Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [324]
Instead of retreating, the emperor adopted a defensive position around Leipzig. The battle that followed was the largest, bloodiest and most dramatic of the Napoleonic Wars, with the 177,000 -strong grande armée facing an initial total of over 250,000 allied troops. On
16 October Schwarzenberg and Blücher launched simultaneous attacks from north and south, but were successfully repulsed. At this point Napoleon might yet have got away to the west, but he was expecting 14,000 fresh troops to arrive the following day. Why he thought this would make a difference is unclear: setting aside the negligible numbers of men involved, two-thirds of them were potentially unreliable Saxons. But, whatever the reason, he decided to stay put in the expectation that he could secure a genuine victory, while at the same time sending peace terms of his own to the Allies: there would first be an armistice in which France would be allowed to evacuate all her beleaguered eastern garrisons in return for a promise to withdraw to the line of the river Saale, and then a peace settlement whose chief features would be the re-establishment of Spain, Holland, Hanover, Hamburg and Lübeck as independent states in exchange for allied recognition of the Kingdom of Italy and the Confederation of the Rhine. However, to expect that the Allies would accept such terms stretched belief to its very limits. As anyone could see, the result would be to allow Napoleon to regroup his forces and save the thousands of men that even he had now to recognize would otherwise be given up for lost, while reserving the right to fight on at a later date. Among his men there was a much more realistic appreciation of the situation. The artillery officer Noël was now serving at Napoleon’s headquarters:
On 17 October we remained in the positions we had occupied on the previous evening. It was a wretched day: the sky hung low and grey and the weather was cold and wet. The battlefield was a terrible sight . . . Our own thoughts were at one with the weather and the scene that met our eyes. Illusions were shattered as everyone began to understand the situation. We saw before us a numerous, courageous enemy determined, at any cost, to regain his independence. We had to start again and in the worst of circumstances . . . Yesterday we had fought two against three; tomorrow we should fight one against two.79
To the relief of the French,17 October proved quiet as the Allies were waiting for the 140,000 reinforcements coming up under Bennigsen and Bernadotte. The fighting was therefore not resumed until the next day when 300,000 men were launched against the French from virtually every point of the compass. Thanks in part to allied bungling and irresolution, at first the grande armée held its ground, but then the tide turned. In the very midst of the fighting, the two Saxon divisions which had arrived the previous day changed sides, and in consequence Napoleon ordered a withdrawal. With the only way out of the trap a long and narrow causeway across a marshy river valley, this was an extremely dangerous manoeuvre, and it was not long before complete chaos set in. Among the troops trying to get across the causeway was Marshal Marmont:
My chief of staff and his deputy had been struck down at my side; four of my aides-de-camp were killed, wounded or missing, along with another seven of the officers attached to my staff. As for myself, I had been wounded by a musket