The Allied attack was both disorderly and piecemeal. The various formations straggled up into contact with their French adversaries between 8,130 and 9:30
A.M., but so great was their confusion that a considerable gap developed at once between Eugen and Gortchakoff. It appeared an ideal moment to launch the French counterattack, but the unfavorable weather conditions partly to blame for the chaos of the Allied advance had also delayed the arrival of Macdonald’s XIth Corps and Sébastiani’s cavalry on the French left, and until these troops made their appearance Napoleon’s full plan could not be put into operation. Napoleon was therefore forced to fight a straightforward frontal battle for the first two hours.
Between nine and eleven o’clock the battle on the Wachau sector swung this way and that. General Meerveldt managed to capture the chateau of Dolwitz but was soon contained there by part of Poniatowski’s corps, while his further attempt to storm over the Pleisse at Connewitz was easily thwarted by General Defol’s division. To the east of the river, Kleist managed to capture Markkleeberg after a fierce struggle, but was then neatly pinned by massed French artillery fire until after 10:00
A.M. Eugen succeeded in capturing Wachau, but only briefly. Gortschakoff blundered into a trap prepared by Lauriston and was soon driven back with heavy loss by the cunningly sited French cannon. To sustain his front against these repeated onslaughts, Napoleon decided to move his reserves forward, Augereau taking up a position in support of Poniatowski, Oudinot advancing his two Young Guard divisions over the Galgenberg to help Victor, and Mortier moving up the remainder of the Young Guard behind Lauriston. Every available gun was massed in the center. Rather later the Old Guard and Murat’s three cavalry corps advanced from the Thönberg-Probsthayda area to a central reserve position close behind the Galgenberg. It was very unusual for the Guard to be brought forward so early—as many observers noted.
By eleven o’clock it was becoming evident that the impetus of the Allied offensive on the southern sector was dying away; Schwarzenberg’s first attack had failed. However, the Allied high command were taking certain steps to repair the gaps in their battleline. On the insistence of Alexander’s staff, the Russian reserve was moved forward to Magdeborn, and the Prussian and Russian Guards were summoned over the Pleisse to take up a position near Guldengossa (in rear of Eugen and Gortschakoff). Messages were sent off to urge the Austrian reserve to follow suit and to hasten the march of the forces of Bennigsen and Colleredo (70,000 strong) still on their way from Dresden. The dilatory Klenau (on the extreme Allied right) was hounded forward into action, and shortly after 11 :00
A.M. his troops occupied the undefended Kolm Berg heights and began to prepare an attack on the eastern side of Liebertwolkwitz. These measures did nothing to retrieve their dwindling initiative, however, for the approach of Macdonald’s troops soon halted Klenau’s aggressive moves.
The time was clearly fast approaching for the French counterstroke to be launched, but what was meantime happening on the other sectors of the battlefield? Away to the north, Marmont was making the most of a long lull to extemporize a new position near Mockern. For his part Blücher had become extremely wary; knowing that there was no chance of the Army of the North arriving to support him before the 17th, and believing that a great deal of Napoleon’s army was still on its way from Duben, he approached Marmont’s positions with the utmost caution, and nothing much happened until after midday when Dombrowski’s French division moved west to take up a position on VIth Corps’ right flank, at the same time protecting Delmas’ approach along the Duben road. Even then it was not until 2:00
P.M. that Blücher at last launched his attack. Passing on to see what was taking place on the Lindenau sector, Gyulai’s attack had begun about half past ten; the intervention of Bertrand’s corps soon resulted in the repulse of the Austrian forces, and some time before midday the situation had swung completely in the French favor. Bertrand, however, decided to stay near Lindenau with the whole of his command for most of the rest of the 16th.
Thus, although up to midday both of these secondary engagements were proceeding reasonably satisfactorily from the French point of view, neither had been anticipated by Napoleon at the outset, and the net result of them was the tying down of two corps, one of which at least the Emperor had wished to employ on the southern battlefield. If only the garrison of Dresden had been present on the field, the outcome might well have been different.
