Battle of Leipzig

“ This is the greatest war that the world has ever seen; beyond all comparison the greatest war that the world has ever seen. The Battle of Leipzig, in which Russia, Austria, and Prussia fought against the Emperor Napoleon and crushed him was called "The Battle of the Nations." ”

“ Neither could we altogether refrain from occasionally uttering our sentiments. I was in the Upper Secunda when our professor of German—it was no longer my friend Pütz—gave us, as the subject of a composition, a memorial oration on the battle of Leipzig. Believing it to be my duty to write exactly what I thought about that event, I expressed with entire frankness my feelings about the ill-treatment the German people had suffered after their heroic efforts on that battlefield, and my hope of a complete regeneration of the German fatherland. ”

“ The battle of Leipzig will be ever memorable in the annals of History. A severe lot has hitherto befallen our city. To the burdens and requisitions of every kind, by which it was overwhelmed, were added the suspension of trade, and the injury sustained by the entire suppression this year of our two principal fairs. Our resources are exhausted, and we have yet here a prodigious number of sick and wounded;—upwards of 30,000 in more than 40 military hospitals, with our own poor and the troops yet stationed here for our protection, to be provided for ”

“ The second Silesian regiment suffered terribly at the great battle of Leipzig. Von Rahden's battalion, in particular, was reduced at the close of the last day's fight to one hundred and twenty effective men, commanded by a lieutenant, the only unwounded officer. Kleist's division, of which it formed part, had sustained severe losses in every action since the truce, and after Leipzig it was found to have melted down to one-third of its original strength. Disease also broke out in its ranks. To check this, to recruit the numbers, and repose the men, the division was sent into quarters. ”

“ The confederation of the Rhine and the Continental system,—terms synonymous with all the evils which have brought Germany and Europe to the brink of destruction,—will in future have no other signification in the vocabularies of the writers on political economy than that interval of severe probation when Germany seemed to be annihilated, but yet rose from her ruins with renewed energies, and, united more firmly than ever, by new ties, with the other states of Europe, resumed her ancient rights. The battle of Leipzig was the watch-word for this great revolution. ”

“ Too true it is that no nation has made such progress in the art of refinement, and is so ingenious in devising infernal torments, as that, which, under the name of allies and protectors, has made us so inexpressibly wretched. Ever since the battle of Lützen, Leipzig had been one of the principal resources of the grand French army, and they showed it no mercy. Numberless hospitals transformed it into one great infirmary; many thousands of troops, quartered in the habitations of the citizens, one prodigious corps de garde ”

“ I have often since thought that I should be only too happy to render that man any service in my power; but two days after, the second battle of Leipzig took place; then the retreat from Hanau began, and I never saw him again.
Sergeant Pinto and Zébédé came up a moment after. Zébédé said:
"We have escaped once more, Joseph, and now we are the only Phalsbourg men in the battalion. Klipfel was sabred by the hussars." ”

“ The battle of Sadowa was fought on the 3d of July, the third anniversary of the decisive day of our battle of Gettysburg. At a moderate estimate, four hundred and twenty thousand men took part in it, of whom one hundred and ninety-five thousand were Austrians and Saxons, and two hundred and twenty-five thousand Prussians. This makes the action rank almost with the battle of Leipzig, the greatest of all battles. ”

“ The greatest battle of the century was the tremendous strife that for three days surged to and fro around Leipzig in the month of October 1813, when Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes, together with a few Britons, Hanoverians, and finally his own Saxon allies, combined to shake the imperial yoke from the neck of the Germanic peoples. This Völkerschlacht (Battle of the Peoples) , as the Germans term it, decided that the future of Europe was not to be moulded by the imperial autocrat, but by the will of the princes and nations whom his obstinacy had embattled against him. ”

“ DUMB SHOW The Leipzig clocks imperturbably strike nine, and the battle which is to decide the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world, begins with three booms from the line of the allies. They are the signal for a general cannonade of devastating intensity. So massive is the contest that we soon fail to individualize the combatants as beings, and can only observe them as amorphous drifts, clouds, and waves of conscious atoms, surging and rolling together ”

“ The great force assembled in and around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as there were Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the two armies; whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria, Prussia, and Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of Leipzig four days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in the fighting of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at Leipzig, the Allies, 42,640,—total, 110,640. ”

“ To make myself better acquainted with this neighbourhood, I explored two days afterwards this part of the field of battle, and found that the French artillery must there have formed an open triangle; for the road which runs straight from Leipzig, behind Konnewitz through Dehlis and Lösnig, of course from north to south, was also lined by French batteries. The houses of those villages had served them for a point d'appui in the rear, and were most of them dreadfully shattered by the balls of the Austrians. The artillery of the latter seems to have had a great advantage in regard to the ground. ”

“ Beyond the range of her guns hovered the lighter German cruisers Dresden, Leipzig, and Nürnberg to await the outcoming of the Glasgow. Both the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst concentrated their fire on the Canopus, and when the Glasgow, accompanied by the Carnarvon, Cornwall, and Kent, made her appearance it did not change the battle formation of the Germans, for the Canopus was still the only large vessel they were aware of. Now the Leipzig came nearer in order to take up the fight with the lighter British ships. ”

“ Why, look now at Leipzig, the 18th of last October, in the very midst of the battle, our Allies turned against us, and fired at us from behind: those were our [Pg 44] fine friends, the Saxons. A week after, our once excellent friends, the Bavarians, came and threw themselves in the way of our retreat. We had to cut our way through them at Hanau. The next day, close to Frankfort, another column of good friends present themselves. They had to be crushed. In short, the more of them you kill, the more spring up in your path. And now, here we are on this side of the Rhine. ”

