Leipzig, 16–19 October 1813

The battle, stage by stage

1. 16 October 1813, about 8 AM

   Three fronts around Leipzig

   After a summer and autumn of maneuver in Saxony, Napoleon has concentrated around Leipzig, and four Coalition armies are closing in. To the south, on the open, gently rolling ground between the Pleisse and the villages of Markkleeberg, Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz, Napoleon's main body faces Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia; Napoleon himself watches from the Galgenberg, a low rise behind Wachau. Poniatowski's Poles hold the Pleisse line from Connewitz to Markkleeberg, Victor holds Wachau and Lauriston Liebertwolkwitz, with the Guard and Murat's cavalry behind and Macdonald still marching in from the north-east. North of the city Marmont's corps stands near Möckern facing Blücher's Army of Silesia, and on the west a small force under Arrighi holds Lindenau and the single causeway that is the army's road back to France. Strengths are disputed: Napoleon probably had about 160,000–185,000 men around Leipzig on 16 October against roughly 200,000–260,000 Coalition troops, with more on the way. The Coalition guns open at about 8 AM.

2. 16 October, 9 AM–3:30 PM

   Wachau and the great cavalry charge

   Schwarzenberg attacks in four columns. Kleist takes Markkleeberg but is held there; Eugen of Württemberg takes Wachau at about 9:30 AM and loses it to a counterattack around 11 AM, then clings to the ground south of the village under heavy artillery fire; Gorchakov is beaten off from Liebertwolkwitz. On the east Klenau takes the Kolmberg hill, but about noon Macdonald drives him off it. West of the Pleisse, Merveldt's Austrians struggle across marshy ground toward a single defended bridge at Dölitz. Drouot masses a grand battery (accounts give 100 to 150 guns) between Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz, and soon after 2:30 PM Murat launches the largest cavalry attack of the day — about 10,000 French, Italian and Saxon horsemen by one count, led by Bordesoulle's cuirassiers. They break through Eugen's battered line, take some 26 guns and ride close to the Wachtberg, where the Tsar and the King of Prussia are watching, before Russian Guard cuirassiers, the Tsar's Cossack escort and Allied cavalry drive the exhausted squadrons back near Güldengossa by about 3:30 PM.

3. 16 October, afternoon–night

   Möckern and a drawn first day

   North of the city Blücher attacks without waiting for the main army. Langeron takes Wiederitzsch from Dombrowski's Poles, while Yorck's Prussians assault Marmont's position at Möckern, a village on the bank of the Elster. Attack after attack fails among the farm buildings under heavy gunfire; Normann, by Rickard's account, refuses Marmont's order to charge with his Württemberg cavalry. Late in the day Yorck throws in all his cavalry, rides down French battalions and takes Möckern; Marmont falls back toward Gohlis and Eutritzsch. Yorck's corps loses about 7,970 men (historyofwar.org, after the returns) — one of the bloodiest single actions of the battle. To the west Bertrand's IV Corps beats off Gyulai at Lindenau; to the south Merveldt finally breaks into Dölitz near dusk but is driven out and captured. Napoleon has held his ground but has not broken the Army of Bohemia; losses on 16 October are estimated at 20,000–25,000 French and about 30,000 Allied.

4. 17 October

   The lull: the ring closes

   Sunday the 17th is quiet apart from fighting in the north, where Blücher's Russians push the French out of Gohlis and Eutritzsch into the city's Halle suburb. Napoleon expects only Reynier's VII Corps, with its Saxon division, which comes in from the north-east. The Coalition is gaining far more: Colloredo's Austrian I Corps reaches the south, Bennigsen's Russian Army of Poland approaches from the east, and Bernadotte's Army of the North — Bülow's Prussians, Wintzingerode's Russians and the Swedes — comes down from the north. Napoleon questions the captured Merveldt, learns that Bavaria has changed sides, and by most accounts sends him back with peace proposals that go unanswered. He orders Bertrand to secure the road west, but he neither retreats nor builds extra bridges over the Pleisse and Elster. In the night he pulls his army back to a tighter line close to the city, a movement that begins at 2 AM. By the 18th he has perhaps 160,000–195,000 men against some 300,000–360,000.

