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

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

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Most
Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig, by Frederic
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Title: Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events
Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig Immediately Before, During, And
Subsequent To, The Sanguinary Series Of Engagements Between The
Allied Armies Of The French, From The 14th To The 19th October,
1813
Author: Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
Release Date: January 24, 2006 [EBook #17595]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Note: | | A number of obvious typographical errors have | | been
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NARRATIVE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE EVENTS WHICH
OCCURRED IN AND NEAR LEIPZIG,
IMMEDIATELY BEFORE, DURING, AND SUBSEQUENT TO,
THE SANGUINARY SERIES OF ENGAGEMENTS BETWEEN
THE ALLIED ARMIES OF THE FRENCH, FROM THE 14th TO
THE 19th OCTOBER, 1813
Illustrated with MILITARY MAPS, EXHIBITING THE
MOVEMENTS OF THE RESPECTIVE ARMIES.
COMPILED AND TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
FREDERIC SHOBERL.
"Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri Per campos instructa, tuà sine
parte pericli." LUCRET. Lib. ii. 5.
EIGHTH EDITION.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR R. ACKERMANN, 101, STRAND, By W.
CLOWES, Northumberland court, Strand.

1814.
[Price Five Shillings.]

PREFACE.
After a contest of twenty years' duration, Britain, thanks to her insular
position, her native energies, and the wisdom of her counsels, knows
scarcely any thing of the calamities of war but from report, and from
the comparatively easy pecuniary sacrifices required for its prosecution.
No invader's foot has polluted her shores, no hostile hand has desolated
her towns and villages, neither have fire and sword transformed her
smiling plains into dreary deserts. Enjoying a happy exemption from
these misfortunes, she hears the storm, which is destined to fall with
destructive violence upon others, pass harmlessly over her head.
Meanwhile the progress of her commerce and manufactures, and her
improvement in the arts, sciences, and letters, though liable, from
extraordinary circumstances, to temporary obstructions, are sure and
steady; the channels of her wealth are beyond the reach of foreign
malignity; and, after an unparalleled struggle, her vigour and her
resources seem but to increase with the urgency of the occasions that
call them forth.
Far different is the lot of other nations and of other countries. There is
scarcely a region of Continental Europe but has in its turn drunk deep
within these few years of the cup of horrors. Germany, the theatre of
unnumbered contests--the mountains of Switzerland, which for ages
had reverberated only the notes of rustic harmony--the fertile vales of
the Peninsula--the fields of Austria--the sands of Prussia--the vast
forests of Poland, and the boundless plains of the Russian empire--have
successively rung with the din of battle, and been drenched with native
blood. To the inhabitants of several of these countries, impoverished by
the events of war, the boon of British benevolence has been nobly
extended; but the facts related in the following sheets will bear me out
in the assertion, that none of these cases appealed so forcibly to the
attention of the humane as that of Leipzig, and its immediate vicinity.

Their innocent inhabitants have in one short year been reduced, by the
infatuation of their sovereign, and by that greatest of all curses, the
friendship of France, from a state of comfort to absolute beggary; and
thousands of them, stripped of their all, are at this moment houseless
and unprotected wanderers, exposed to the horrors of famine, cold, and
disease.
That Leipzig, undoubtedly the first commercial city of Germany, and
the great Exchange of the Continent, must, in common with every other
town which derives its support from trade and commerce, have severely
felt the effects of what Napoleon chose to nickname the Continental
System, is too evident to need demonstration. The sentiments of its
inhabitants towards the author of that system could not of course be
very favourable; neither were they backward in shewing the spirit by
which they were animated, as the following facts will serve to
evince:--When the French, on their return from their disastrous Russian
expedition, had occupied Leipzig, and were beginning, as usual, to levy
requisitions of every kind, an express was sent to