Chapter XXII: Part 22

Although on setting up an ambush, I had no expectation of making any great capture, I had, however warned my officers that if we saw anyone on the Swedish redoubt, at a signal from me two squadrons would go round it, one to left and one to right, in order to encircle any enemy who had risked coming so close to our army. I had high hopes, when the over-keenness of one of my troopers ruined my plan. This man having accidently dropped his sabre, immediately took his carbine, and fearing that he would be late when I gave the order to attack, he fired into the middle of the group, killing a Prussian major.

You may imagine how, in an instant, all the enemy officers, who had no other guard but a few orderlies, seeing themselves on the point of being surrounded, made off at the gallop. We dared not follow them too far for fear of falling ourselves into the hands of the approaching escorts. We did manage to capture two officers, from whom we could get no information; but I learned later from my friend, Baron de Stoch, who was a colonel in the guard of the Grand Duke of Darmstadt, that the Emperor Alexander of Russia and the King of Prussia had been among the group of officers who almost fell into French hands, an event which would have changed the destiny of Europe. However, fate having decided otherwise, there was nothing left for me to do but to withdraw smartly with my regiment to the French lines.

On the 16th of October at eight o'clock in the morning, the allied batteries gave the signal for the attack. A lively cannonade was directed at our lines and the allied army marched towards us from every point. The fighting commenced on our right, where the Poles, driven back by the Prussians, abandoned the village of Mark-Kleeberg.

At our centre the Russians and the Austrians attacked Wachau and Liebert-Wolkwitz six times and were repeatedly repulsed with great losses. The Emperor regretting, no doubt, that he had abandoned that morning the Swedish redoubt which the enemy had occupied and from where their gunners rained down grape-shot, ordered its recapture, which was promptly carried out by the 22nd Light Infantry aided by my regiment.

Having obtained this first success, the Emperor, not being able to outflank the enemy wings because their superior numbers allowed them to present too long a front, decided to keep them occupied while he attempted to break through their centre. To this end, he sent Marshal Mortier to Wachau with two divisions of infantry, and Marshal Oudinot with the Young Guard. General Drout, with sixty cannons aided the attack, which was successful.

For his part, Marshal Victor overcame and routed the Russian Corps commanded by Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg; but after suffering considerable losses, the Prince was able to rally his Corps at Gossa.

At this moment General Lauriston and Marshal Macdonald debouched from Liebert-Wolkwitz and the enemy was overthrown. The French then took possession of the wood of Grosspossnau. General Maison was wounded in the taking of this important point.

It was in vain that the numerous Austrian cavalry commanded by General Klenau and aided by a host of Cossacks tried to restore the situation, they were defeated by General Sebastian's cavalry corps. This was a very fierce encounter; my regiment took part; I lost several men and my senior Major was wounded in the chest by a lance, having failed to protect himself by carrying his rolled cape.

Prince Schwartzenberg, seeing his line badly shaken, advanced his reserves to support it, which decided the Emperor to order a massive cavalry charge which involved the two corps of Kellermann and Latour-Maubourg as well as the Dragoons of the Guard. Kellermann overcame a division of Russian Cuirassiers, but taken on the flank by another division he had to fall back to the heights of Wachau after taking several enemy flags.

King Murat then advanced the French infantry and the fighting was renewed. The Russian Corps of the Prince of Wurtemberg was once more overwhelmed and lost twenty-six guns. This treatment resulted in the enemy centre yielding and it was about to give way when the Emperor of Russia, who had witnessed the disaster, rapidly advanced the numerous cavalry of his guard which, encountering the squadrons of Latour-Maubourg in the state of confusion which always follows an all-out charge, repelled them in their turn and took back twenty-four of the guns which they had just captured. It was during this charge that General Latour-Maubourg had his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.

So far neither side had secured a marked advantage and Napoleon, to achieve a victory, had just launched against the enemy centre the reserve consisting of the infantry and cavalry of the Old Guard and a corps of fresh troops newly arrived from Leipzig, when a regiment of enemy cavalry which had either deliberately or accidently got behind French lines created some alarm amongst the moving troops, who halted and formed a square so as not to be taken by surprise, and before it was possible to find out the cause of this alert, night had everywhere suspended military operations.

