"Unimaginable Horror and Misery": The Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 in Civilian Experience and Perception
Title | "Unimaginable Horror and Misery": The Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 in Civilian Experience and Perception |
Publication Type | Book Chapter |
Year of Publication | 2009 |
Authors | Hagemann, Karen |
Editor | Forrest, Alan, Karen Hagemann, and Jane Rendall |
Book Title | Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians: Experiences and Perceptions of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1790-1820 |
Pagination | 157 - 178 |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
City | Basingstoke, UK |
Abstract | This book chapter in the edited volume Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians: Experiences and Perceptions of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1790-1820 with essays that discuss the formative experience of those wars for men and women, as soldiers, citizens and civilians, focuses on the "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig and its experience and perception by civilians. Between 16 and 19 October 1813 a total of more than 171,000 men under Napoleon's supreme command, faced 301,500 Coalition forces in Leipzig under the command of the Austrian field marshal Prince Schwarzenberg. A substantial number of the forces on the European continent — more than 470,000 soldiers of the most diverse nationalities — had massed in Saxony. This made Leipzig — the "Battle of the Nations," as it was already known to contemporaries — the largest battle in history before the First World War. The number of dead soldiers reached more than 110,000, many of them died after the battle because of epidemics. In addition, 15 percent of the civilan population in the region died because of these pandemics the armies brought into the villages and towns around Leipzig. Mora than 60 villages in the region were destroyed, the landscape devastated and businesses ruined. It tooks years to come in term with the aftermath of the battle. |
URL | https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230583290_9 |
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