The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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About eleven o'clock, a cannonade was heard from behind Leipzig,
in the direction of Lindenau, and we learned that at this point
our troops had broken through the ring within which the enemy
believed they could contain the French army, and that General
Bertrand's corps was marching towards Weissenfeld in the
direction of the Rhine, without the enemy being able to stop him.
The Emperor then ordered to evacuation of the equipment to
Lutzen.

Meanwhile, the Leipzig plateau around Connewitz and L”ssnig was
the scene of a massive engagement; the earth shook with the noise
of a thousand cannon, and the enemy tried to force a passage
across the Pleisse. They were driven back, although the Poles
managed to ruin some of the bayonet charges made by our infantry.
Then the 1st French Cavalry Corps, seeing the Austrian and
Prussian squadrons going to the aid of their allies, emerged from
behind the village of Probstheyda and hurled themselves at the
enemy, whom they overwhelmed and drove back to their reserves
which were led by Prince Constantine of Russia. Defeated again at
this spot the allies built up an immense force in order to
capture Probstheyda, but this formidable mass had such a hot
reception from some divisions of our infantry and the infantry
Chasseurs of the Old Guard that they promptly withdrew. We lost
there Generals Vial and Rochambeau. The latter had just been made
a Marshal of France by the Emperor.

Bernadotte had not yet attacked the French and seemed, it was
said, to waver; but at last urged on or even threatened by the
Prussian Marshal Blucher, he decided to cross the Partha above
the village of Mockau, at the head of his troops and a Russian
corps which had been placed under his command. When a brigade of
Saxon Hussars and Lancers which was positioned at this point saw
approaching the Cossacks who preceded Bernadotte, they marched
towards them as if to give battle; but then, turning round
suddenly and forgetting about their aged King, our ally who was
in the midst of Napoleon's troops, the infamous Saxons aimed
their muskets and cannons at the French!

This force led by Bernadotte, following the left bank of the
Partha, headed for Sellerhausen which was defended by Reynier.
Reynier, whose corps was almost entirely made up of German
contingents, having seen the desertion of the Saxon cavalry,
distrusted their infantry, which he had placed next to the
cavalry of Durette in order to restrain them; but Marshal Ney,
with misplaced confidence, ordered him to deploy the Saxons and
send them to assist a French regiment which was defending the
village of Paunsdorf. The Saxons had gone only a little distance
from the French, when seeing the Prussian ensigns in the fields
of Paunsdorf they ran towards them at top speed, led by the
shameless General Russel, their commander. Some French officers
could not believe such treachery, and thought that the Saxons
were going to attack the Prussians; so that General Gressot,
Reynier's chief-of-staff rushed towards them to moderate what he
thought was an excess of zeal, only to find himself confronted by
enemies! This defection of an entire army corps produced a
frightening gap in the French centre, and had the additional
effect of raising the allied morale. The Wurtemberg cavalry
promptly followed the example of the Saxons.

Not only did Bernadotte welcome the perfidious Saxons into his
ranks, but he used their artillery to bolster up his own, which
the former Marshal of France now aimed at Frenchmen.

The Saxons had scarcely entered the enemy ranks when they
celebrated their treachery by firing at us a hail of projectiles,
many of which were directed to my regiment, for I lost some
thirty men, among whom was Captain Bertain, an excellent officer
who had his head taken off by a cannon-ball.

So now it was Bernadotte, a man for whom French blood had
procured a throne, who was attempting to deliver to us the coup
de grace.

Amid this general disloyalty, the King of Wurtemberg presented an
honourable exception, for as I have said, he had informed
Napoleon that circumstances forced him to renounce his
friendship; but even after he had taken this final step, he
ordered his troops not to attack the French without giving them
ten days warning, and although he was now an enemy of France, he
dismissed from his army the general and several officers who had
handed over their troops to the Russians at the battle of
Leipzig, and withdrew all their decorations from the turncoat
regiments.

Probstheyda, however, continued to be the theatre of a most
murderous struggle. The Old Guard, deployed behind the village,
held itself in readiness to hasten to the aid of its defenders.
Bulow's Prussian corps having attempted to push forward, was
heavily defeated; but we lost in the action General Delmas, a
distinguished soldier and a man of high principles who, having
been involved with Napoleon since the creation of the Empire, had
spent ten years in retirement, but asked to be returned to active
service when he saw his country in danger.

