Stalingrad and Midway were catastrophic defeats, while Borodino was still a French victory, after all.

This perspective is hard to justify with the facts. It's also worth saying that Borodino itself was not that important, it's the aftermath and the fact that the Russians managed to not decisively loose it which really made the difference. After, it was a matter of time until they crumbled. Before Borodino French were essentially invincible. By that point, he had already lost his only, one-in-a-hundred-chance to win the campaign by destroying Blucher's army in the aftermath of Ligny.īorodino - that was the one that broke Napoleon, it's the Stalingrad or the Midway of Napoleonic wars. When one considers Blucher's proximity and the fact that a battle undecided at dusk is essentially a victory for the defender, the fact is that Napoleon just didn't have the strength on 18 June for a victory over Wellington. Wellington's position was exceptionally deep, with extensive reserves to continue the battle and forward strongpoints to channel and break up French assaults on the main line. was also a tight thing for a while that could've gone either way, so more drama there. It's the Leyte Gulf or Operation Bagration of Napoleonic wars, important, interesting, but probably not something that is casually well known. It's the middle of the end so to speak, and so while obviously important, it wasn't as pivotal as the other ones. The casualties were significant, but almost half of them came from the bungled retreat of French, not any sort of heroic fighting or tactical brilliance. The battle itself was fairly one sided, once the Allies managed to converge on Napoleon, he had little chance of winning, so the most interesting thing happened prior to the battle. Austerlitz - probably the finest example of Napoleon's brilliance, his magnum opus.Ĭompared to these, Leipzig is just not as significant.

Borodino - that was the one that broke Napoleon, it's the Stalingrad or the Midway of Napoleonic wars. It was also a tight thing for a while that could've gone either way, so more drama there. Waterloo was the last one, the final win and the culmination of the war. With that said, it is clearly overshadowed by some of the other ones you mentioned:

I mean it's called a Battle of Nations for a reason after all. I don't know, I feel like it's actually pretty well known. While that looked great on paper, in a long run it just caused huge crisis for empire, pulled them in constant wars with Italians, French and others and it was huge drain on empire, also focus on Italy and Balkans left them blind to massive rise of Prussia in the north. Main loser was Austria because they focused on short term goals instead looking to future, Austria grabbed Italian provinces (Milan and Lombardy, Venice, Tuscany), Polish parts and Adriatic coast. In immediate aftermath of war everyone was afraid of Russia, especially Austria and Great Britain, those 2 even made secret alliance in 1815 to attack Russia if they tried to annex entire Poland and leave Austria out of it īut i would say Britain and Prussia were main winners, Britain became sole dominant naval and trading power for next 120-130 years, while Prussia managed to grab mineral rich Rhenish provinces that would later play massive part in their rapid industrialization that allowed them to beat Austria and France and unify Germany. Now i understand that dominance of English language makes much easier for Waterloo getting such spotlight but even in countries that played main role in victory at Leipzig like Russia and Austria this battle is overshadowed with invasion of 1812, Borodino, Aspern-Essling, Wagram, Austerlitz etc. It was game over for Napoleon, Allies chased him to France and forced him to abdicate.īut when talking about Napoleonic wars this battle always seems overshadowed by likes of Waterloo, Austerlitz, Borodino and even Marengo (that was tiny battle for example when compared with Leipzig). In the end French were forced to retreat while losing more then 70 000 casualties, for reference French suffered same amount of casualties at Leipzig as size of their entire army at Waterloo. It was epic scale battle that lasted 4 days with all combatants suffering massive casualties.

4 most powerful land powers of Europe brought their A game to Leipzig, Allied Russia and Austria each had more then 100 000 soldiers and Prussia 90 000 soldiers and they faced French who had 170 000 men.

European war 4 leipzig campaign