There had been other events on our extreme right. For the whole day General Merfeld had tried fruitlessly to secure a passage across the Pleisse, defended by Poniatowski's Corps and his Poles; however, towards the end of the day, he managed to take the village of D”litz, which compromised our right wing; but the infantry Chasseurs of the Old Guard, having come from the reserve at the Pas de Charge chased the Austrians back across the river and took some hundreds of prisoners, among whom was General Merfeld, who found himself for the third time, in French hands.

Although the Poles had allowed the capture of D”litz, the Emperor, to boost their morale, thought he should give the baton of a marshal of France to their leader, Prince Poniatowski, who did not enjoy the honour of bearing it for very long.

On the other side of the river Elster, the Austrian General Giulay had taken the village of Lindenau after seven hours of fierce fighting. When the Emperor was told of this serious event, which compromised the way of retreat for the major part of his troops, he ordered an attack by General Bertrand, who re-took the position by a vigourous bayonet charge.

On our left, the impatience of Ney nearly led to a major catastrophe. The Marshal, who commanded the left wing which had been placed in position by the Emperor, seeing that by ten o'clock in the morning no enemy troops had appeared, sent, on his own authority, one of his army corps, commanded by General Souham, to Wachau, where there seemed to be an active engagement; but while this ill-considered movement was being carried out, the Prussian Marshal Blucher, who had been delayed, arrived with the Silesian army and captured the village of M”ckern. Then Ney, deprived of a part of his force, and having at his disposal only Marmont's division, was compelled to withdraw to the walls of Leipzig and do no more than defend the suburb of Halle.

The French lost many men in this engagement, which also had a very disturbing effect on those of our soldiers who were in positions in front of or to one side of Leipzig, for they heard the sound of cannon and small-arms fire coming from behind them. However, at about eight in the evening, the fighting ceased in all parts and the night was peaceful.

Chap. 29.

This first day led to no decisive victory; but the French had the advantage, since with very much smaller numbers, they had not only held their own against the coalition, but had driven them off some of the ground they had occupied the day before.

The troops on both sides were preparing to renew the fighting on the following morning; but contrary to their expectations, the 17th passed without any hostile movement on the part of either side. The coalition was awaiting the arrival of the Russian Polish army, and the troops which were being brought by the Prince Royal of Sweden, Bernadotte, which would greatly increase their strength.

For his part, Napoleon, now regretting his rejection of the peace offers which had been made to him two months previously during the armistice, hoped to have some result from a peace mission which he had sent the previous evening to the allied sovereigns through the Austrian General Comte de Merfeld, who had recently been taken prisoner.

Here could be seen a strange sequence of events. It was the Comte de Merfeld who sixteen years previously had come to ask General Bonaparte, then the commander of the army in Italy, for the armistice of Leoben. It was he who had brought back to Vienna the peace treaty concluded between the Austrian government and the directory, represented by General Bonaparte. It was he who had carried to the French emperor, on the night following the Battle of Austerlitz, the proposal for an armistice made by the Austrian Emperor; now, as a remarkable turn of fate had brought General Merfeld once more into the Emperor's presence at a moment when he in his turn was in need of an armistice and peace, he had high hopes that this intermediary would return with the result he desired. However things had gone too far for the allied sovereigns to treat with Napoleon, from whom such a plea denoted the weakness of his position. So, although unable to conquer us on the 16th, they hoped to overcome us by a renewed effort with their superior numbers, and relied heavily on the defection of the German units which were still with us, and whose leaders, all members of the secret society, the Tugenbund, took advantage of the lull in hostilities of the 17th to agree on the manner in which they would execute their treacherous designs. The Comte de Merfeld's mission did not even receive a reply.

On the morning of the 18th, the coalition began its attack. The 2nd Cavalry Corps, of which my regiment was a part, was placed as it had been on the 16th, between Liebert-Wolkwitz and the Kelmberg. The fighting, which broke out everywhere was fiercest towards our centre at the village of Probstheyda which was attacked simultaneously by a Russian and a Prussian Corps, who were driven off with tremendous losses. The Russians vigourously attacked Holzhausen, which Macdonald defended successfully.