5. 18 October, 9 AM–3 PM

   The concentric assault

   Early on the 18th Normann's Württemberg cavalry brigade (about 1,000 sabers) went over to the Coalition near Schönefeld. Six Coalition columns attack around a semicircle about 15 km long. Along the Pleisse the Austrians under Hessen-Homburg, then Colloredo, take Dölitz and Dösen but are thrown back by Poniatowski, Augereau and Oudinot's Young Guard. In the center Barclay's Russians and Kleist's Prussians storm Probstheida again and again against Victor's and then Lauriston's men and the Guard artillery; Probstheida is never taken; the Völkerschlachtdenkmal now stands just north-west of the old village. Napoleon watches from the knoll by Quandt's tobacco mill, and at about 11 AM (Rickard) he orders the retreat to be prepared. On the east Bennigsen and Klenau push Macdonald out of Holzhausen and Zuckelhausen, Bubna's Austrians and Bülow's Prussians attack Paunsdorf, supported by the British rocket troop under Captain Richard Bogue, who is killed, and in the north Langeron crosses the Parthe against Schönefeld. To the west Bertrand drives Gyulai aside and opens the Lützen road toward Weissenfels.

6. 18 October, about 4:30 PM–9 PM

   The Saxons change sides

   With Paunsdorf lost, the Saxon division of Reynier's corps, whose officers had debated the move all day, marches over to the Coalition at about 4:30–5 PM, first a battery and then the infantry brigades. About 3,000–4,000 men go over with their guns; General von Zeschau keeps some 600 with the French. The defection opens a gap near Paunsdorf, though the French line, already thin, holds until nightfall. Schönefeld, burning, changes hands several times; Marmont is driven out late in the afternoon, Ney is wounded counterattacking, and the French hold before Reudnitz until about 9 PM, while Wintzingerode's Russians and the Swedish guns support Langeron's attack; on the east Bennigsen and Klenau take Zweinaundorf and Bubna Mölkau. Probstheida still holds. The French cavalry begins crossing the causeway to Lindenau at about 4 PM. The Allied monarchs spend the evening on the Monarchenhügel, where Schwarzenberg brings them news of the victory.

7. 19 October, 2 AM–1 PM

   The Elster bridge

   The French retreat begins at 2 AM, through the narrow streets of the old city and out of the Ranstädt gate along the causeway over the Elster and Pleisse channels to Lindenau. Macdonald, Poniatowski and Lauriston hold the suburbs as a rearguard. The Coalition attack resumes at about 10:30 AM, after a pause for negotiations, and by about 12:30 PM the Allies are in through the Grimma gate. The one bridge over the Elster had been mined, to be blown only after the rearguard was across; General Dulauloy passed the task to Colonel Montfort of the engineers, who left to ask which corps would be last, and Corporal Lafontaine of the sappers, seeing Russian skirmishers of Sacken's corps near the river, fired the charge at about 1 PM while the bridge was still crowded, though no Allied attack actually threatened the bridge (Britannica). Thousands are trapped. Macdonald swims his horse across; Poniatowski, made a Marshal of the Empire on 16 October and already wounded, drowns trying to cross the Elster.

8. 19 October and after

   The Battle of the Nations

   Britannica gives about 38,000 French killed and wounded plus some 30,000 taken in Leipzig, and about 55,000 Coalition losses; other counts run from about 73,000 French losses in all (Friederich) to tradition's 120,000 dead on both sides, and the true figure will never be known. More than 30 French generals are captured, and the King of Saxony is taken prisoner. Typhus spreads from the crowded wounded to the townspeople. Napoleon leads the remains of his army west — only about 80,000 men, perhaps 60,000 of them still fit to fight, reached the Rhine with him — and Germany east of the Rhine is lost. The battle, fought by soldiers of more than half a dozen nations on both sides, became the largest in Europe before the First World War; its centenary monument, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, was dedicated on 18 October 1913.