Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig | Page 9

out at one gate often returned before night at another; so that there was an incessant marching in and out at all the four principal avenues of the city. These movements of cavalry, infantry, and carriages, ceased not a moment even during the night It was very rarely that a troop of cavalry, sent out upon patrol or picket duty, returned without having lost several men and horses, who were invariably, according to their report, kidnapped by the Cossacks. Upon the whole, all the troops with whom the French had any rencounters were called by them Cossacks--a name which I have heard them repeat millions of times, and to which they never failed to add, that "the fellows had again set up a devilish hurrah."
The Cossacks are indisputably the troops of whom the French are most afraid. With them, therefore, all the light cavalry who come upon them unawares are sure to be Cossacks. In revenge for the many annoyances which they were incessantly suffering from these men, they applied to them the opprobrious epithet of brigands. Often did I take pains to convince them that troops who were serving their legitimate sovereign, and fighting under the conduct of their officers, could not be termed banditti; my representations had no effect,--they were determined to have some satisfaction for their disappointment in a thousand attempts to master such enemies. Their vanity was far too great to suffer them to do justice to those warriors; and they never would admit what thousands had witnessed, namely, that thirty French horse had frequently run away from two Cossacks. If Napoleon had twenty thousand Russian Cossacks in his service, the French journalists and editors of newspapers would scarcely be able to find terms strong enough to extol these troops; and the French have just reason to rejoice that the emperor Alexander has no such rivals of their government in his pay, otherwise we should hear of their exploits only, and the vaunted French horse-guards would long since have sunk into oblivion.
All the preparations that were making now evidently denoted that we were on the eve of important events. The French corps had already ranged themselves in a vast semicircle, extending from north to east, and thence to south-west. The country towards Merseburg and Weissenfels seemed to be merely observed. For this purpose the eminences beyond the village of Lindenau were occupied. Here the access to the city is the most difficult, a causeway only leading to it in this direction. The country on the right and left consists of swampy meadows and wood-land, every where intersected by ditches and muddy streams. If you inquired of the French officers what might be the total strength of their army about Leipzig, their statements were so various, that it was impossible to fix with the least confidence upon any number as a medium. By what standard, indeed, can you judge of a force rated by some at 150,000, by others at 400,000 men? They unanimously agreed, on the other hand, that the allies would be opposed by fifteen corps, exclusively of the guards. I had an opportunity of forming a tolerably correct estimate of one division of Marmont's corps, which consisted at the utmost of 4000, so that the whole might amount to 12,000 men; and it was one of those which, in comparison of others, had sustained the least loss. Even that of Augereau, which was incontestably the most complete, as it had just come out of cantonments, was computed at scarcely 15,000 men. If, then, we take 10,000 for the average, the total amount of the French armies collected near Leipzig, as the wrecks only of several were then remaining, can scarcely have reached 170,000, even including the guards. Such a force, however, commanded by so many generals who had heretofore been acknowledged the ablest in Europe, together with wore than 600 pieces of artillery, was still fully sufficient to make itself respected, and even feared, by an enemy of double its number. One single species of troops alone was below mediocrity:--the cavalry, both in regard to the horses and the men, the former from weakness and want of sustenance, and the latter from ignorance of their business. With the force of the allies we are yet unacquainted, but at all events they must have been more numerous.
The 14th of October at length dawned. It had preceded by several rainy days; but this was merely lowering. The cannon thundered at intervals towards Liebertwolkwitz. In the forenoon wounded French, chiefly cavalry, kept coming in singly. With whom they had been engaged they knew not--Cossacks, of course. We looked forward with certainty to a general engagement. It became every hour more dangerous for the inquisitive to venture out or in at the gates. There was no end to