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.

A parting stab in the back was given to our troops by a battalion of men from Baden who, being notorious cowards, had been left in the town during the battle to split logs for the fires of the bakery. These worthless Badeners, sheltered by the walls of the big bakery, fired from its windows on our soldiers, of whom they killed a great many.

The French fought back bravely from house to house and although the whole of the allied force was massed in the town filling the avenues and main streets, our troops disputed every foot of ground as they retired towards the big bridge across the Elster at Lindenau.

The Emperor had difficulty in getting out of the town and reaching the outskirts through which the army was marching. He stopped and dismounted at the last of the smaller bridges, known as the mill bridge and it was then that he ordered the big bridge to be mined. He sent orders to Marshals Ney, Macdonald, and Poniatowski to hold the town for a further twenty-four hours, or at least until nightfall, to allow the artillery park, the equipment, and the rear-guard time to go through the suburb and across the bridges. But the Emperor had scarcely remounted his horse and gone a thousand paces down the road towards Lutzen when suddenly there was a massive explosion!...

The big bridge across the Elster had been blown up! Macdonald, Lauriston, Reynier, and Poniatowski, with their troops as well as 200 artillery pieces, were still on the streets of Leipzig and all means of retreat were now cut off. It was a total disaster!...

To explain this catastrophe, it was said later that some Prussian and Swedish infantrymen, for whom the Badeners had opened the Halle gate, had gradually worked their way to the region of the bridge where, having joined some of the Saxon guard, they had occupied some houses from which they started to fire on the French columns. The sapper charged with the responsibility of detonating the mine was deceived by this fire into thinking that the enemy had arrived, and that the time had come for him to carry out his mission, and so he put a light to the fuse. Others blamed a colonel of the engineers named Montfort, who at the sight of some enemy infantrymen had taken it on himself to order the detonation of the explosives. This last version was adopted by the Emperor, and M. de Monfort was put on a charge and made a scapegoat for the fatal event, but it later became clear that he had nothing to do with it. However this may be, the army laid the blame once more on the Major-general, Prince Berthier, and it was justly claimed that he should have put the protection of the bridge in the hands of an entire brigade, whose general should have been made personally responsible for giving the order to blow it up, when he thought the moment had come to do so. Prince Berthier defended himself with his usual response "The Emperor had not ordered it!..."

After the destruction of the bridge, some of the French whose retreat was thus cut off, jumped into the Elster in the hope of swimming across. Several of them succeeded in doing so, Marshal Macdonald being among them; but the greater number, including among others Prince Poniatowski, were drowned, because after crossing the river they were unable to climb the muddy bank, which was lined by enemy soldiers.

Those of our soldiers who were trapped in the town and its suburbs aimed only to sell their lives as dearly as possible. They barricaded themselves behind the houses and fought all day and part of the night, but when their ammunition was exhausted they were forced to retire into their improvised defences where they were nearly all slaughtered! The carnage did not end until two o'clock in the morning!...

The number of those massacred in the houses is given as 13,000, while 25,000 were taken prisoner. The enemy collected 250 cannons.

After describing in general the events which followed the battle of Leipzig, I shall now describe some of those which related particularly to my regiment and Sebastiani's cavalry corps to which it belonged. Seeing that we had for three consecutive days repelled the enemy attacks and maintained our positions on the field of battle, the men were greatly surprised and disgusted when, in the evening of the 18th, we learned that because of shortage of ammunition we were about to retreat. We hoped that at least(and that appeared to be the Emperor's intention) we would go no further than across the river Saale to the proximity of the fortress of Erfurt, where we could renew our stocks of ammunition and recommence hostilities. So we mounted our horses at eight in the evening on the 18th of October, and abandoned the battlefield on which we had fought for three days and where we left the bodies of so many of our gallant comrades.

