Who won the Battle of Leipzig?
The allied Coalition won the Battle of Leipzig, the Battle of the Nations, fought from 16 to 19 October 18131, when more than half a million soldiers (estimates run from about 500,000 to 600,000) from a dozen nations met in the largest battle in Europe before the First World War. The defeat destroyed Napoleon's empire east of the Rhine.
Between 16 and 19 October 1813, around the Saxon city of Leipzig, more than half a million soldiers from a dozen nations fought the largest battle Europe would see until the First World War. When it ended, Napoleon's empire east of the Rhine had ceased to exist. Contemporaries called it simply the Battle of the Nations.
After the snows of Russia
The catastrophe of 1812 had swallowed the Grande Armée, yet Napoleon raised a fresh army of raw conscripts2 and won again at Lützen and Bautzen in the spring of 1813. Then Austria joined Russia, Prussia and Sweden.2 The coalition adopted a shrewd plan: avoid Napoleon in person, and strike wherever his marshals commanded alone3. Two days before the main battle, Murat's horsemen met the Army of Bohemia south of Leipzig in what is often described as one of the largest cavalry battles in history.
The ring closes
By October the allied armies were converging on Leipzig from every side. Napoleon held the center against odds that grew by the hour as fresh coalition columns arrived. On the second day the numbers turned decisively against him, and during the fighting his German allies from Saxony changed sides on the field itself4.
The bridge over the Elster
With the battle lost, the French began a careful retreat westward across the single causeway out of the city. In the chaos the vital bridge over the Elster was blown too early1, stranding the rearguard on the wrong bank. Thousands were captured or drowned, among them Marshal Józef Poniatowski, who had received his baton only three days before5, on the first day of the battle.
What the day decided
Leipzig cost well over 100,000 casualties on both sides.1 Napoleon fell back over the Rhine, the Confederation of the Rhine dissolved3, and Germany was lost to him for good. Within months the allies were in France, and the road ran on to his first abdication in the spring of 1814.
The Battle of the Nations
Leipzig is remembered by a name that captures its scale: the Battle of the Nations. Fought in October 1813, it drew in Napoleon's French army and the combined forces of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden, with well over half a million men engaged, the largest battle Europe would see until the First World War. It was also the decisive defeat of Napoleon's German campaign. Beaten and forced back across the Rhine, he lost his hold on Germany entirely, and the coalition that had gathered against him now carried the war onto French soil. Within six months the allies were in Paris3 and Napoleon had abdicated for the first time, bound for exile on Elba.