“ And each time her attack was met by resolute and accurate fire by the Germans. As the German ships began to separate, Glasgow headed off to the right towards Dresden, once more coming under the broadside fire of Leipzig. It must be remembered that Glasgow only had two 6-inch guns, only one of which—the bow gun—could be employed in these conditions, and that the Leipzig’s 4.2’s completely outranged her 4-inch. It appears to be a universal practice with the Germans to mount all their guns from the largest to the smallest, so that they can be used at extreme elevation. ”

“ Not less than 300,000 men fought on the side of the Allies; Napoleon's own forces numbered 170,000. The battle raged all round Leipzig, except on the west, where no attempt was made to interpose between Napoleon and the line of his retreat. As in the first engagement, the decisive successes were those of Blücher, now tardily aided by Bernadotte, on the north; Schwarzenberg's divisions, on the south side of the town, fought steadily, but without gaining much ground. ”

“ The nature of the Leipzig defences, a maze of trenches and underground saps, made advancing into the salient extremely hard. One was continually attacked in the rear. What seemed dug-outs were bombed, and when passed numbers of the enemy rush from them, they being really underground communications with their rear defences. The whole fighting was of a cold, deliberate, merciless nature. No quarter was given or taken. One of the battalions opposing us was similar to our own, a students' battalion from Bavaria. ”

“ The Leipzig, itself, like the Schwaben, is a hawk's nest or eyrie. Up there one can look down by Authuille Wood to Albert church and chimneys, the uplands of the Somme, the Amiens road, down which the enemy marched in triumph and afterwards retreated in a hurry, and the fair fields that were to have been the booty of this war. Away to the left of this is the wooded clump of Bécourt, and, beyond it, One Tree Hill with its forlorn mound, like the burial place of a King. On the right flank is the Ancre Valley, with the English position round Hamel like an open book under the eye ”

“ If you inquired of the French officers what might be the total strength of their army about Leipzig, their statements were so various, that it was impossible to fix with the least confidence upon any number as a medium. By what standard, indeed, can you judge of a force rated by some at 150,000, by others at 400,000 men? They unanimously agreed, on the other hand, that the allies would be opposed by fifteen corps, exclusively of the guards. ”

“ When we had reached half way to Leipzig, we heard much gunfire, and as we approached the avenues we could hear the despairing cries of the unfortunate French, who having no means of retreat and no cartridges for their firearms, were unable to defend themselves and were hunted from street to street, and house to house, and, overwhelmed by numbers, were disgracefully butchered by the enemy, mainly the Prussians, the Badeners, and the Saxon guards. ”

“ The allies, having worn down the foe, planned a daring move. Blücher persuaded the allied sovereigns to strike from Bohemia at Leipzig, thus turning the flank of the defensive works that the French had thrown up south of Dresden, and cutting their communications with France. He himself would march north-west, join the northern army, and thereafter meet them at Leipzig. ”

“ But her flag was still flying and the British ships kept circling around her, thinking she still wished to fight, but not coming near enough to permit the use of her torpedo tubes. Miserable was the plight of the Leipzig's crew, for the two hundred men who were still alive were unable to get to her flag on account of the fire aboard her, and they had to remain inactive while the Carnarvon and Glasgow poured round after round into their ship. Only twelve remained alive at nine o'clock, when she began to list to port. ”

“ A great number of regiments immediately continued their march without halting, and took some the road to Pegau, and others that to Merseburg, in order to pursue the enemy in his left flank and in his rear. Blücher's army had the preceding day advanced to the neighbourhood of Merseburg, where it was now posted in the right flank of the retreating force. Leipzig had nothing more to fear. French officers and soldiers were every where seen intermixed with their conquerors. ”

“ It was not till the arrival of marshal Marmont with his corps of the army in this neighbourhood that any idea of the probability of a general engagement at Leipzig began to be entertained. That circumstance happened in the beginning of October. These guests brought along with them every species of misery and distress, which daily increased in proportion as those hosts of destroyers kept gradually swelling into a large army. They were joined from time to time by several other corps; the city was nearly surrounded by bivouacs ”

“ The laurels acquired by your nation have indeed been purchased at a most exorbitant price.
I have forgotten to mention a circumstance worthy of notice in the history of this day. It is this; that in the midst of the cannonade all round Leipzig—when the whole city shook with the thunders of the [32] artillery, and the general engagement had, strictly speaking, but just commenced—all the bells of the churches were rung by French command, to celebrate the victory won in the forenoon. ”

“ Obstinately as the French in general defended themselves, they were, nevertheless, unable to withstand the iron masses of their assailants. They were overthrown in all quarters, and driven out of the place. The streets, especially in the suburbs, were strewed with dead. The writer often counted eight in a very small space. In about an hour you might venture abroad without danger in all parts of the town. But what sights now met the eye! Leipzig, including the suburbs, cannot occupy an area of much less than one (German) square mile. ”

“ So much valor was nevertheless at last compelled to yield to numbers, and above all to treachery; for at the height of the combat before the gates of Leipzig, a battalion from Baden, which until then had fought valiantly in the French ranks, suddenly abandoned the gate Saint-Peter, which it was commissioned to defend, and at the entrance to the city gave itself up to the enemy. Thereupon, according to what I have heard related by several officers who were in this terrible tumult, the streets of Leipzig presented a most horrible sight ”