Battle of Leipzig

The Battle of Leipzig, fought from 16th to 19th October 1813 and also called the Battle of the Nations, was the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, involving around half a million soldiers. A coalition of Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Swedish armies, numbering over three hundred thousand, converged on Napoleon's roughly two hundred thousand men around the city. After days of grinding combat, Saxon and Württemberg troops defected to the allies, and on 19th October the French began retreating across the Elster river, whose single bridge was blown too early, trapping tens of thousands. The coalition lost about fifty-four thousand men, but the French lost some thirty-eight thousand killed and wounded, fifteen thousand prisoners, and tens of thousands more to desertion and disease during the retreat. The defeat broke French power in Germany and opened the road to the invasion of France in 1814. The Saxon defection and the premature demolition of the Lindenau bridge turned a defeat into a catastrophe from which the French army in Germany never recovered.