MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · October 19 · 1813

ON THIS DAY · 19 OCTOBER 1813

Leipzig: the Battle of the Nations

16–19 Oct 1813 — Half a million men, the largest battle in European history to that date. Napoleon’s Germany dissolves in three days.

THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT

Now the coalition that never cohered finally does — and look at what the map shows arriving at Leipzig in October 1813: Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden converging with half a million men on Napoleon’s 200,000, in the “Battle of the Nations,” the largest engagement in European history before the World Wars. The allies have adopted every French invention — mass conscription, corps systems, even a rule (the Trachenberg Plan) to refuse battle wherever the Emperor commands in person and attack his marshals everywhere else. Three days break the Grand Empire: the Rhine Confederation defects mid-battle, 70,000+ men fall, and France is thrown back across the Rhine. In 1814 the allies do what was unthinkable for twenty years and march on Paris itself (the charcoal arrow); Napoleon, fighting his most brilliant campaign with teenaged conscripts, is finally dethroned by his own marshals’ refusal to continue. Exile to Elba; the Bourbons return in the baggage of the coalition; Europe exhales and sends its diplomats to Vienna to redraw the map — watch the hatching appear: restored monarchies, the age’s new color.

From Chapter 9 — The Fall of The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848 (JUN 1815).

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THE ATLAS THAT SHOWS IT

The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848

12 CHAPTERS · AN INTERACTIVE SITUATION MAP