Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Leipzig

16 October 1813
Saxony
Victory for Austria

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Austria (Allied (Aus, Russ, Pr, Sw) Army, 365,000 men under Schwarzenberg) attacked France (Fr Army, 196,200 men under Napoleon I) in Saxony. The CAA Database of Battles records 23.5 hours of fighting on a front of 13.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Austria won. Losses: Austria 65,000 (18%), France 60,000 (31%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Austria

Schwarzenberg

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	68,218
Austria centre	Infantry	90,957
Austria right wing	Infantry	68,218
Austria reserve	Infantry	56,848
Austria cavalry of the left	Cavalry	30,000
Austria cavalry of the right	Cavalry	30,000
Austria artillery (1,384 guns)	Artillery	20,760
Schwarzenberg	Commander	—
In this plan		365,001

France

Napoleon I

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	37,307
France centre	Infantry	49,742
France right wing	Infantry	37,307
France reserve	Infantry	31,089
France cavalry of the left	Cavalry	15,000
France cavalry of the right	Cavalry	15,000
France artillery (717 guns)	Artillery	10,755
Napoleon I	Commander	—
In this plan		196,200

What the sources report

	Austria	France
Strength, this plan	365,000	196,200
Losses, this plan	65,000	60,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 138, “Leipzig”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 23.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 13.6 km (attacker), 20.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Austriaattacker	365,000	65,000	60,000	1,384	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Francedefender	196,200	60,000	30,000	717	Defensive/offensive plan; Penetration; Penetration

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 138 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Leipzig · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.