Part 248

"The town of Leipsic has four sides and four gates. ... On the south is the rising ground called the Swedish Camp; and another called the Sheep-walk, bordering on the banks of the Pleisse. To this quarter the Grand Army of the Allies was seen advancing on the 15th of October. Buonaparte made his arrangements accordingly. Bertrand and Poniatowski defended Lindenau and the east side of the city, by which the French must retreat. Augereau was posted farther to the left, on the elevated plain of Wachau, and on the south, Victor, Lauriston, and Macdonald confronted the advance of the Allies with the Imperial Guards placed as a reserve. On the north, Marmont was placed between Mœckern and Euterist, to make head against Blücher, should he arrive in time to take part in the battle. On the opposite quarter, the sentinels of the two armies were within musket-shot of each other, when evening fell. ... The number of men who engaged the next morning was estimated at 136,000 French, and 230,000 on the part of the Allies. ... Napoleon remained all night in the rear of his own Guards, behind the central position, facing a village called Gossa, occupied by the Austrians. At daybreak on the 16th of October the battle began, The French position was assailed along all the southern front with the greatest fury. ... The Allies having made six desperate attempts, ... all of them unsuccessful, Napoleon in turn assumed the offensive. ... This was about noon. The village of Gossa was carried by the bayonet. Macdonald made himself master of the Swedish Camp; and the eminence called the Sheep-walk was near being taken in the same manner. The impetuosity of the French had fairly broken through the centre of the Allies, and Napoleon sent the tidings of his success to the King of Saxony, who ordered all the bells in the city to be rung. ... The King of Naples, with Latour-Maubourg and Kellermann, poured through the gap in the enemy's centre at the head of the whole body of cavalry, and thundered forward as far as Magdeburg, a village in the rear of the Allies, bearing down General Rayefskoi with the Grenadiers of the Russian reserve. At this moment, while the French were disordered by their own success, Alexander, who was present, ordered forward the Cossacks of his Guard, who, with their long lances, bore back the dense body of cavalry that had so nearly carried the day. Meantime, as had been apprehended, Blücher arrived before the city, and suddenly came into action with Marmont, being three times his numbers. He in consequence obtained great and decided advantages; and before night-fall had taken the village of Mœckern, together with 20 pieces of artillery and 2,000 prisoners. But on the south side the contest continued doubtful. Gossa was still disputed. ... General Mehrfeldt fell into the hands of the French. The battle raged till night-fall, when it ceased by mutual consent. ... The armies slept on the ground they had occupied during the day. The French on the southern side had not relinquished one foot of their original position, though attacked by such superior numbers. Marmont had indeed been forced back by Blücher, and compelled to crowd his line of defence nearer the walls of Leipsic. Thus pressed on all sides with doubtful issues, Buonaparte availed himself of the capture of General Mehrfeldt to demand an armistice and to signify his acceptance of the terms proposed by the Allies, but which were now found to be too moderate. ... Napoleon received no answer till his troops had recrossed the Rhine; and the reason assigned is, that the Allies had pledged themselves solemnly to each other to enter into no treaty with him 'while a single individual of the French army remained in Germany.' ... The 17th was spent in preparations on both sides, without any actual hostilities. At eight o'clock on the morning of the 18th they were renewed with tenfold fury. Napoleon had considerably contracted his circuit of defence, and the French were posted on an inner line, nearer to Leipsic, of which Probtsheyda was the central point. ... Barclay, Wittgenstein, and Kleist advanced on Probtsheyda, where they were opposed by Murat, Victor, Augereau, and Lauriston, under the eye of Napoleon himself. On the left Macdonald had drawn back his division to a village called Stoetteritz. Along this whole line the contest was maintained furiously on both sides; nor could the terrified spectators, from the walls and steeples of Leipsic, perceive that it either receded or advanced. About two o'clock the Allies forced their way ... into Probtsheyda; the camp-followers began to fly; the tumult was excessive. Napoleon ... placed the reserve of the Old Guard in order, led them in person to recover the village, and saw them force their entrance ere he withdrew to the eminence from whence he watched the battle. ... The Allies, at length, felt themselves obliged to desist from the murderous attacks on the villages which cost them so dear; and, withdrawing their troops, kept up a dreadful fire with their artillery. {1529} The French replied with equal spirit, though they had fewer guns; and, besides, their ammunition was falling short. Still, however, Napoleon completely maintained the day on the south of Leipsic, where he commanded in person. On the northern side, the yet greater superiority of numbers placed Ney in a precarious situation; and, pressed hard both by Blücher and the Crown-Prince, he was compelled to draw nearer the town, and had made a stand on an eminence called Heiterblick, when on a sudden the Saxons, who were stationed in that part of the field, deserted from the French and went over to the enemy. In consequence of this unexpected disaster, Ney was unable any longer to defend himself. It was in vain that Buonaparte dispatched his reserves of cavalry to·fill up the chasm that had been made; and Ney drew up the remainder of his forces close under the walls of Leipsic. The battle once more ceased at all points. ... Although the French army had thus kept its ground up to the last moment on these two days, yet there was no prospect of their being able to hold out much longer at Leipsic. ... All things counselled a retreat, which was destined (like the rest of late) to be unfortunate. ... The retreat was commenced in the night-time; and Napoleon spent a third harassing night in giving the necessary orders for the march. He appointed Macdonald and Poniatowski ... to defend the rear. ... A temporary bridge which had been erected had given way, and the old bridge on the road to Lindenau was the only one that remained for the passage of the whole French army. But the defence of the suburbs had been so gallant and obstinate that time was allowed for this purpose. At length the rear-guard itself was about to retreat, when, as they approached the banks of the river, the bridge blew up by the mistake of a sergeant of a company of sappers who ... set fire to the mine of which he had charge before the proper moment. This catastrophe effectually barred the escape of all those who still remained on the Leipsic side of the river, except a few who succeeded in swimming across, among whom was Marshal Macdonald. Poniatowski ... was drowned in making the same attempt. In him, it might be said, perished the last of the Poles. About 25,000 French were made prisoners of war, with a great quantity of artillery and baggage."

