Battle of Leipzig

Background

Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 ended with the Grande Armée all but destroyed. In 1813 Prussia joined Russia in the Sixth Coalition, with Sweden and Britain alongside, and Napoleon raised a new army made up largely of young conscripts. With it he won hard-fought victories at Lützen on 2 May and Bautzen on 20–21 May, and an armistice followed.

During the armistice the Allies agreed the Trachenberg Plan, drafted largely by Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden, the former French marshal Bernadotte. Three Allied armies would avoid battle with Napoleon himself and strike at his marshals instead: Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia, Blücher's Army of Silesia and Bernadotte's Army of the North, joined later by Bennigsen's Army of Poland. Austria entered the war on 12 August. Napoleon beat the Army of Bohemia at Dresden on 26–27 August, but his subordinates were defeated at Grossbeeren, the Katzbach, Kulm and Dennewitz, and two drives on Berlin failed.

His allies were also deserting him. Saxon and Westphalian troops showed signs of mutiny, and Bavaria changed sides just eight days before Leipzig. With Bernadotte threatening from the north and Blücher crossing the Elbe, Napoleon pulled his army back across the river and concentrated it around Leipzig to protect his lines of supply. Leipzig's rivers, the Pleisse, the White Elster and the Parthe, divided the ground into separate sectors, and holding the city and its bridges let him shift troops between them faster than the Allies could. On 14 October the cavalry of both sides clashed at Liebertwolkwitz as the Allied armies closed in from south, north and west.

The armies

Napoleon had about 177,000 men on 16 October, rising towards 191,500–200,000 once Reynier's VII Corps arrived, with 700 to 900 guns. Around 160,000 were French; the rest were Poles under Poniatowski, Italians and Neapolitans, and Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine, chiefly Saxons, Badeners, Hessians, Westphalians and Württembergers. Most of the infantry were raw conscripts, and the cavalry was too weak to scout properly. Ney and Marmont held the north, Macdonald the east, and Poniatowski and Augereau the southern villages, with the Guard in reserve and Drouot's massed artillery ready for the heights near Wachau.

The Allies started with about 257,000 men, Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia south of the city and Blücher's Army of Silesia to the north-west. By 18 October Bernadotte and Bennigsen had raised that to about 360,000–394,000, with some 1,500 guns: roughly 145,000–150,000 Russians, 115,000 Austrians, 75,000–90,000 Prussians and up to 30,000 Swedes. Schwarzenberg was commander-in-chief, but the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia were all present, and Alexander forced changes to his plan. Bernadotte's army included a company of the British Rocket Brigade with Congreve rockets under Captain Richard Bogue.

The battle

CDB90 records the whole battle as a single engagement, number 138 (LEIPZIG), from 08:30 on 16 October to 14:00 on 19 October. Its fact sheet therefore covers all four days, including the arrival of Bernadotte and Bennigsen and the final retreat. Times below are approximate and come mostly from one source.

16 October: the south. Schwarzenberg attacked the French arc from Markkleeberg to Liebertwolkwitz. Prince Eugen of Württemberg took Wachau at about 09:30, but it was back in French hands by about 11:00. Klenau's Austrian IV Corps drove Lauriston and Macdonald out of Liebertwolkwitz, and the French counter-attack threw them out again. Along the Pleisse, Kleist and the Austrians fought Poniatowski and Augereau for Markkleeberg and Dölitz, and Merveldt was wounded and captured. Napoleon had Drouot form a grand battery of about 150 guns, which battered the Russian II Corps. In the early afternoon he launched Murat with about 10,000 cavalry against the centre, followed by the Young Guard. The cavalry were driven back by smaller Allied formations, and the Russian Guard, Austrian grenadiers and Russian cuirassiers held the line at Güldengossa. Napoleon gained ground but did not break through.

16 October: north and west. From about 14:00 Blücher attacked the villages north of the city. Langeron took the Wiederitzsch villages from Dąbrowski's Poles, and Yorck's Prussians fought Marmont's VI Corps for the walled village of Möckern into the night, about 9,000 Allied and 7,000 French casualties, mostly from artillery. In the west Gyulay's Austrian III Corps attacked Lindenau and was held, but it tied down Bertrand's IV Corps, which Napoleon had wanted for the southern attack.

