The Battles Around Leipzig
October 1813

The Bridge Explodes

by DH Parry
Edited by Gay Gibson

Colonel Montfort and the corporal were tried by court-martial, the result of which has never been made public; but the report afterwards circulated that Napoleon had ordered the premature explosion to cover his own retreat is without foundation. Charles Lever has woven a pathetic romance round it, but all the evidence goes to prove that the corporal was alone answerable, and that no blame in reality attached to him, as his orders were explicit, and the enemy had appeared a few yards off when he fired the mines.

The exact moment when the allies came into possession of the city is difficult to discover -- the bridge was blown up shortly after eleven. Cathcart says he rode in with the sovereigns about twelve, but other accounts from eyewitnesses say the entry was at half past one. If the time is uncertain, however, the attendant circumstances are clear. Alexander and the King of Prussia marched into Leipzig at the head of a brilliant column of Guard cavalry, passed the Saxon monarch on the steps of his house without notice, and eventually took up their station in the great square, where they were joined by Bernadotte, Blücher, Beningsen, Platof, and later by Napoleon's father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria. Every effort was made to prevent excesses: if the allies made loyal allegiance to Napoleon an excuse for robbing Frederick Augustus of an immense portion of his territory, it is to their credit that they certainly took steps to ensure the safety of the citizens, whatever may be thought of their subsequent treatment of an unfortunate king whose memory is still revered in the land where he once held sway.

Leipzig had suffered terribly, and its inhabitants were starving. At the Ränstadt gate piles of corpses met the gaze, and the mill-dam was full of them; in Löhr's garden on the Göhlitz side, where dark groves once sheltered the nightingale, and Grecian statues stood among the greenery, the French gunners and artillery horses lay scattered about in death. In Richter's garden, through whose iron railings Napoleon had escaped, the Cuirassiers had been engaged: their steel breastplates littered the walks, and arms and feet protruded above the water.

Seventeen generals are said to been taken, and among those slain on the 18th was General Frederichs, the handsomest man in the French army. Pursuit abated a league from the city. The French retired to Markränstadt, nine miles off, and thence continued their way towards the Rhine, severely handling the Bavarians who tried to oppose them at Hanau.

A solemn Te Deum was sung in the great square at Leipzig, all the sovereigns and their officers attending. Alexander reviewed the Swedish force and the English rocket troop, and preparations were made to follow on the track of the Grand Army. A march which, in spite of the campaign of 1814, greatest of all Napoleon's efforts, may be said to have never stopped until the allies entered Paris and drove the emperor to Elba.

The Battles Around Leipzig October 1813

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