating. His forces were defeated but not broken, and the regiments were still disciplined and in good order. If he could retreat from Leipzig with his remaining men and equipment intact, the French might yet fight another day with a large enough army to challenge the Sixth Coalition and perhaps pull out another brilliant victory.
• (8) Because the French were surrounded on three sides by the coalition forces, their only escape route was to the west, over causeways that traversed some marshy territory. To reach this road, the fleeing army first had to cross a bridge over the Elster River. All morning, French forces streamed over this bridge to safety.
• (9) At this moment, however, an incident transformed the battle from a discouraging but potentially survivable defeat into a fatal disaster. Napoleon had put one of his generals in charge of the Elster Bridge with orders to blow it up after the French army had crossed. This general delegated responsibility to one of his colonels, who placed the explosives. Because this colonel was unsure which unit was the rearguard, he went to headquarters to find out, leaving a corporal behind.
• (10) When a few Russian skirmishers began shooting at the troops streaming across the bridge, the corporal panicked and lit the fuse. The explosion killed hundreds of French troops and trapped tens of thousands of French soldiers on the wrong side of the river, along with most of the wounded and a sizable portion of the French artillery. Ultimately, more than 40,000 prime troops were stranded and taken prisoner, along with 300 irreplaceable cannons.

Outcomes

• (1) These losses doomed Napoleon. The allies had won a truly decisive victory and one from which the French could not recover. The shaky coalition now had a shared victory and could see a clear path to the end of the war. The coalition forces entered Paris on March 30, 1814.
• (2) Napoleon abdicated and went into exile on the island of Elba, but in February 1815, he escaped from the island, landed in France, proclaimed himself emperor, and began to rally his veterans, initiating the period known as the Hundred Days. Immediately, a Seventh Coalition was formed, and each of the major powers promised to supply 150,000 men to oppose Napoleon.
• (3) The first to get going were the English under Lord Wellington and the Prussians under Blucher. Realizing that his only hope was to defeat his enemies before they could unite, Napoleon moved against them. The result was the Battle of Waterloo, at which Wellington and an army of about 80,000 narrowly defeated Napoleon and his 70,000.
• (4) Waterloo is often cited as the decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and it was certainly the last major battle in that extended conflict. But it was Leipzig that taught Europe how to defeat Napoleon—the quick response of the Seventh Coalition demonstrated that Europe had learned that lesson well—thus, the outcome of the Hundred Days was never really in doubt. Defeated again, Napoleon was shipped off to the island of St. Helena and died there in 1821.

Conclusion

The Battle of Leipzig, fought in October 1813, stands as a critical turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. Known as the Battle of Nations, it was the largest engagement in Europe prior to the 20th century, involving multiple countries united against Napoleon’s expansionist ambitions. The decisive defeat of the French forces not only marked the beginning of the end for Napoleon’s empire but also reshaped the political landscape of Europe. The victory by the coalition forces liberated occupied territories and galvanized efforts to restore the balance of power in Europe, ultimately leading to Napoleon’s downfall and the restoration of monarchies across the continent. The battle’s scale and significance underscore its role in shaping modern European history.

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