Battle of Lützen ( 1813 ) In the Battle of Lützen ( German : " Schlacht von Großgörschen " , May 2 , 1813 ) , Napoleon I of France halted the advances of the Sixth Coalition after his devastating losses in Russia . The Russia n commander , Prince Peter Wittgenstein , attempting to preempt Napoleon ' s capture of Leipzig , attacked Napoleon ' s isolated right wing near Lützen , Germany . After a day of heavy fighting , the combined Prussian and Russian force retreated , but without cavalry the French were unable to follow their defeated enemy . Prelude . Following the disaster of Napoleon ' s invasion of Russia in 1812 , a new Coalition formed against him . In response to this , Napoleon hastily assembled an army of just over 200 , 000 consisting largely of inexperienced , barely trained recruits and severely short of horses ( a consequence of the Russian invasion , where most of his veteran troops and horses had perished ) . He crossed the Rhine into Germany to link up with remnants of his old Grande Armée , and to quickly defeat this new alliance before it became too strong . On April 30 Napoleon crossed the river Saale , advancing on Leipzig in three columns led by an advanced guard . His intention was to work his way into the Coalition ' s interior lines , dividing their forces and defeating them in detail before they could combine . But due to inexperienced cavalrymen and faulty reconnaissance , he was unaware of 73 , 000 allied troops under Wittgenstein and Graf ( Count ) von Blücher concentrating on his right flank to the south . Marshal Ney ' s corps was surprised and attacked on the road from Lützen to Leipzig . On the eve of the battle , one of Napoleon ' s marshals , Jean - Baptiste Bessières , was killed by a stray cannonball while reconnoitering near Rippach . Battle . Napoleon was visiting the 1632 battlefield , playing tour guide with his staff by pointing to the sites and describing the events of 1632 , in detail from memory , when he heard the sound of cannon s . He immediately cut the tour short and rode off towards the direction of the artillery fire . Arriving on the scene , he quickly sized up the situation and decided to set a trap using Ney ' s corps as bait . He ordered the Marshal to make a fighting withdrawal towards Lützen . Meanwhile he sent Ney reinforcements which would take up strong , defensive positions in and around two villages south of the city . Once these divisions were ready , the rest of the corps would withdraw towards them , luring the allies to attack , while Napoleon , leading the main 110 , 000 strong French force , would come around the allied flank and counterattack . Wittgenstein and Blücher took the bait , continuing to press Ney until they ran into the " hook " Napoleon had prepared . Once their advance had halted , with the perfect timing of old , he struck . While he had been reinforcing Ney , he had also concentrated a great mass of artillery ( " Grande Batterie " ) that unleashed a devastating barrage towards Wittgenstein ' s center . Then Napoleon himself , along with his Imperial Guard , led the massive counter assault into the allied flank . Wittgenstein and Blücher were in danger of suffering another defeat on the scale of Austerlitz , but the green and exhausted French troops , who had been marching and fighting all day long , could not follow through . In addition , darkness was closing in as night approached . This allowed the allied force to retreat in good order . The lack of French cavalry meant there would be no pursuit . Napoleon lost 19 , 655 men killed and wounded , while the Prussians lost 8 , 500 and the Russians 3 , 500 killed , wounded and missing . But casualties aside , by nightfall Wittgenstein and Blücher were in retreat while Napoleon controlled Lützen and the field . Aftermath . The Coalition had been very fortunate . Had the battle started earlier that day when Napoleon had fresher troops and more time , Lützen could well have become a second Austerlitz . But what was almost a decisive , strategic defeat turned into only a marginal , tactical one . Wittgenstein and Blücher withdrew towards Dresden . Lützen and the succeeding Battle of Bautzen had shown the allies that Napoleon was still very dangerous . They decided on a new strategy ( the Trachenberg Plan ) of avoiding direct battle with him while seeking out and attacking his subordinates instead , thus weakening his army . Meantime they would assemble an overwhelming force against him that the Emperor , for all his abilities , could not withstand . During the battle of Lützen , Gerhard von Scharnhorst , one of the brightest and most able Prussian generals , serving as Wittgenstein ' s Chief of Staff , was wounded . Although the wound was minor , owing to the hasty retreat it could not be tended to soon enough . Infection set in and he died as a result . Notes . 2 . Russian Wikipedia