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

at Konnewitz. Innumerable generals and
staff-officers filled all the houses. Not a moment's rest was to be had;
all were in bivouac. They seemed wholly ignorant of the motions of the
allies; for the same troops who went 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