19 October 1813
The retreat over the Elster
In the night Napoleon orders the retreat west over the White Elster by the single bridge on the road to Lindenau. He makes Poniatowski a marshal and leaves the VII, VIII and XI Corps to hold Leipzig for a day. The allies learn of the retreat only at 7:00 on 19 October and attack the town from the north, east and south. Russians and Prussians break in at the Halle and Grimma gates and fight from house to house, and Swedish jägers take 647 prisoners for 35 dead.
The French retreat after the battle of Leipzig, 19 October 1813, print after Carle Vernet, early 19th centuryWikimedia Commons, Carle Vernet, Public domain (Napoleon.Leipzig.jpg)
At 13:00 a corporal left at the Elster bridge fires the charges while it is still crowded with troops and the rearguard is still in the town. About 30,000 men are cut off and captured. Oudinot and Macdonald swim the river, and Poniatowski, wounded, drowns trying to cross. Over the four days the French lose about 38,000 killed and wounded, 36,000 captured, among them 21,000 wounded or sick, and 325 guns, and the allies about 54,000 men.
The death of Prince Józef Poniatowski in the Elster, painting by Horace Vernet, 1816Wikimedia Commons, Horace Vernet, Public domain (Horace Vernet - Death of Prince Poniatowski.jpg)
The rest of the army, still over 100,000 strong, marches by Weissenfels and Erfurt towards the Rhine. Bavaria has changed sides eight days before the battle, and at Hanau on 30 and 31 October Napoleon breaks through a Bavarian army of 40,000 under Karl Philipp von Wrede. He reaches Mainz on 5 November.
Sources
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
- Digby Smith, 1813 Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations (2001).
- Peter Hofschröer, Leipzig 1813: The Battle of the Nations (2012).
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