17 October. A Sunday of near-lull. Sacken drove the Poles from Gohlis, and Russian hussars beat Arrighi's cavalry. Napoleon released Merveldt with an offer of an armistice, which the monarchs rejected. Reynier brought Napoleon some 14,000–18,000 men; Bennigsen and Bernadotte brought the Allies far more.

18 October. The Allies attacked from every side, and the French were pushed slowly back on the city over more than nine hours. Bennigsen's columns moved off from about 03:00. South-east of the city, Barclay's attacks on the walled village of Probstheida in the afternoon produced the bloodiest fighting of the battle; Prussian and then Russian assaults were thrown back by French artillery, Murat's cuirassiers and the Guard. In the north-east Bernadotte's army was in place by early afternoon. At Paunsdorf, Bogue's rockets helped break the Franco-Saxon defenders before Bogue was killed, and Langeron's Russians finally took the burning village of Schönefeld. Late in the afternoon, at about 16:30–17:00 by one account, most of the Saxon division of Reynier's corps went over to the Allies, and Württemberg cavalry also changed sides. In the west Bertrand drove Gyulay off and kept the Lindenau road open. That night the French began withdrawing through the city over its single bridge across the Elster, leaving Macdonald, Poniatowski and Reynier to hold Leipzig.

19 October. The Allies discovered the withdrawal at about 07:00 and attacked between 08:00 and 09:00, fighting street by street through the suburbs against the rearguard. At about 13:00 the corporal left in charge of the charges blew the Elster bridge while it was still crowded and the rearguard was still in the city. Some 20,000–30,000 men were cut off. Macdonald swam to safety; Poniatowski, wounded and made a marshal only the night before, drowned. Lauriston and Reynier were captured.

Aftermath

Leipzig was the largest and bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. The Allies lost about 54,000 men. The French lost about 38,000 killed and wounded and some 30,000 prisoners, along with 325 guns and most of their supply trains; estimates of their total loss run from 60,000 to almost 80,000. Thirty-six French generals were captured, Lauriston and Reynier among them.

Napoleon fell back towards the Rhine and brushed aside the Bavarians who tried to block him at Hanau. Some 100,000 French troops left in garrisons across Germany and Poland eventually surrendered. The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed, its states went over to the Allies, and France lost everything east of the Rhine. The Allies invaded France early in 1814, Paris fell on 31 March, and Napoleon abdicated on 6 April.

The memory of the battle has been contested ever since. German nationalists celebrated the 'Battle of the Nations' as a birth of the nation, while others saw it as a victory over Napoleon and the Revolution. When the monarchs delivered neither liberal freedoms nor a united Germany, its anniversaries became political demonstrations, as at the Wartburg Festival of 18 October 1817. Napoleon blamed the Saxon defectors for his defeat; the German Historical Museum argues that the defectors mostly wanted to survive. The 91-metre Völkerschlachtdenkmal, begun in 1894 and inaugurated for the centenary in 1913 and designed by Bruno Schmitz, played down those liberal hopes.

Wargaming it

Leipzig is the biggest battle of the period, and it is hard to game whole. At corps or division level, with turns of an hour or more, the four days make a campaign-style game. The individual sectors stand alone well at brigade or battalion level: Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz on 16 October, Möckern, Lindenau, Probstheida, or Paunsdorf and Schönefeld on the 18th.

The rivers are the key to the map. The Pleisse, Elster and Parthe split the ground into sectors that Napoleon could reinforce from the centre while the Allies struggled to coordinate between them. Walled villages such as Möckern and Probstheida, the heights where Drouot massed his guns, and the single bridge and causeway behind the city all need careful rules.

Timing drives every scenario. On 16 October Napoleon has a short window to beat Schwarzenberg before Bernadotte and Bennigsen arrive, so the designer has to fix or randomise their entry times and Reynier's. The Saxon defection on the 18th is an obvious event card. The what-ifs follow from the sources: Bertrand's IV Corps freed for the southern attack instead of being tied down at Lindenau; Murat's cavalry better supported; Napoleon retreating on 17 October while the road west was still open; more bridges built over the Elster, or the bridge blown on time. Victory conditions should reward the French for getting the army out, not for holding Leipzig.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.