The Battle of Wartenburg () took place on 3October 1813 between the French IV Corps commanded by General Henri Gatien Bertrand and the Allied Army of Silesia, principally the I Corps of General Ludwig von Yorck. The battle allowed the Army of Silesia to cross the Elbe, ultimately leading to the Battle of Leipzig. Prelude Following the his defeat at the battle of Dennewitz, Marshal Ney withdrew his army to defensive positions along the Elbe. The allied Army of the North, under the command of Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden (formerly French Marshal Bernadotte), followed them cautiously but made no serious effort to cross the river. To the east, Marshal Blücher made a bold march skirting Napoleon's position in Dresden to join his Army of Silesia with the Army of the North, cross the Elbe, and threaten Napoleon's communications with France. Major von Rühle was tasked with finding a crossing point where the bridgehead could, if necessary, be defended by an army of 50,000 men against an enemy three times their size. The position he chose was at Elster, where the river makes a wide curve around Wartenburg on the opposite bank, and the flanks of a defending army could easily be supported by artillery on the right bank. Blücher's army arrived in Elster on 2 October, replacing a force under Bülow which withdrew to rejoin the Army of the North. That evening he established two pontoon bridges across the Elbe and began to feed across the first elements of Yorck's I Corps. They found the ground unexpectedly marshy and cut with backwaters, which made it very difficult to deploy upon. Ahead of them a long dike separated them from the village of Wartenburg and the dry land beyond. The dike was a perfect breastwork behind which the French could deploy their infantry, and the lack of cover made it an ideal killing ground. If the Prussians had underestimated the difficulty of the ground, the French commander General Bertrand made the opposite mistake. Having surveyed the area earlier in the year when water levels were higher, he believed his position to be impregnable. Battle Bertrand deployed his forces as follows: Morand's French division was in Wartenburg, lined up along the dike. Franquemont's Württemberg division, severely mauled at Dennewitz and reduced to just four battalions and six guns, held Bleddin on the right flank. Fontanelli's Italian division and a small