Once it had become clear that Wittgenstein had exhausted his impetus on the Wachau front, Napoleon resumed preparations for his counterattack. As a first step General Drouot was ordered to mass 150 cannon in the interval between Victor and Lauriston, ready to blast a gap in the Allied line. Napoleon’s plan was to advance along his entire front, bringing Augereau into line between Poniatowski and Victor, and Mortier between Lauriston and Macdonald, while Oudinot remained in support of Victor in the right center. Macdonald on the far left was expected to drive in the Allied flank (Klenau) and create a threat toward the rear of the Allied center. In this task, which should draw off what was left of the Allied reserves, Macdonald was to be supported by General Souham’s IIIrd Corps (deputizing in this role for Marmont and Bertrand)—or so Napoleon now intended. Then the massed French cavalry, under Murat’s command, probably 12,000 in all, would sweep into the Allied center, preceded by Drouot’s crippling bombardment, and carve a break, which would be immediately exploited by infantry columns. The Emperor hoped that the demoralized remnants of the Allied center would then become inextricably confused with their retiring right wing, affording the French the chance of a decisive victory.
By midday the first French counterattacks were under way. Macdonald duly drove Klenau off the Kolm Berg, but Sébastiani’s supporting cavalry, badly needed to lead the sweeping advance into the Allied rear, was seriously detained by Pahlen’s cavalry corps near Klein Possna. Moreover, there was still no sign of the supporting corps which was supposed to be coming up to aid Macdonald. Elsewhere, however, the pressure of the French attack steadily mounted, and yard by yard the Austrians were compelled to relinquish their early gains and retire through their original forming-up areas. Napoleon wrote a note to the King of Saxony to the effect that “all is going well”38 and believed the battle to be almost won.
By two o’clock there was still no sign of Souham’s reinforcements, and the Emperor decided to launch his master stroke without waiting for Macdonald’s curtailed enveloping action to mature—or for Marmont to make his appearance. Drouot’s guns poured a hail of fire into Kleist’s and Eugen’s formations and forward thundered Murat’s 10,000 horsemen. At the same moment, Napoleon ordered a general frontal advance; Victor and Oudinot formed their men into columns of attack and swept forward from Wachau toward Anenhayn; Lauriston advanced on Guldengossa, Mortier on the University Wood, Macdonald on Sieffertshayn, while Poniatowski and Augereau advanced on Crobern.
The French Guard cavalry, supported by a further ten squadrons, sabered their way through Kleist’s disintegrating corps almost as far as Crobern, before being repulsed by the timely arrival of the Austrian reserve cavalry from beyond the Pleisse. However, the Austrian horsemen in their turn were decimated by the renewed fire of Drouot’s massed guns and were driven back to Crobern. Then, shortly after 2:30
P.M., there took place the most celebrated cavalry action of the day.
The Ist French Cavalry Corps, drawn up behind Drouot’s battery, was newly under the command of General Doumerc (Latour-Maubourg having been severely wounded). Seeing what appeared to be an opportunity to his front, Doumerc ordered General Bordesoulle’s cuirassier division of 18 squadrons (2,500 troopers) to charge the flank of Eugen of Württemberg’s command. The “heavies” thundered forward and immediately drove a deep wedge into the Allied line; two battalions dissolved before their charge, 26 guns were captured, and Bordesoulle plunged on toward the Allied rear and almost reached Tsar Alexander’s command post. This could have been the decisive moment of the day, but unfortunately n
either Doumerc nor Murat succeeded in sending up the needful support troops to exploit the cuirassiers’ success. Consequently the Tsar’s escort squadrons, reinforced by 13 fresh squadrons of Russian cuirassiers, were able to countercharge and repulse the exhausted French cavalry. By half past three, the episode was over—and with it the French chance of securing a real success. The Army of Bohemia had been pushed back a considerable distance, but it was still in being and capable of offering sturdy resistance.
