The Emperor’s thoughts were concentrated on the south.  There his lines stretched in convex front along undulating ground near Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz, about a league to the south and south-east of the town.  His right was protected by the marshy ground of the small river Pleisse; his centre stretched across the roads leading towards Dresden, while his left rested on a small stream, the Parthe, which curves round towards the north-west and forms a natural defence to the town on the north.  Yet to cautious minds his position seemed unsafe; he had in his rear a town whose old walls were of no military value, a town on which several roads converged from the north, east, and south, but from which, in case of defeat, he could retire westward only by one road, that leading over the now flooded streams of the Pleisse and the Elster.  But the great captain himself thought only of victory.  He had charged Macdonald and Ney to march from Taucha to his support:  Marmont was to do the same; and, with these concentrated forces acting against the far more extended array of Schwarzenberg, he counted on overthrowing him on the morrow, and then crushing the disunited forces of Bluecher and Bernadotte.[375]

[Illustration:  BATTLE OF LEIPZIG]

The Emperor and Murat were riding along the ridge near Liebertwolkwitz, when, at nine o’clock, three shots fired in quick succession from the allies on the opposite heights, opened the series of battles fitly termed the Battle of the Nations.  For six hours a furious cannonade shook the earth, and the conflict surged to and fro with little decisive result; but when Macdonald’s corps struck in from the north-east, the allies began to give ground.  Thereupon Napoleon launched two cavalry corps, those of Latour-Maubourg and Pajol, against the allied centre.

Then was seen one of the most superb sights of war.  Rising quickly from behind the ridge, 12,000 horsemen rode in two vast masses against a weak point in the opposing lines.  They were led by the King of Naples with all his wonted dash.  Panting up the muddy slopes opposite, they sabred the gunners, enveloped the Russian squares, and the three allied sovereigns themselves had to beat a hasty retreat to avoid capture.  But the horses were soon spent by the furious pace at which Murat careered along; and a timely charge by Pahlen’s Cossacks and the Silesian cuirassiers, brought up from the allied reserves beyond the Pleisse, drove the French brigades back in great disorder, with the loss of their able corps leaders.  The allies by a final effort regained all the lost ground, and the day here ended in a drawn fight, with the loss of about 20,000 men to either side.