_W. Hazlitt, Life of Napoleon, chapter 50 (volume 3)._

"The battle of Leipsic was over. Already had the allied sovereigns entered the town, and forcing, not without difficulty, their way through the crowd, passed on to the market-place. Here, the house in which the King of Saxony had lodged was at once made known to them by the appearance of the Saxon troops whom Napoleon had left to guard their master. ... Moreover, the King himself ... stood bare-headed on the steps of the stairs. But the Emperor of Russia, who appears at once to have assumed the chief direction of affairs, took no notice of the suppliants. ... The battle of Leipsic constitutes one of those great hinges on which the fortunes of the world may be said from time to time to turn. The importance of its political consequence cannot be overestimated. ... As a great military operation, the one feature which forces itself prominently upon our notice is the enormous extent of the means employed on both sides to accomplish an end. Never since the days when Persia poured her millions into Greece had armies so numerous been marshalled against each other. Nor does history tell of trains of artillery so vast having been at any time brought into action with more murderous effect. ... About 1,300 pieces, on the one side, were answered, during two days, by little short of 1,000 on the other. ... We look in vain for any manifestations of genius or military skill, either in the combinations which rendered the battle of Leipsic inevitable, or in the arrangements according to which the attack and defence of the field were conducted. ... It was the triumph, not of military skill, but of numbers."

_G. R. Gleig, The Leipsic Campaign, chapter 41._

"No more here than at Moscow must we seek in the failure of the leader's talents the cause of such deplorable results,-- for he was never more fruitful in resource, more bold, more resolute, nor more a soldier,--but in the illusions of pride, in the wish to regain at a blow an immense fortune which he had lost, in the difficulty of acknowledging to himself his defeat in time, in a word, in all those errors which we may discern in miniature and caricature in an ordinary gambler, who madly risks riches acquired by folly; errors which are found on a large and terrible scale in this gigantic gambler, who plays with human blood as others play with money. As gamblers lose their fortunes twice,--once from not knowing where to stop, and a second time from wishing to restore it at a single cast,--so Napoleon endangered his at Moscow by wishing to make it exorbitantly large, and in the Dresden campaign by seeking to restore it in its full extent. The cause was always the same, the alteration not in the genius, but in the character, by the deteriorating influence of unlimited power and success."