Facing a terrible cannonade, and continual attacks, the French
line remained steadfastly in position. Towards our left, Marshal
Macdonald and General Sebastiani were holding the ground between
Probstheyda and St”tteritz, in spite of numerous attacks by
Klenau's Austrians and the Russians of Doctoroff, when they were
assailed by a charge of more than 20,000 Cossacks and Baskirs,
the efforts of the latter being directed mainly at Sebastiani's
cavalry.

With much shouting, these barbarians rapidly surrounded our
squadrons, against which they launched thousands of arrows, which
did very little damage because the Baskirs, being entirely
irregulars, do not know how to form up in ranks and they go about
in a mob like a flock of sheep, with the result that the riders
cannot shoot horizontally without wounding or killing their
comrades who are in front of them, but shoot their arrows into
the air to describe an arc which will allow them to descend on
the enemy. But as this system does not permit any accurate aim,
nine-tenths of the arrows miss their target, and those that do
arrive have used up in their ascent the impulse given to them by
the bow, and fall only under their own weight, which is very
small, so that they do not as a rule inflict any serious
injuries. In fact, the Baskirs, having no other arms, are
undoubtedly the world's least dangerous troops.

However, since they attacked us in swarms, and the more one
killed of these wasps, the more seemed to arrive, the huge number
of arrows which they discharged into the air of necessity caused
a few dangerous wounds. Thus, one of my finest N.C.O.s. by the
name of Meslin had his body pierced by an arrow which entered his
chest and emerged at his back. The brave fellow, taking two
hands, broke the arrow and pulled out the remaining part, but
this did not save him, for he died a few moments later. This is
the only example which I can remember of death being caused by a
Baskir arrow, but I had several men and horses hit, and was
myself wounded by this ridiculous weapon.

I had my sabre in my hand, and I was giving orders to an officer,
when, on raising my arm to indicate the point to which he was to
go, I felt my sabre encounter a strange resistance and was aware
of a slight pain in my right thigh, in which was embedded for
about an inch, a four-foot arrow which in the heat of battle I
had not felt. I had it extracted by Dr. Parot and put in one of
the boxes in the regimental ambulance, intending to keep it as a
memento; but unfortunately it got lost.

You will understand that for such a minor injury I was not going
to leave the regiment, particularly at such a critical time...
The reinforcements brought by Bernadotte and Blucher were
determinedly attacking the village of Sch”nfeld, not far from
where the Partha enters Leipzig. Generals Lagrange and
Friederichs, who were defending this important point, repelled
seven assaults and seven times drove the allies out of houses
they had captured. General Friederichs was killed during this
action; he was a fine officer who among his other qualities, was
the most handsome man in the French army.

Nevertheless, it looked as if the allies might take Sch”nfeld
until Marshal Ney went to the aid of the village, which remained
in French hands. Marshal Ney received a blow on his shoulder
which forced him to leave the field of battle.

By nightfall the troops of both sides were, in most parts of the
line, in the same positions which they had occupied at the
beginning of the battle. In the evening my troopers and those of
all the divisions of Sebastiani's cavalry tethered their horses
to the same pickets which they had used for the three preceding
days, and almost all the battalions occupied the same bivouacs.
So this battle which our enemies have celebrated as a great
success, was in fact indecisive, since being greatly inferior in
numbers, having almost all the nations of Europe against us and
harbouring a crowd of traitors in our ranks, we had not yielded
an inch of ground. The English general, Sir Robert Wilson, who
was in Leipzig in the role of British representative and whose
testimony cannot be suspected of partiality, said of this battle:

"In spite of the defection of the Saxon army in the middle of the
battle, in spite of the courage and perseverance of the allied
troops, it proved impossible to take from the French any of the
villages which they regarded as essential to their position.
Night ended the fighting, leaving the French, and in particular
the defenders of Probstheyda, in the well-earned position of
having inspired in their enemies a generous measure of
respect..."

