The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I and Karl von Schwarzenberg, decisively defeated the Grande Armée of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

To make matters even worse for Napoleon, in June 1813, the combined armies of Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, had decisively routed the French at the Battle of Vitoria in the Peninsular War, and were now advancing towards the Pyrenees and into France itself.

The allies regrouped as the Sixth Coalition, comprising Prussia, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, as well as smaller German states whose citizens and leaders were no longer loyal to the French emperor.

Yet Napoleon, with this new massive army, had the intention of either inducing a temporary alliance or at least cessation of hostilities, or knocking at least one of the Great Powers (Prussia or Russia) out of the war and keeping Austria neutral.

Charles John, a former French Marshal of the Empire (previously known as Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte), outlined a strategy for defeating Napoleon that, with added details from the Austrians following their joining of the Coalition on 12 August 1813, became known as the Trachenberg Plan.

Thinly-stretched supply lines spanning into now somewhat hostile territory, coupled with Bavaria's switching of sides against the French just eight days prior to Leipzig, made it almost impossible to replace his army's losses of 150,000 men, 300 guns, and 50,000 sick.

[23] With the intention of knocking Prussia out of the war as soon as possible, Napoleon sent Marshal Nicolas Oudinot to take the Prussian capital of Berlin with an army of 60,000.

Napoleon conscripted these men to be readied for an even larger campaign against the newly formed Sixth Coalition and its forces stationed in Germany.

The French Imperial cavalry was similarly insufficient, making it difficult for Napoleon to keep his eyes on his lines of communications or even scout enemy positions, a fact which influenced the outcome of the Battle of Großbeeren and others during the German campaign.

Upon learning of Schwarzenberg's main plan – to call for a secondary attack on the bridge between Leipzig and Lindenau to be led by Blücher and Gyulay, and a main attack astride the Pleiße River to be led by General Merveldt, Hessen-Homburg and the Prussian Guard, he insisted that this was a disastrous tactic as it would not permit the Coalition armies to outflank and encircle Napoleon's army and destroy it.

Alexander thought the plan would potentially allow Napoleon to break the Coalition battle line at one point and then concentrate his forces in the gap created and the weakened sectors.

This strategy would ensure the encirclement of the French army in Leipzig and its vicinity, or at least inflict heavy losses upon them to assure the needed decisive results.

Napoleon had underestimated Allied aggressiveness and miscalculated the position of Blücher and the Army of Silesia, and his men had suffered a sharp repulse at Möckern as a consequence.

By the time Napoleon arrived on the battlefield along with the Young Guard and some Chasseurs, Merveldt found that the avenue of advance was well covered by the French battery and some skirmishers who had occupied the houses there and did not permit the Austrians to deploy their artillery in support of the attack.

Repulsed, the Austrians then moved to attack nearby Dölitz, down a road crossed by two bridges and leading to a manor house and a mill.

Catching four battalions of the Prussian 12th Brigade in the open, Poniatowski directed attacks by artillery and cavalry until they were relieved by Russian hussars.

[46] So Napoleon began to examine whether the roads and bridges of Lindenau could be used to withdraw his troops, or at the very least to secure a bridgehead crossing on the Pleiße River.

[47] He also thought that a strong, formidable rear guard in Leipzig itself could repulse any Allied assault, which could buy him and his forces more time to withdraw from the battle.

The Allies had Blücher and Charles John to the north, Barclay de Tolly and Bennigsen, and Prince von Hesse-Homburg to the south, as well as Gyulay to the west.

[31] The third assault was now conducted, this time, by the Russians, commanded by General Raevsky, the hero of Borodino who had arrived a few days earlier from Russia after a delay due to sickness.

[50] The advance of the Army of the North towards Leipzig had been slow, purportedly because Charles John had received word that Napoleon planned a renewed attack towards Berlin after his marshals' failure to take the city in the battles of Großbeeren and Dennewitz.

This small force was in turn being driven out of Paunsdorf, but a barrage of rockets fired in close support[52] again caused the French troops to break ranks.

[53] The French fell back to Sellerhausen pursued by two Prussian battalions, while the Rocket Brigade formed on the left of a Russian battery and began firing on the retreating columns, causing near-panic.

[52] Shortly after, the reserve French Young and Old Guard drove the Allies out of Paunsdorf again, but eventually Ney judged the position untenable and ordered a withdrawal.

[59] At this time, he promoted Poniatowski to the rank of Maréchal d'Empire, the only foreigner of all his marshals who was given this title, and the latter swore that he would fight to the last stand, which he did.

Weak rear guards occupied the villages in order to conceal the retreat, and support troops were placed in the outer suburbs by the wind mills and near the walls of the city.

The battle had ended conclusively and decisively with the nations of the Coalition as the victors, and the German Campaign was a complete failure for the French, although they achieved a minor victory when the Bavarian Army attempted to block the retreat of the Grande Armée at Hanau.

The heavy casualties the Coalition armies had incurred and their exhaustion from the bloody 4-day battle they fought made it impossible for them to promptly pursue the retreating Grande Armée.

[69] With the Confederation of the Rhine dissolved and Prussia once again becoming one of the continent's great powers after its severe setbacks in 1806,[31] the Coalition armies pressed the advantage and invaded France in early 1814.

[70] The 91-metre (299 ft) Monument to the Battle of the Nations (Völkerschlachtdenkmal) was completed in 1913 according to a design by Bruno Schmitz at a cost of six million German gold marks.