_A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, book 50 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 3, part 2, chapter 17._

_J. C. Ropes, The First Napoleon._

_Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 2, chapter 38-39._

GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (October-December). Retreat of Napoleon beyond the Rhine. Battle of Hanau. Fall of the kingdom of Westphalia. Surrender of French garrisons and forces. Liberation achieved.

"Blucher, with Langeron and Sacken, moved in pursuit of the French army, which, disorganised and dejected, was wending its way towards the Rhine. At the passage of the Unstrutt, at Freyberg, 1,000 prisoners and 18 guns were captured by the Prussian hussars; but on the 23d the French reached Erfurth, the citadels and magazines of which afforded them at once security and relief from their privations. Here Napoleon halted two days, employed in reorganising his army, the thirteen corps of which were now formed into six, commanded by Victor, Ney, Bertrand, Augereau, Marmont, and Macdonald, and amounting in all to less than 90,000 men; while twice that number were left blockaded in the fortresses on the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula. On the 25th, after parting for the last time with Murat, who here quitted him and returned to Naples, he resumed his march, retreating with such rapidity through the Thuringian forest, that the Cossacks alone of the pursuing army could keep up with the retiring columns--while the men dropped, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, or deserted their ranks by hundreds; so that when the fugitive host approached the Maine, not more than 50,000 remained effective round their colours--10,000 had fallen or been made prisoners, and at least 30,000 were straggling in the rear. But here fresh dangers awaited them. {1530} After the treaty of the 8th October, by which Bavaria had acceded to the grand alliance, an Austro-Bavarian force under Marshal Wrede had moved in the direction of Frankfort, and was posted, to the number of 45,000 men, in the oak forest near Hanau across the great road to Mayence, and blocking up entirely the French line of retreat. The battle commenced at 11 A. M. on the 30th; but the French van, under Victor and Macdonald, after fighting its way through the forest, was arrested, when attempting to issue from its skirts, by the concentric fire of 70 pieces of cannon, and for four hours the combat continued, till the arrival of the guards and main body changed the aspect of affairs. Under cover of the terrible fire of Drouot's artillery, Sebastiani and Nansouty charged with the cavalry of the guard, and overthrew everything opposed to them, and Wrede at length drew off his shattered army behind the Kinzig. Hanau was bombarded and taken, and Mortier and Marmont, with the rear divisions, cut their way through on the following day, with considerable loss to their opponents. The total losses of the Allies amounted to 10,900 men, of whom 4,000 were prisoners; and the victory threw a parting ray of glory over the long career of the revolutionary arms in Germany. On the 2d of November the French reached Mayence, and Napoleon, after remaining there six days to collect the remains of his army, set out for Paris, where he arrived on the 9th; and thus the French eagles bade a final adieu to the German plains. In the mean time, the Allied troops, following closely on the footsteps of the retreating French, poured in prodigious strength down the valley of the Maine. On the 5th of November the Emperor Alexander entered Frankfort in triumph, at the head of 20,000 horse; and on the 9th the fortified post of Hochheim, in advance of the tête-du-pont of Mayence at Cassel, was stormed by Giulay. From the heights beyond the town the victorious armies of Germany beheld the winding stream of the Rhine; a shout of enthusiasm ran from rank to rank as they saw the mighty river of the Fatherland, which their arms had liberated; those in the rear hurried to the front, and soon a hundred thousand voices joined in the cheers which told the world that the war of independence was ended and Germany delivered. Nothing now remained but to reap the fruits of this mighty victory; yet so vast was the ruin that even this was a task of time and difficulty. The rickety kingdom of Westphalia fell at once, never more to rise; the revolutionary dynasty in Berg followed its fate; and the authority of the King of Britain was re-established by acclamation in Hanover, at the first appearance of Bernadotte and Benningsen. The reduction of Davoust, who had been left in Hamburg with 25,000 French and 10,000 Danes, was an undertaking of more difficulty; and against him Walmoden and Bernadotte moved with 40,000 men. The French marshal had taken up a position on the Stecknitz; but, fearful of being cut off from Hamburg, he retired behind the Bille on the advance of the Allies, separating himself from the Danes, who were compelled to capitulate. The operations of the Crown-Prince against Denmark, the ancient rival of Sweden, were now pushed with a vigour and activity strongly contrasting with his luke-warmness in the general campaign; and the court of Copenhagen, seeing its dominions on the point of being overrun, signed an armistice on the 15th December, on which was soon after based a permanent treaty [of Kiel]. ...

