Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig | Page 6

boldly reply,
that neither do I consider the French army as annihilated; that such a
calamity could scarcely befall a force which in the month of May, after
ten engagements, numbered not less than 400,000 men, and was
conducted by a general who had already won near fifty battles: but this
I maintain, that the mighty eagle, which proudly aspired to encompass
the whole globe in his flight, has had his wings crippled at Leipzig to
such a degree, that in future he will scarcely be inclined to venture
beyond the inaccessible crags which he has chosen for his retreat. For
my part, I cannot help considering the battle of Leipzig as the same
(only on an enlarged scale) as that gained near this very spot 180 years
ago, by the great Gustavus Adolphus. In this conflict it was certainly
decided that Napoleon, so far from being able to sustain such another
engagement in Germany, will not have it in his power to make any
stand on the right bank of the Rhine, nor recover himself till secure

with the relics of his dispirited army behind the bulwarks of his own
frontier.
Four times had the sun pursued his course over the immense field of
battle before the die of Fate decided its issue. The whole horizon was
enveloped in clouds of smoke and vapours; every moment fresh
columns of fire shot up from the circumjacent villages; in all points
were seen the incessant flashes of the guns, whose deep thunders,
horribly intermingled with continual volleys of small arms, which
frequently seemed quite close to the gates of the city, shook the very
ground. Add to this the importance of the question which was to be
resolved in this murderous contest, and you may form a faint
conception of the anxiety, the wishes, the hopes,--in a word, of the
cruel suspense which pervaded every bosom in this city.
To enable you to pursue the train of events, as far as I was capable of
informing myself respecting them, I will endeavour to relate them as
they occurred. It was not till the arrival of marshal Marmont with his
corps of the army in this neighbourhood that any idea of the probability
of a general engagement at Leipzig began to be entertained. That
circumstance happened in the beginning of October. These guests
brought along with them every species of misery and distress, which
daily increased in proportion as those hosts of destroyers kept gradually
swelling into a large army. They were joined from time to time by
several other corps; the city was nearly surrounded by bivouacs; and,
gracious God! what proceedings! what havoc!--We had frequently been
informed that all Saxony, from Lusatia to the Elbe, resembled one vast
desert, where nothing was to be seen but towns laid waste and
plundered, villages reduced to ashes, naked and famishing
inhabitants;--that there was no appearance of any other living creature;
nay, not even a trace of vegetation remaining. These accounts we
naturally regarded as exaggerations, little imagining that in a short time
we should have to give to our distant friends the same details of horror
respecting our own vicinity. Too true it is that no nation has made such
progress in the art of refinement, and is so ingenious in devising
infernal torments, as that, which, under the name of allies and
protectors, has made us so inexpressibly wretched. Ever since the battle

of Lützen, Leipzig had been one of the principal resources of the grand
French army, and they showed it no mercy. Numberless hospitals
transformed it into one great infirmary; many thousands of troops,
quartered in the habitations of the citizens, one prodigious _corps de
garde_; and requisitions of meat, bread, rice, brandy, and other articles,
one vast poor-house, where the indigent inhabitants were in danger of
starving. But for this well-stored magazine, the great French army had
long since been obliged to abandon the Elbe. No wonder then that this
point should have been guarded with the utmost care. It required
commissaries and inspectors, such as those who had the control over
our store-houses and granaries, to complete the master-piece, to reduce
that Leipzig, which had once patiently sustained, without being entirely
exhausted, the burdens of a war that lasted seven years--to reduce it, I
say, in six months, to so low an ebb, that even the opulent were in
danger of perishing with hunger; that reputable citizens could no longer
procure the coarsest fare; and that, though their hearts overflowed with
pity and compassion, they were absolutely incapable of affording the
slightest relief, not so much as a crust of bread, to the sick and
wounded soldier. It is impossible to give you any idea of the dexterity
and rapidity with which the French soldiers will so totally change