ABSTRACT
I N NAPOLEON'S ARMY at Leipzig there were Frenchmen, Italians, Neapolitans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgians, Swiss, Poles, Saxons, Wiirttembergers, Westphalians, Bavarians — and a host of contingents from smaller German states — Croats and Illyrians. Against him fought Prussians, Russians, Hungarians, Austrians, Czechs, Slovacks, Slovenes, Mecklenburgers, Swedes, British, Cossacks, Bashkirs and Kalmachs. In all, well over half a million men contended for a period of six days. It was the largest engagement of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the greatest — and bloodiest — battle in Europe before the First World War. History knows it as the Battle of the Nations. It could have no other name.