By 4:00
P.M. the French were in possession of a line running from Anenhayn and Crobern on their right to Guldengossa, the outskirts of University Wood and Sieffertshayn on the left. However, the arrival of more Austrian reserves commanded by General Bianchi enabled the Allied left to stage a counterattack against Augereau and Victor. The French were forced back through Markkleeberg. Simultaneously, General Meerveldt at last succeeded in forcing his way over the Pleisse and captured the village of Dolitz beyond. By this time the French right was in extreme peril, but the situation was redeemed by the intervention of a division of the Old Guard, followed by General Ricard in command of the leading formation of Souham’s migratory IIIrd Corps—which now, at last, made its first effective appearance on the southern battlefield. Very soon Bianchi had been largely driven back toward Markkleeberg; Meerveldt was captured and his men forced back over the Pleisse. And so the French line was re-established. Nightfall then brought the Battle of Wachau to a close; the day’s fighting had ended in a draw.
Had Napoleon been present at his command post on the Galgenberg at the time of Bordesoulle’s charge, there is little doubt that he would have seen to it that adequate reinforcements were sent up to exploit his cuirassiers’ success, and the action of Wachau would have been won. However, the Emperor’s attention had been abruptly diverted from the scene shortly after 2:30
P.M. by the sound of intense firing from the northern sector; wheeling his horse, he rode off for Möckern to see how Marmont was faring.
The battle of Möckern was the fiercest of the day, VIth Corps consisted of probably the best soldiers in the French army, for many of them were veterans, and Dombrowski’s division of Poles (part of IIIrd Corps), occupying the advanced posts in the villages of Widderitzsch on Marmont’s right, were also men of considerable reputation. Shortly after 2 :00
P.M., Blücher sent forward Yorck’s corps against the French holding Möckern and Langeron’s command against Dombrowski, retaining Sacken in reserve. Despite the fury of his assaults, the former made little ground against Marmont during his first two attacks, but the gallant Poles were eventually borne back by weight of numbers toward the village of Eutritzsch. At about this juncture, Ney decided to recall the two divisions of Souham’s corps presently making their way toward the Wachau battlefield, sending them back to sustain Marmont; he eventually changed his mind again and redispatched them toward Wachau. Consequently, as we have already mentioned, Souham spent the whole day marching and countermarching without intervening in either battle on a large scale, although as we have seen his leading division reached Dolitz in time to assist in the repulse of Meerveldt toward evening.
No sooner had Dombrowski fallen back before Langeron than the division of General Delmas hove in sight up the Duben road with his large convoys. Fortunately Langeron allowed himself to be taken in by the apparent size of the newcomer (who in fact disposed of less than 5,000 men), and fell back in the belief that a complete corps was materializing on his flank. By the time he had revised this estimate, Delmas had been given time to withdraw the bulk of his command to safety over the River Parthe, although he was forced to abandon most of his transport in the process.
Back on the Möckern flank, Yorck was flinging attack after attack against the men of VIth Corps. The fortunes of war swayed to and fro dramatically. Shortly after five o’clock, Marmont succeeded in routing the leading Prussian division, but General Normann and the Württemberg cavalry refused to charge on the marshal’s order (the recalcitrant officer was probably planning his defection to the Allies—an act of treachery which was implemented on the 18th), and the opportunity of victory passed. Marmont tried to exploit his success with infantry alone, but a desperate General Yorck unleashed his last reserve—the whole of his cavalry—and succeeded in overrunning several French battalions and part of their artillery. VIth Corps was now swept back in confusion in its turn, and the jubilant Prussians took possession of Möckern. Marmont succeeded in rallying his men on a line between Gohlis and Eutritzsch, and darkness then came to the rescue before Blücher could call up Sacken from reserve to complete his victory, but the action had undoubtedly ended in the Prussian favor. General Yorck was undoubtedly the hero of the day, but his corps had suffered almost 8,000 casualties in the process (33 per cent), while Marmont probably lost nearer 10,000.
