At this unexpected news, Napoleon thought he should return to the project of retiring behind the Saale and the mountains of Thuringia; but it was too late, for already the main forces of the allies were in contact with the French army, and too close for it to be possible to carry out a retreat without being attacked in the course of this difficult operation. So the Emperor decided to stand and fight!… It was a disastrous decision, for the effective strength of the French troops and their allies amounted to no more than 157,000 men, of whom only 29,000 were cavalry, while Prince Schwartzenberg, the enemy generalissimo, disposed of a force of 350,000, of whom 54,000 were cavalry!…
This huge army consisted of Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and Swedes, whom the former French Marshal Bernadotte was leading against his fellow countrymen and one-time brothers in arms. The total number of those engaged amounted to 507,000 without counting the troops left in fortresses.
The town of Leipzig is one of the most commercial and richest in Germany. It stands in the middle of a great plain which extends from the Elbe to the Harz mountains, to Thuringia, and to Bohemia. Its situation has made it almost always the principal theatre for the wars which have bloodied Germany. A little river named the Elster, which is so small and shallow that one could call it a stream, runs from south to north through water-meadows in a slight valley as far as Leipzig. This water-course divides into a great number of branches which are a real obstacle to the usual operations of war, and require a multiplicity of bridges for communication between the villages which edge the valley.
The Pleisse, another river of the same sort but even smaller than the Elster, runs about a league and a half from the latter, which it joins under the walls of Leipzig.
To the north of the town is a small stream called the Partha which winds through a narrow valley and has at every pace fords or little bridges across it.
Leipzig, being at the confluence of these three streams and almost surrounded to the north and west by their multiple branches, is the key to the terrain through which they run. The town, which is not very large, was at this period surrounded by an old wall in which were four large gates and three small ones. The road to Lutzen via Lindenau and Markranstadt was the only one by which the French army could communicate freely with its rear.
It is in the area of ground between the Pleisse and the Partha that the heaviest fighting took place. There, a noticeable feature is a small isolated hillock called the Kelmberg, known also as the Swedish redoubt, because in the thirty years war, Gustavus Adolphus built some fortifications at this spot, which dominates the surrounding countryside.
The battle of Leipzig began on the 16th of October 1813 and lasted three days; but the fighting on the 17th was infinitely more savage than that on the 16th and 18th.
Without wishing to go into the details of this memorable encounter, I think I should indicate the principal positions occupied by the French army, which will give a general idea of those of the enemy, since each of our army corps had facing it one and sometimes two of the enemy.
King Murat was in control of our right wing, the extremity of which was bounded by the Pleisse near the villages of Connewitz, D”litz, and Mark-Kleeberg which were occupied by Prince Poniatowski and his Poles. Next to him and behind the market-town of Wachau was the corps of Marshal Victor. Marshal Augereau occupied D”sen.