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Chapter One
THE BATTLE OF LIEBERTWOLKWITZ
Thursday, October 14, 1813
They may have ridden from the Don to the Elbe in defence of Tsar and country, but on the foggy Thursday morning that began the Battle of Leipzig the real military difficulty facing the men and officers of the 12th Ilovaiskii Cossack Regiment of the Don was not the French, but a high-ranking Allied officer. ... If the history is any indicator at all, it seems very probable the Cossacks that evening looted the farms around the village of Liebertwolkwitz with enthusiasm amd efficiency, breaking into buildings and removing whatever contents that seemed valuable and light. ...
So, notwithstanding that the Ilovaiskii regiment had reconnoitred the vicinity a good 18 hours earlier, it was von Mohr – and not a Cossack - who scratched out the known contact report of the 19th century’s largest battle. ... The note informs the commander of IV Austrian Corps what the Cossacks already knew: that Napoleons whole army had been found occupying a position running along the high ground from the town of Markleeberg and the Pleisse river, through Liebertwolkwitz, to at least as far north as Zuckelhausen. Also, there appeared to be thousands of enemy cavalry in front of the infantry and artillery, centered the west side of the town of Liebertwolkwitz. ... Barring the inevitable loafers probably was not long; a sleeping Cossack regiment needed at most a half hour to upsaddle and jockey its ponies into a rough battle line. ...
The Napoleonic Wars’ largest battle had begun. ... Tall, strong-limbed, curly-haired, the Gascon made the first operational decision of the battle, ordering his horsemen to chase their Allied opposites from the hill. ... 2
Now deployed in a thin battle line from Guldengossa to Crobern some 3 km. ...
But other Allied forces besides Klenaus sweating infantry columns were en route to the Liebertwolkwitz battlefield that morning. ... As soon as they came up, Pahlen sent the Grodno hussars (blue jackets, turquoise facings) towards Markleeberg and the Lubny hussars (blue jackets, yellow facings) towards Liebertwolkwitz, both with instructions to delay the French. ...
Rudiger’s messengers arrived at Pahlen’s command post along with gallopers from the Lubny hussars, who also reported the same problem near Liebertwolkwitz: large numbers of French cavalry (here, probably LHertiers dragoons) coming fast. ...
His dispositions made and a rough battle line now extemporized, Pahlen placed himself at the head of the Sumy hussar regiment and led it north, the horse artillery following. ...
Still, since until this point combat had limited itself to pistol shots and short saber flurries, Nikitin appears to have provoked a general fight that day by – effectively – becoming the first field officer at the Battle of Leipzig to go well out of his way to inflict casualties on his opponents. ... 11
The battle moved from lull back to active combat some time later, when IV Austrian Corps’ advance guard finally began arriving in the north. ... Commanded by General Count Victor Latour-Marbourg, First Cavalry’s troopers had spent the morning near Leipzig’s walls listening to the sounds of battle until one of the Marshal’s couriers hunted them down, sometime after midday. ...
In a maelstrom of horses, men, and general panic, Pahlen desperately searched for a means to influence the battle. ...
Luckily for the very harried Pahlen Colonel Aleksei Nikitin, who some 90 minutes ago had touched off the Battle of Liebertwolkwitz by insolently running his twelve pieces up to the face of Napoleon’s cavalry reserve, was not done fighting for the day. ...
With almost theatrical timing MG Ilya Dukas 3rd Russian Cuirassier Division arrived on the battlefield to tip the scales of the Battle of Liebertwolkwitz once again. ...
Suddenly, the tide of battle had switched. ... Even if, as his adjutant later wrote, Pahlen did not appear particularly worn out from the battle, the whole of Allied cavalry was fully disorganized, its formations thoroughly mixed, and most of its horses likely incapable of raising a trot. ...
Murat, who had spent the day fighting an escalating though ultimately unsuccessful cavalry action, was not about to order his infantry off the best ground in the vicinity to reopen the battle. ...
With both commanders now having concluded their respective missions now were accomplished to higher headquarters’ satisfaction, Murat and Pahlen effectively agreed to call their part of the battle.16
But even as the cavarly fighting around the village of Wachau was winding down, an infantry fight for the village of Liebertwolkwitz to the north was hotting up. ... Generals von Mohr and Klenau had been keeping their forces under cover in the Nieberholz forest, but an appeal for support from their embattled Russian Allies to the north, convinced them to risk sending a probe from Paumgarten’s advance guard towards the Liebertwolkwitz. ...
A beehive of activity in Liebertwolkwitz village greeted the slow-moving Austians. The town town fire bell began ringing furiously, the French cannons redoubled their fire, and a couple of thousand previously invisible blue-coated French soldiers poured out of the village formed up in two rank lines behind regimental tricolors at Liebertwolkwitz’s eastern edge. ... 17
The Balkan infantry in Liebertwolkwitz’s strongest building made a dangerous salient in the entire French line. ...
The action of Liebertwolkwitz – the largest cavalry fight of the entire Fall 1813 campaign – was over.
Approximate Word count = 7681
Approximate Pages = 30.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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