The Battle of Leipzig: Polish Infantry, 1813 (NAP0017)

Polish infantry at the battle of Leipzig, 1813

The square-topped cap — the czapka — with its white eagle plate, dark blue coats with crimson facings, crossed white belts, the front rank kneeling and the second firing over their heads. On the left, the officer with a curved sabre and the drummer; the crimson colour with the white eagle. Facing them, in the distance, red coats. This is the largest battle Europe had ever fought.

Why the Poles were there

In 1807, after Tilsit, Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw out of land taken from Prussia. It was not Poland, but it was the first thing resembling a Polish state since the partitions, and no other power was offering anything of the kind. That is why the Polish contingents were the most reliable in the whole Grande Armée, and stayed so when the German allies began changing sides.

The Battle of the Nations

At Leipzig, between 16 and 19 October 1813, more than half a million men were engaged — the largest pitched battle in Europe until the First World War. Napoleon was fighting Austria, Russia, Prussia and Sweden together, in growing inferiority, and in the middle of the battle Saxon units went over to the enemy while the action was in progress. It was not a tactical defeat. It was arithmetic presenting its bill.

Poniatowski, a marshal for three days

On 16 October Napoleon made Józef Poniatowski a Marshal of France — the only foreigner ever given that baton in the history of the Empire. Three days later, covering the retreat with the rearguard, he found the bridge over the Elster blown too early by the French, rode into the river already wounded, and drowned. His death is the image through which Poland remembers the campaign.

A national uniform inside a French army

The crimson and the czapka are not decoration but a statement. Polish units kept their own cut, colours and insignia while being organised and paid within the French system, and the white eagle on the colour is the Duchy’s, not the Empire’s. When the Empire fell, the Duchy of Warsaw went with it, and it took until 1918 for a Polish state to reappear on the map.