The first day of the battle of Leipzig thus came to a close. The French had gained slight victories at Lindenau and Wachau, and sustained a reverse at Möckern. The Allies had lost approximately 30,000 men (including 2,000 prisoners), the French about 25,000 in all. Despite this French advantage in terms of casualties, the first day had ended in a draw. Moreover, the odds were rapidly shifting in the Allies’ favor, for while Napoleon could only anticipate the arrival of Reynier’s 14,000 men to raise his strength to barely 200,000 troops and 900 cannon, the Allies were awaiting the appearance of Bernadotte’s 70,000 men and a similar number under Bennigsen, and these reinforcements would bring their total strength to over 300,000 and 1,500 guns.
Napoleon was in general terms aware of the odds mounting against him. On the evening of the 16th he took the wise step of issuing preliminary orders for a retreat toward the Rhine. Bertrand was told to hold himself ready to set out from Lindenau to march westward and secure the bridge over the Saale; his post at Lindenau would be taken over by Mortier’s divisions of the Young Guard. Then, however, the Emperor made two wrong decisions. The first was to delay the commencement of the retreat until the 18th. The Emperor probably hoped that the Allies, given sufficient rope, would commit some cardinal error on the morrow which the French would be able to exploit; he probably also wished to await the arrival of Reynier’s approaching columns. Secondly, he released the captive General Meerveldt and sent him to the Emperor of Austria with the offer of an armistice. No reply was vouchsafed to this approach. Although it was only a ruse on Napoleon’s part it rebounded onto his own head by serving to strengthen the Allied conviction that Napoleon was nearing the end of his tether; accordingly, their resolution to see the battle through to the end was strengthened. If only Napoleon had seen fit to retire on the 17th, he might well have saved at least 160,000 of his troops and transferred them behind the Rhine. As it was, his decision to linger on at Leipzig for a further day or even longer in the hope of a miracle doomed him to heavy and irretrievable defeat.
Looking back on the first day’s fighting, one can see that both sides made serious mistakes. Napoleon had underestimated the aggressiveness and miscalculated the position of Blöcher and the Army of Silesia, and his men had suffered a sharp repulse at Möckern in consequence. The complications of the secondary battles at Möckern and Lindenau had robbed him of decisive strength on the Wachau battlefield, where the intervention of either Marmont, Bertrand or Souham at the right time would almost certainly have led to victory. The pointless peregrinations of IIIrd Corps are largely inexplicable. “In the eyes of the Emperor this was the calamity of the day,”39 noted Fain. Napoleon would probably have been well advised to counterattack forcefully at 11:00
A.M. with what troops he had available, instead of vainly waiting for three hours for reinforcements which never came.
As for the Allies, the chaotic nature of their initial attack at Wachau, while it achieved a measure of surprise, at the same time threatened cataclysm. But for the Tsar’s action in switching reserves over the Pleisse, disaster might well have resulted. Gyulai’s attack on Lindenau was launched too late to have any real effect (other than that of diverting Bertrand from t
he Wachau battlefield), while Blücher hesitated to use a full third of his men at Möckern through a sense of overcaution and anxiety for his open flank.
October 17 passed relatively quietly. The Allies were prepared to renew the battle immediately, but as Napoleon made no aggressive move they decided to await the morrow, by which time their large reinforcements should be fully up. There was a little outpost fighting between Blücher and Marmont, but otherwise the day was spent in preparation. The arrival of VIIth Corps completed Napoleon’s army, and the decision was taken to recall all forces behind the line of the Parthe. But the reported arrival of Bennigsen and Bernadotte finally convinced the Emperor that he must retreat.
The Allied high command was hard at work completing its plan for the 18th. In its final form this called for no less than six concentric attacks against the French positions. With well over 300,000 men now available and almost 1,500 guns, the Allies felt confident that they could crush Napoleon with a series of heavy blows against widely separated sectors of his perimeter. General Hesse-Homburg was to attack Lössnig along both sides of the Pleisse; Barclay was to assault Probsthayda; Bennigsen and Colloredo were to move against Zuckelhausen and Holzhausen; Blücher was to renew the attack on the northern suburbs of Leipzig, with Bernadotte’s army on his left, while Gyulai made another effort against Lindenau.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 114