After sunset, when it was beginning to grow dark, I was ordered
to put a stop, at the front of my regiment, to the useless
exchange of fire which usually goes on after a serious
engagement. There is some difficulty in separating men on both
sides who have been fighting each other, the more so because, to
prevent the enemy from knowing what is going on, and making use
of it to fall unexpectedly on our advance-posts, one cannot use
drums or trumpets to instruct the infantrymen to cease fire and
to form up to rejoin their regiments; but a warning is given to
platoon commanders, in quiet tones, and they then send
sous-officiers to look silently for the small, scattered groups.
As the enemy were doing the same, the firing gradually grew less
and soon stopped entirely.

To make sure that no sentinel was forgotten and that this little
withdrawal to bivouac was carried out in good order, it was my
custom to have it supervised by an officer. The one who was on
duty on this evening was a Captain Joly, a brave and well-trained
officer but inclined to be obstinate. He had given evidence of
this trait some months before the battle when, given the job of
distributing some officer's remounts which had been presented on
the Emperor's instructions to those who had taken part in the
Russian campaign, M. Joly, ignoring my advice and that of his
friends, had selected for himself a magnificent light grey, which
neither I nor my friends would have because of its striking
colour, and which I had at first reserved for the trumpeters. So
on the evening of the battle of Leipzig, while M. Joly, in
carrying out his duty, was riding at a walk behind the lines of
infantry, his horse stood out so clearly in spite of the failing
light, that it was picked on by the enemy and both horse and
rider were seriously wounded. The captain had a musket ball
through his body and died during the night in a house in the
suburb of Halle, to where, on the previous evening, I had sent
Major Pozac.

Although the latter's wound was not dangerous, he was grieved to
think that the French army would probably leave and he would
become a prisoner of the enemy, who would deprive him of the
sabre of honour which he had been awarded by the First Consul
after the battle of Marengo when he was still only a
sous-officier; but I calmed his anxieties by taking charge of the
precious sabre which, given into the care of one of the
regimental surgeons, was handed back to Pozac when he returned to
France.

Chap. 30.

The calm of the night having replaced in the fields of Leipzig
the terrible battles which they had just witnessed, the leaders
of both sides could examine their positions.

That of the Emperor Napoleon was the least favourable: if one
could blame this great man for not retreating behind the Saale
eight days before the battle, when he could have still avoided
risking the safety of his army, which was threatened by
infinitely more numerous forces, there is now even more reason to
disapprove of his judgement when, at Leipzig, one sees him
completely surrounded on the field of battle by his enemies. I
use the word "completely" because, on the 18th, at eleven in the
morning, Lichtenstein's Austrian corps seized the village of
Kleinzschocher, on the left bank of the Elster, and for a time
the route from Leipzig to Weissenfels, the only way of escape for
the French, was cut and Napoleon's army entirely encircled.

It is true that this situation did not last for more than half an
hour, but would Napoleon not have been wiser to avoid all the
consequences which might have arisen from such an event by taking
shelter behind the mountains of Thuringia and the river Saale
before all the enemy forces could combine to surround him?

We now come to a very critical situation!... The French had held
on to their positions for the three days of the battle, but this
success had been achieved only at the expense of much blood, for
in killed and wounded we had 40,000 casualties! It is true that
the enemy had suffered 60,000, a figure greatly to their
disadvantage, which was attributable to the persistence with
which they attacked our entrenched positions. As, however, they
had many more men than we did, having lost 40,000 we were
proportionately much more weakened than they were.

In addition to this, the French artillery had fired during the
three days 220,000 rounds, of which 95,000 were fired on the
18th, and there were no more than 16,000 rounds left in the
reserves, that is to say enough to continue in action for only
two hours. This shortage of ammunition, which should have been
foreseen before we engaged a powerful enemy so far from our
frontiers, prevented Napoleon from renewing the battle, which he
might possibly have won, and forced him to order a retreat.

This was a movement which it was very difficult to carry out,
because of the nature of the terrain which we occupied, which was
full of water-meadows and streams and traversed by three rivers
which created many narrow defiles which would have to be
negotiated under the eyes and within close range of the enemy,
who might easily throw our ranks into disorder during this
perilous march.

