![]() ![]() On 23 August Bernadotte defeated Marshal Oudinot at Grossbeeren as he advanced on Berlin. Eventually, the three armies would isolate Napoleon and surround him with overwhelming force. The main strategic idea behind the plan was to engage French armies led by Napoleon’s marshals, but for each army to retreat when Napoleon advanced on them. Each of these armies would include soldiers from at least two nations, so defeat would not be fatal to any power's cause. The allies divided their forces into three armies: the Army of Bohemia (230,000 men) under Austrian Field Marshal Schwarzenberg, the Army of Silesia (110,000 men) under Prussian Field Marshal Blücher, and the Army of the North (140,000 men) under Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden, the former Marshal Bernadotte. Meanwhile, the allies had adopted what came to be known as the Trachenberg Plan. Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich attempted in vain to persuade Napoleon to accept these terms, and on 12 August Austria declared war on France. ![]() During the Armistice of Pläswitz signed on 4 June, Austria agreed to join Russia and Prussia if Napoleon did not agree to abandon his territories outside Italy and Belgium. Instead, he proposed an two month armistice for Austria to mediate between both sides. Although the Austrians had no love for Napoleon, he was now married to an Austrian archduchess and Emperor Francis was reluctant to declare war on his son-in-law. The allies realised that they needed greater numbers and approached Austria for an alliance. Tsar Alexander and King Frederick William realised that even after 1812, Napoleon’s war machine was far from beaten. Nevertheless, Napoleon demonstrated that he could still defeat a larger enemy force with raw conscripts. However, casualties but a lack of cavalry meant he was unable to organise an effective pursuit of the beaten enemy. In May 1813, Napoleon managed to defeat the allied forces at the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. During the Spring, Kutuzov’s Russians and Blücher’s Prussians swept away dozens of French-held fortresses in Poland and the Prussian heartland before Kutuzov’s death from illness in late April.īy this point, Napoleon had managed to raise a new army and marched to contest the allied advance in Germany. ![]() In February 1813 Tsar Alexander and King Frederick William of Prussia signed the Treaty of Kalisz, establishing a formal alliance against Napoleon, thus forming the Sixth Coalition with Great Britain. Prussia had been, and General Ludwig Yorck’s Prussian corps was neutralised at the Convention of Tauroggen at the end of December 1812. Russia’s success in defeating Napoleon in 1812 emboldened the Tsar to expand the war beyond Russia’s borders and to deal with the upstart Corsican once and for all. To read more about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, check out our blog series. Napoleon managed to enter Moscow in September hoping Alexander would negotiate, but the Tsar held firm, forcing Napoleon to retreat and his army to be decimated in the winter harassed by Cossacks. Instead, the Russian army opted to retreat, extending Napoleon’s supply lines and providing strong resistance with every rearguard action. The 500,000-strong invasion force he assembled in 1812 was designed to intimidate Tsar Alexander in the first instance, and in the second to secure a decisive victory over the Russian army and force the Tsar to sue for terms. Angered by Russia’s decision to violate the Continental System from 1810, Napoleon began to organise an invasion force to get the Tsar back into line. The background to the Battle of Leipzig is the failure of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Instead we present the circumstances that led to the battle, and overview of the key episodes, followed by a discussion about its significance to the Napoleonic era and wider European history. It is impossible to cover a four day battle on several fronts in detail in a single blog post. For those of you looking for a blow-by-blow account of the battle, you will be disappointed. We cover the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, arguably the most consequential battle of the Napoleonic Wars. For other blog posts in this series, click here. We have chosen to adopt a wide definition of greatness that goes beyond demonstrations of military skill but also includes factors such as political consequences and the numbers of men involved. #European war 4 leipzig campaign series#This post is the fifth and final part of our blog series looking at some of Napoleon’s great battles. ![]()
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