Editing Battle of Lützen (1813) (section)

==Battle==
The Prussian attack started off late with Blücher leading with his corps about 11:30am. As they approached Großgörschen, he was only expecting a couple thousand French instead of the full division that he found. Blücher paused the attack, called up his artillery and started an artillery bombardment at about noon. Marmont to the west heard the sound of the cannon and moved his corps towards Starsiedel. After a 40 minute bombardment, Blücher sent in one brigade that drove the French out of Großgörschen then followed up with another brigade and cavalry that captured Kleingörschen and Rahna. Ney put himself at the head of one of his divisions moving south from Lützen and counterattacked, retaking Kleingörschen and Rahna. Blücher committed his last brigade about 2:00pm, which forced the French out of Kleingörschen and then advanced to Kaja. Blücher was wounded, leaving the Prussian forces to the command of General von Yorck.

Napoleon was visiting the [[Battle of Lützen (1632)|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. He immediately cut the tour short and rode off towards the direction of the artillery fire. Arriving on the scene about 2:00pm, he quickly sized up the situation and sent orders to concentrate his forces. He sent Ney a steady stream of reinforcements which would take up positions in and around the villages south of Lützen. Yorck committed the recently arrived Prussian reserves about 4:00pm. Wittgenstein and Yorck continued to press Ney in the center; control of the villages switched hands multiple times as troops were committed from both sides. The King of Prussia personally led a charge of the Prussian Guard that took the village of Rahna. By 5:30pm, the Coalition held all of the villages except for Kaja, which was still contested. Once Bertrand's IV Corps approached the battlefield from his right and Macdonald's XI Corps from his left, Napoleon no longer needed to worry about his flanks.

Once the Coalition's advance had been halted, with perfect timing, Napoleon struck back. While he had been reinforcing Ney, he had also reinforced the guns of the III Corps and VI Corps located between Starsiedel and Rahna with the Guard's cannons.  General [[Antoine Drouot|Drouot]] concentrated these into a great mass of artillery of about 100 guns ([[Grand Battery|''Grande Batterie'']]) that unleashed a devastating barrage on Wittgenstein's center. Napoleon had collected his [[Imperial Guard (Napoleon I)|Imperial Guard]] behind these guns and sent them in a counter assault led by Marshal Mortier into the allied center at about 6:00pm, which cleared the Coalition forces from the villages. A Prussian cavalry attack, and encroaching darkness, slowed the French offensive, allowing the main Coalition army to retreat in good order to regroup south of the villages. The lack of French cavalry prevented pursuit.

Napoleon lost 19,655 men, including 2,757 killed and 16,898 wounded, including one of his marshals, while the Prussians lost at least 8,500 men killed or wounded and the Russians lost 3,500 men killed, wounded or missing,{{sfn|Smith|1998}} although casualties may have been much higher.{{sfn|Chandler|2009|p=1120}}{{sfn|Tulard|1999|p=229}} By nightfall, the Tsar and Wittgenstein were hardly convinced that they had lost the battle. They retreated, however, after hearing that Leipzig had fallen, leaving Napoleon in control of Lützen and the field.