The Decisive Battles of World History

Lecture 26: 1813 Leipzig—The Grand Coalition

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taken a severe battering. His forces were defeated but not broken,

and the regiments were still disciplined and in good order. If he

could retreat from Leipzig with his remaining men and equipment

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army to challenge the Sixth Coalition and perhaps pull out another

brilliant victory.

x Because the French were surrounded on three sides by the coalition

forces, their only escape route was to the west, over causeways

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French forces streamed over this bridge to safety.

x At this moment, however, an incident transformed the battle

from a discouraging but potentially survivable defeat into a fatal

disaster. Napoleon had put one of his generals in charge of the

Elster bridge with orders to blow it up after the French army

had crossed. This general delegated responsibility to one of his

colonels, who placed the explosives. Because this colonel was

unsure which unit was the rearguard, he went to headquarters to

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x When a few Russian skirmishers began shooting at the troops

streaming across the bridge, the corporal panicked and lit the fuse.

The explosion killed hundreds of French troops and trapped tens

of thousands of French soldiers on the wrong side of the river,

along with most of the wounded and a sizable portion of the French

artillery. Ultimately, more than 40,000 prime troops were stranded

and taken prisoner, along with 300 irreplaceable cannons.

Outcomes

x These losses doomed Napoleon. The allies had won a truly decisive

victory and one from which the French could not recover. The shaky

coalition now had a shared victory and could see a clear path to the

end of the war. The coalition forces entered Paris on March 30, 1814.