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.

When Napoleon (Oct. 7) marched northwards from Dresden, he had left St. Cyr in that city with 30,000 men, opposed only by a newly-raised Russian corps under Tolstoi, which St. Cyr, by a sudden attack, routed with the loss of 3,000 men and 10 guns. But no sooner was the battle of Leipsic decided, than Dresden was again blockaded by 50.000 men under Klenau and Tolstoi; and St. Cyr, who was encumbered with a vast number of sick and wounded, and was almost without provisions, was obliged, after a fruitless sortie on the 6th November, to surrender on the 11th, on condition of being sent with his troops to France. The capitulation, however, was disallowed by Schwartzenberg, and the whole were made prisoners of war--a proceeding which the French, not without some justice, declaim against as a gross breach of faith--and thus no less than 32 generals, 1,795 officers, and 33,000 rank and file, with 240 pieces of cannon, fell into the power of the Allies. The fall of Dresden was soon followed by that of the other fortresses on the Vistula and the Oder. Stettin, with 8,000 men and 350 guns, surrendered on the 21st November; and Torgau, which contained the military hospitals and reserve parks of artillery left by the grand army on its retreat from the Elbe, yielded at discretion to Tauenzein (December 26), after a siege of two months. But such was the dreadful state of the garrison, from the ravages of typhus fever, that the Allies dared not enter this great pest-house till the 10th January; and the terrible epidemic which issued, from its walls made the circuit, during the four following years, of every country in Europe. Dantzic, with its motley garrison of 35,000 men, had been blockaded ever since the Moscow retreat; but the blockading corps, which was not of greater strength, could not confine the French within the walls; and Rapp made several sorties in force during the spring and summer, by which he procured abundance of provisions. It was not till after the termination of the armistice of Pleswitz that the siege was commenced in form; and after sustaining a severe bombardment, Rapp, deprived of all hope by the battle of Leipsic, capitulated (November 29) with his garrison, now reduced by the sword, sickness, and desertion, to 16,000 men. Zamosc, with 3,000 men, surrendered on the 22d December, and Modlin, with 1,200, on the 25th; and at the close of the year, France retained beyond the Rhine only Hamburg, Magdeburg, and Wittenberg, on the Elbe; Custrin and Glogau on the Oder; and the citadels of Erfurth and Würtzburg, which held out after the capitulation of the towns."

_Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 737-742 (chapter 82, volume 17, in complete work)._

"The princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, with the exception of the captive King of Saxony, and one or two minor princes, deserted Napoleon, and entered into treaties with the Allies."

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, volume 4, page 538._

ALSO IN: M. Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 4, chapter 16.

The Year of Liberation: Journal of the Defence of Hamburgh.

_J. Philippart, Campaign in Germany and France, 1813, volume 1, pages 230-278._

GERMANY: A. D. 1814. The Allies in France and in possession of Paris. Fall of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH), and (MARCH-APRIL).

{1531}

GERMANY: A. D. 1814 (May). Readjustment of French boundaries by the Treaty of Paris.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).

GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1815. The Congress of Vienna. Its territorial and political readjustments.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820. Reconstruction of Germany. The Germanic Confederation and its constitution.