We had hardly left our bivouac when we ran into some of the difficulties arising from the failure of the general staff to make any arrangements for the withdrawal of such a large body of troops. At every minute the columns, particularly the artillery and cavalry, were held up by the need to cross wide ditches, bogs, and streams over which it would have been easy to put small bridges! Wheels and horses sank into the mud and, the night being very dark, there was congestion everywhere; our progress was therefore extremely slow, even when we were in the open country, and often completely arrested in the streets of the suburbs and the town. My regiment which was at the front of the column formed by Excelmans' division, which led this wearisome march, did not reach the bridge at Lindenau until four in the morning on the 19th. When we had crossed over, we were far from foreseeing the appalling catastrophe which would occur in a few hours.

Day broke; the fine, wide road was covered by troops of all arms, which showed that the army would still be of considerable strength on arriving at the Saale. The Emperor passed... but as he galloped along the side of the marching column, he did not hear the cheers which usually greeted his presence!... The army was displeased with the little effort which had been made to secure its retreat since leaving the battlefield. What would the troops have said if they had known of the inadequate arrangements made at the Elster, which they had just crossed, but where so many of their comrades would lose their lives?

It was during a halt at Markranstadt, a little town some three leagues from Leipzig, that we heard the explosion of the mine which destroyed the bridge; but instead of being alarmed, we rejoiced, for we all believed that the fuse would not have been lit until after the passage of all our columns, and in order, then, to prevent that of the enemy.

During the few hours of rest which we had at Markranstadt, without being aware of the catastrophe which had occurred at the river, I was able to review our squadrons in detail and find out what losses we had suffered during the three days of conflict. I was dismayed! For they came to 149 men, of whom 60 were killed, among whom were two captains, three lieutenant and eleven N.C.O.s. A very large fraction of the 700 men with which the regiment had arrived on the battlefield on the morning of October the 16th. Nearly all the wounded had been hit by cannon-balls or grape-shot which, sadly, gave them little hope of recovery. My losses might have been doubled if I had not, during the battle, taken precautions to shield my regiment from cannon fire, as much as possible. This requires some explanation.

There are circumstances where the most humane of generals finds himself in the painful position of having to expose his troops openly to enemy fire; but it often happens that certain commanders deploy their men uselessly in front of enemy batteries, and take no steps to avoid casualties, although sometimes this is very easy, particularly for cavalry, who because of the rapidity of their movements can go swiftly to the point where they are required and take up the desired formation. It is when large masses of cavalry are involved on extensive battlefields that these measures of preservation are most required, and where, however, they are least employed.

At Leipzig, on the 16th of October, Sebastiani, commanding the 2nd Cavalry Corps, having placed his three divisions between the villages of Wachau and Liebert-Wolkwitz, and indicated to each divisional general roughly the position he should occupy, Exelman found himself placed on undulating ground intersected, as a result, by small ridges and hollows. The Corps formed a line of considerable length. The enemy cavalry, being a long way from us, could not take us by surprise. I took advantage of the hollows in the ground where our brigade was positioned to conceal my regiment which, though formed up and ready for action, saw the greater part of the day pass without losing a single man, for the cannon-balls went over their heads while neighbouring corps suffered considerable casualties.

I was congratulating myself on having done this when General Exelmans, on the pretext that everyone should be equally exposed to danger, ordered me, in spite of the representations of my brigade commander, to take the regiment a hundred paces forward. I obeyed, but in a short time I had a captain, M. Bertin, killed and some twenty men put out of action. I then had recourse to a different tactic: this was to send some troopers, well spaced out, to subject the enemy gunners to carbine fire. The enemy then advanced some infantrymen to counter this, and the two groups being involved in a fire-fight between the lines, the artillery could not use their guns for fear of hitting their own men. It is true that our gunners were in the same boat, but the cessation of gunfire in a minor corner of the battlefield was to our benefit, since the enemy had many more guns than we did. In addition to this, our infantry and that of the enemy being in action at the village of Liebert-Wolkwitz, the cavalry of both sides had to await the outcome of this savage fighting; it served no useful purpose for them to demolish one another by cannon fire, rather than leave the fighting to the infantrymen, who were for the most part only frightening the birds. My example was followed by all the regimental commanders of the other brigades, and the cannons opposite them too ceased fire, sparing the lives of many men. A greater number would have been spared if General Exelmans had not come and ordered the withdrawal of the men on foot, which was the signal for a hail of cannon-balls hurled at our squadrons. Fortunately the day was almost over.

