worked against him. Once again Ney proved the French nemesis by his
supreme idiocy: he continually recalled and re-recalled two divisions of
Souham's III Corps, undecided whether to send them to Marmont, to
Lindenau or the Emperor, with the result that the two divisions finally
got into the battle (in the south-east) just half an hour before dusk. The
other thing that prevented Marmont's miracle was the refusal by the
Wiirttemberg cavalry to charge when ordered; probably they were already
planning the treachery that took place two days later. As in all battles, the
vital moment came and went. By nightfall the Prussians had counterat
tacked and were getting the better of the engagement. However,
Napoleon cannot escape censure for the failure in the north, as he had not
expected heavy fighting there at all.
Since there was murderous fighting in both sectors, numbers told, and
Napoleon was probably just a corps short of achieving total victory in
both parts of the battle. The distraction in the north was probably crucial
to French fortunes in the south too, for the Emperor was concentrating
on Marmont's problems at the precise moment he should have been
sending in infantry to support Murat in the coup de grace. His failure to
do this allowed Russian cavalry to countercharge, and by 3.30 p.m. the
great opportunity had gone. By 4 p.m. the French were making ground
steadily but had still not broken the Austrians. Then the arrival of Allied
reinforcements allowed the Austrians to counterattack. By nightfall the
French were back where they started.
When the fateful day of 16 October ended, the French had had slightly
the upper hand in the south-east but slightly the worse of it in the north.
Since French losses (25,ooo) nearly equalled those of the Allies (3o,ooo)
the result of the battle could only be considered a draw. But for Napoleon
matters could only get worse, since he had no significant reinforcements
to draw on, while Bernadotte and Bennigsen were drawing near with an
extra 4o,ooo for the Allies. Grave and rapid decisions needed to be made
next day, but Napoleon again spent the day in gloomy indecision. At first
he ordered a general retreat to the Rhine, then countermanded this and
decided to stay on in Leipzig, apparently hoping that the Allies would
score some spectacular own goal. It seems that he could not quite accept
that he had come so close to victory only to see it snatched away. This
was his most grievous mistake over the three days. The Allies were quite
content to wait until all their reinforcements had come up.
Too late Napoleon's intelligence agents brought word of the scale of
the forces opposed to him. Whereas the initial numbers had been 26o,ooo
to 2oo,ooo in the Allies' favour, the figures were now 32o,ooo and 16o,ooo
marcin
(Marcin)
#1