1813 - Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations » (First)

Digby Smith, also known to Napoleonic enthusiasts as Otto von Pivka, is a highly respected scholar of this period and author of numerous books including the major reference works The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book and Napoleon's Regiments: Battle Histories of the Regiments of the French Army, 1792-1815.

A brilliant account of the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars • Includes numerous eyewitness testimonies • Charts the course of the battle hour by hour The crucial three-day battle of Leipzig, known to posterity as the Battle of the Nations, was the biggest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. It was also one of Napoleon's worst defeats - Leipzig sealed the fate of Napoleon's empire. Now, in this superbly narrated account of the battle, Digby Smith describes the events of 16, 17, 18 and 19 October 1813, and stresses both the significance of the battle and the brutality of the fighting. At the height of the battle Napoleon fielded more than 200,000 men against an Allied force - which included contingents from Russia, Austria, Prussia and Sweden - of some 360,000 soldiers. Cornered against the River Estler, Napoleon, outnumbered and suffering heavily from the fire of 1,400 Allied guns, was soundly defeated, had to relinquish control of Germany and was forced back into France.