Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
Austria -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
On my first walk around the city, yesterday morning, I passed the
Augustus Platz--a broad green lawn on which front the university and
several other public buildings. A chain of beautiful promenades
encircles the city on the site of its old fortifications. Following
their course through walks shaded by large trees and bordered with
flowering shrubs, I passed a small but chaste monument to Sebastian
Bach, the composer, which was erected almost entirely at the private
cost of Mendelssohn, and stands opposite the building in which Bach once
directed the choirs. As I was standing beside it a glorious choral
swelled by a hundred voices came through the open windows like a tribute
to the genius of the great master.
Having found my friend, we went together to the Sternwarte, or
observatory, which gives a fine view of the country around the city, and
in particular the battlefield. The castellan who is stationed there is
well acquainted with the localities, and pointed out the position of the
hostile armies. It was one of the most bloody and hard-fought battles
which history records. The army of Napoleon stretched like a semicircle
around the southern and eastern sides of the city, and the plain beyond
was occupied by the allies, whose forces met together here.
Schwarzenberg, with his Austrians, came from Dresden; Blücher, from
Halle, with the Emperor Alexander. Their forces amounted to three
hundred thousand, while those of Napoleon ranked at one hundred and
ninety-two thousand men. It must have been a terrific scene. Four days
raged the battle, and the meeting of half a million of men in deadly
conflict was accompanied by the thunder of sixteen hundred cannon. The
small rivers which flow through Leipsic were swollen with blood, and the
vast plain was strewed with more than fifty thousand dead.
It is difficult to conceive of such slaughter while looking at the quiet
and tranquil landscape below. It seemed more like a legend of past ages,
when ignorance and passion led men to murder and destroy, than an event
which the last half century witnessed. For the sake of humanity it is to
be hoped that the world will never see such another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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