There was only one means of assuring our retreat, and that was
the construction of a large number of pathways and footbridges
across the meadows, ditches, and small streams, together with
larger bridges across the Partha, the Pleisse, and principally,
over the Elster, which was joined by these various tributaries at
the gates and even within the town of Leipzig. Now, nothing could
have been easier than the creation of these indispensable means
of passage, for the town and suburbs of Leipzig, barely a
musket-shot away, offered a ready source of planks and beams,
girders, nails, and rope etc. The whole army believed that
numerous crossing places had been made since their arrival before
Leipzig, and that these had been increased on the 16th and above
all on the 17th, when the whole day had passed without any
fighting. Well!... for a number of deplorable reasons and by
unbelievable negligence, nothing whatsoever had been done!... and
among those official documents which we possess relating to this
famous battle, one can find nothing, absolutely nothing, which
would show that any measures had been taken to facilitate, in
case of a retreat, the movement of the many columns which were in
action beyond the obstructions formed by the rivers and the
streets of Leipzig and its suburbs. None of the officers who
escaped from the disaster, nor any of the authors who have
written about it, have been able to show that any of the senior
staff of the army took steps to establish new crossing points or
to ensure free use of those which existed. Only General Pelet,
who is a great admirer of Napoleon and who, for this reason, is
sometimes given to exaggeration, writing fifteen years after the
battle, states that M. Odier, the deputy quartermaster of the
Imperial Guard, told him several times that he was present when
one morning (he does say on what day) the Emperor ordered a
general on his staff to look into the construction of bridges and
made him specially responsible for the task. General Pelet does
not disclose the name of the general to whom the Emperor gave
this order, although it would be most important to know it.

M. Fain, Napoleon's secretary, says in his memoirs "The Emperor
ordered the construction in the neighbouring marshes of new
pathways which would ease the passage of this long defile."

I do not know how much credit history will give to the accuracy
of these assertions; but even supposing them to be true, there
are those who think that the head of the French army should have
done more than give an order to a general staff officer, who
perhaps did not have at his disposal sappers or the necessary
material, and that he should have given the responsibility for
creating new crossing points to several officers, at least one
from every regiment in each army corps, for it is plain that no
one was doing anything. Here now is the truth of the matter,
which is known to very few people.

The Emperor had for head of his general staff, Marshal Prince
Berthier, who had never left him since the Italian campaign of
1796. He was capable, precise, and loyal but having often
suffered the effects of the imperial temper, he had developed
such a fear of Napoleon's outbursts that he had decided never to
take the initiative on any matter, never to ask any questions,
and simply to carry out those orders he received in writing. This
system, which maintained good relations between the Major-general
and his chief, was harmful to the interests of the army; for no
matter how great the Emperor's energy and ability, it was
impossible for him to see everything and undertake everything;
and so if he overlooked something of importance nothing was done.

It seems that this is what happened at Leipzig, where, when
almost all the marshals and generals had on several occasions,
and particularly on the last two days, pointed out to Berthier
how necessary it was to provide adequate ways out, in the event
of a retreat, his invariable reply had been "The Emperor has not
ordered it." No materials were supplied, and so not a plank nor
beam had been placed across a rivulet when, during the night of
18th-19th the Emperor ordered a retreat to Weissenfels and the
river Saale.

The allies had suffered such heavy losses that they felt it
impossible to renew the struggle. They did not dare to attack us
afresh, and were on the point of retiring themselves when they
noticed the heavy equipment of the army heading for Weissenfels
via Lindenau, and realised that Napoleon was preparing to
retreat. Whereupon they took steps to place themselves in a
position to profit from any opportunities which this movement
might present to them.

The most unhappy moment of a retreat, particularly for a unit
commander, is that when he has to leave behind those wounded whom
he is compelled to abandon to the mercy of the enemy, who
frequently does not have any, and robs and murders those who are
too badly injured to follow their comrades. However, since the
worst of all things is to be left lying on the ground, I took
advantage of the night to have my men pick up all the wounded
from my regiment, whom I put in two adjoining houses, firstly to
shield them from the drunken fury of the enemy, who would occupy
the suburb, and secondly to allow them to help one another and
keep up their spirits. An assistant surgeon, M. Bordenave,
offered to remain with them. I accepted his offer, and after the
peace I recommended this estimable doctor, whose care saved the
lives of many men, for the award of the Legion of Honour.