It was now the evening of the 16th. All the colonels of cavalry belonging to 2nd Corps had found this method of sparing their men so effective that by common accord we all used it in the battle of the 18th. When the enemy started firing their cannons, we sent out our foot-soldiers, and as they would have captured the guns if they were not defended, the enemy had to send infantrymen to defend them, and so the guns were silenced on both sides. The commanders of the enemy cavalry which faced us, having probably realised what we were up to, started doing the same, so that on the third day the guns attached to the cavalry of both parties were much less used. This did not prevent vigourous cavalry engagements, but at least they were directed to the taking or holding of positions, in which we did not spare ourselves, but the cannonades aimed at stationary targets, which too often replace cavalry to cavalry actions, do nothing but kill good men for no useful purpose. This was something which Exelmans did not grasp, but as he was on the move all the time from one wing to the other, as soon as he had left a regiment the colonel sent out his foot-soldiers and the guns were silent.

All the cavalry generals, including Sebastiani, were so much persuaded of the advantages of this method, that eventually Exelmans was ordered not to irritate the enemy gunners by firing our guns at them, when the cavalry was only standing-to, and had neither an attack nor a defence to undertake. Two years later I used the same tactics at Waterloo against the English guns, and I lost far fewer men than I would have done otherwise: but now let us return to Markranstadt.

Chap. 31.

It was while the Emperor and the divisions which had come out of Leipzig were halted at this spot, that we heard the dreadful news of the destruction of the bridge at Lindenau, which deprived the army of almost all its artillery and half of its men, who were taken prisoner; and which delivered some thousands of our wounded comrades to the assaults and knives of the brutish enemy, full of liquor and encouraged to massacre by their unscrupulous officers! There was widespread grief! Each regretted the loss of a relative, a friend, some comrade in arms! The Emperor seemed appalled!... However, he ordered Sebastiani's cavalry to retrace their steps to the bridge, in order to gather and protect any stragglers who had been able to cross the river at some point, after the explosion.

In order to speed this help, my regiment and the 24th, who were the best mounted in the corps, were told to go ahead of the column and leave at a rapid trot. As General Wathiez was indisposed, and I was the next in seniority, I had to take command of the brigade.

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.

It would be impossible for me to express the fury felt then by the two regiments which I commanded. All longed for vengeance and regretted that this was denied them, since the Elster, with its broken bridge, separated us from the assassins and their victims. Our anger was increased when we came across about 2000 Frenchmen, most of them without clothes and nearly all wounded, who had escaped death only by jumping into the river and swimming across in the face of the shots being fired at them from the opposite bank. Marshal Macdonald was among them; he owed his life to his physical strength and his ability as a swimmer. The Marshal was completely naked and his horse had been drowned, so I quickly found some clothes for him and lent him the spare horse which always came with me, which allowed him to go immediately to rejoin the Emperor at Markranstadt, and to give him an account of the disaster of which he had been a witness, and in which one of the principal episodes had been the death of Prince Poniatowski, who had perished in the waters of the Elster.

The remainder of the French who had managed to cross the river had been obliged to discard their arms in order to swim, and had no means of defence. They ran across the fields to avoid falling into the hands of four or five hundred Prussians, Saxons, and Badeners, who, not satisfied with the blood-bath of the massacres in the town, had made a footbridge of beams and planks across the remaining arches of the bridge, and had come to kill any of our unfortunate soldiers whom they could find on the road to Markranstadt.

As soon as I caught sight of this group of assassins, I instructed Colonel Schneit of the 24th to combine with my regiment to form a vast semi-circle round them, and then sounded the charge!... The result was horrifying! The bandits, taken by surprise, put up very little resistance and there ensued a massacre, for no quarter was given!...