: 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 by Shoberl Frederic -

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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, tu? sine parte pericli." LUCRET. Lib. ii. 5.

EIGHTH EDITION.

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.

About this time a Prussian corps began to be formed in Silesia, under the denomination of the Corps of Revenge. It was composed of volunteers, who bound themselves by an oath not to lay down their arms till Germany had recovered her independence. On the occupation of Leipzig by the allies, this corps received a great accession of strength from that place, where it joined by the greater number of the students at the university, and by the most respectable young men of the city, and other parts of Saxony. The people of Leipzig moreover availed themselves of every opportunity to make subscriptions for the allied troops, and large sums were raised on these occasions. Their mortification was sufficiently obvious when the French, after the battle of L?tzen, again entered the city. Those who had so lately welcomed the Russians and Prussians with the loudest acclamations now turned their backs on their pretended friends; nay, such was the general aversion, that many strove to get out of the way, that they might not see them.

It was merely to shew his displeasure at the Anti-Gallican sentiments of the city, that Napoleon, after his entrance into Dresden, declared Leipzig in a state of siege; in consequence of which the inhabitants were obliged to furnish gratuitously all the requisitions that he thought fit to demand. In this way the town, in a very short time, was plundered of immense sums, exclusively of the expense of the hospitals, the maintenance of which alone consumed upwards of 30,000 dollars per week. During this state of things the French, from the highest to the lowest, seemed to think themselves justified in wreaking upon the inhabitants the displeasure of their emperor; each therefore, after the example of his master, was a petty tyrant, whose licentiousness knew no bounds.

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