The troops now began their march away from the battlefield where
they had shown so much courage and shed so much blood! The
Emperor left his bivouac at eight in the evening and went to the
town, where he stayed at an inn named the "Prussian Arms" in the
horse market, and after giving some orders he went to visit the
aged King of Saxony, whom he found preparing to follow him.

This King, a devoted friend, expected that to punish his
unshakable adherence to the French Emperor, the allied sovereigns
would seize his kingdom, but what grieved him more was the
thought that his army had been dishonoured by deserting to the
enemy. Napoleon was unable to comfort the good old man, and it
was with difficulty that he persuaded him to remain in Leipzig,
in the heart of his state, and send an envoy to the confederates
to ask for terms.

When this emissary had left, the Emperor said adieu to the old
King, the Queen and the Princess their daughter, a model of
virtue who had followed her father even to face the guns of the
enemy. The separation was made more unhappy when it was learned
that the allies would make no promises about the fate reserved
for the Saxon monarch, who would thus be at their mercy. He ruled
over some fine provinces, an invitation to his enemies to be
implacable.

About eight in the evening the retreat began, with the corps of
Marshals Victor and Augereau, the ambulances, a part of the
artillery, the cavalry, and the Imperial Guard. While these
troops filed through the suburb of Lindenau, Marshals Ney,
Marmont and General Reynier guarded the suburbs of Halle and
Rosenthal. The Corps of Lauriston, Macdonald and Poniatowski
entered the town in succession and took up positions at the
barriers which pierced the walls, all was thus arranged for a
stubborn resistance by the rear-guard to allow the army to
retreat in good order. Nevertheless, Napoleon wished to spare
Leipzig the horrors which always result from fighting in the
streets, and so he permitted the magistrates to address a request
to the allied sovereigns asking them to allow, by an armistice of
a few hours, the peaceful evacuation of the town. This proposal
was rejected and the allies, hoping that the rear-guard might be
thrown into a confusion by which they could profit, did not
hesitate to expose to the risk of total destruction one of the
finest towns in Germany.

Several French generals then suggested, indignantly, to Napoleon
that he could assure the retreat of his army by massing it in the
centre of the town and then setting fire to all the suburbs
except that of Lindenau, by which our troops could leave while
the fire held up the enemy.

In my opinion, the allies' refusal to consent to an arrangement
which would allow the retreat to be carried on without fighting,
gave us the right to employ all possible means of defence, and
fire being the most effective in such a situation, we should have
used it; but Napoleon could not bring himself to do so, and this
excessive magnanimity cost him his throne, for the fighting which
I am about to describe resulted in the loss of almost as many men
as the three days of battle in which we had just been involved,
and worse even than that, it disorganised the army which would
otherwise have arrived in France still a potent force. The stiff
resistance which for three months the weak remnants put up
against the allies is evidence enough of what we might have done
if all the French fighting men who had survived the great battle
had crossed the Rhine in good order with their weapons. France
would probably have repelled the invaders.

That, however is not what happened, for while Napoleon, with what
I regard as misplaced generosity, refused to burn an enemy town
in order to ensure the unopposed retreat of part of his army, the
infamous Bernadotte, dissatisfied with the ardour displayed by
the allies in destroying his fellow Frenchmen, launched all the
troops under his command against the suburb of Taucha, captured
it and from there reached the avenues of the town.

Encouraged by this example, Marshal Blucher and his Prussians,
the Austrians, and the Russians did the same and attacked from
all sides the tail end of the French, who were retreating towards
the bridge at Lindenau. Finally, for good measure, a lively
fusillade broke out near this bridge, the only way for our troops
to cross the Elster. This fusillade came from the battalions of
the Saxon guard who had been left in the town with their King,
and who, regretting not to have deserted with the other regiments
of their army, wanted to show their German patriotism by
attacking from behind the French who were passing the chateau
where their monarch was in residence!... It was in vain that the
venerable prince appeared on the balcony, amidst the firing,
crying out "Kill me, you cowards! Kill your King, so that I may
not witness your dishonour!" The wretches continued to slaughter
the French, while the King, going back to his apartments, took
the flag of his Guard and threw it in the fire.