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Leipzig
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In this poem, Hardy basically retells, with considerable and accurate historical detail, the story of the battle of Leipzig, the decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars, through the framing device of "old Norbert," Wessex-born son of a German couple, supposedly relating, in the parlor of a "Casterbridge" inn, the eyewitness account often retold to him by his mother. (The date at the top, 1813, refers to the battle, fought on Oct. 16-19, 1813, not the scene in the inn, which is set much later.)Hardy was quite fascinated by the written and oral history of the Napoleonic Wars (as a boy, he often heard the latter from still-living veterans), and not infrequently wrote poems with that backdrop. Norbert and his parents are presumably fictional, but some Germans who fought in these wars for the British did settle in England's West Country, so that literary device is realistic. In this poem, the short, four-line stanzas, each with an ABAB rhyme scheme, is characteristic of the folk music ballad tradition. It serves to move the action briskly, and hold listener's interest.
Wikipedia has a very detailed article on this battle, including the geopolitical circumstances leading up to it, and its historical significance for the Napoleonic Wars as a whole, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_... . It explains a number of the names and details which Hardy casually mentions here (British readers in the 1890s would have been more familiar with this history than most of us in modern times are, even including history majors like myself!).
Mod
Yes, "The Peasant's Confession" is another story poem where the main action is a tale from the Napoleonic Wars (and another one that reflects solid knowledge of the actual history).
Werner, this is another interesting historical poem. The retreat of Napoleon's soldiers really stands out for me (9-4 stanzas from the end). The Allied troops formed a horseshoe around the city of Leipzig. Napoleon's troops were located by the rivers and a marshy area with one bridge across the rivers so they could make a retreat. Napoleon had mined the Bridge Lindenau, and it was supposed to be blown up after all the French troops retreated. But the soldier in charge of the fuse saw some Allied troops approaching and blew up the bridge too soon. The remaining French troops had no good route to escape from the Allies.“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,
And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
Their sepulchres from below.
“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
The sullen Elster-Strom.
The reaction of the old folks to the war also was meaningful with its Biblical message about the "plough." The Napoleonic Wars must have seemed neverending to them. Isa 2:4 reads: "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Hardy references the Biblical quote:
“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern!
O so-called Christian time!
When will men's swords to ploughshares turn?
When come the promised prime?’ . . .
Thanks, Werner, for introducing an important historical battle.
Connie, so glad that you found this poem interesting (and hope others will as well :-) )!Yes, the blowing up of the bridge (which I'd assumed, when I first read the poem, was by Allied action) was actually the blunder of a French corporal whom the higher-ups had trusted with the actual carrying out of the order. That's a colossal irony which you miss if you don't know the actual history of the battle (which of course many if not most of the original readers would have).
I neglected to mention, in my first post, that this poem comes from Hardy's earliest book-length poetry collection, Wessex Poems and Other Verses.
Mod
We've noticed before that Thomas Hardy tends to structure these narrative poems so that they are reminiscent of folksongs or ballads, (as you say) haven't we. Perhaps this, and the deliberately archaic language, is part of his tribute to Tennyson.
Thanks for choosing another narrative poem for us to digest at our leisure, Werner. 😊
Several people in the group seem to enjoy these narrative poems (as I do myself!), so I'm glad to oblige. :-) Thanks, Jean, for reminding us of Hardy's fondness for Tennyson, and the influence the older poet had on his work! I hadn't remembered that specifically; but when I was reading the poem, I was reminded of Tennyson's style in some of his narrative verse.
Mod
Thank you for the Wikipedia link, Werner. You are so right, most of us today know very little about the Napoleonic Wars, but in Hardy's time first-hand accounts of the war would have been all around. Much like my grandfathers talked to me about their time in WWII, Hardy would have heard these stories from his childhood on.
I liked how Hardy starts the poem with the fiddler's music as the trigger for Old Norbert's reminiscing of his mother. Recalling her stories of the trumpets sound when the Allies "burst on her home like flame". Hardy was, of course, a fiddler himself so the violin show up often in his writing.
That musical connection brought to mind for me Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture - another work of art inspired by the Napoleonic Wars (though not the same battle ;-). That Overture was written in 1880 - so just like this poem many years after the wars ended. An indication, I think, of the lasting impact those wars had on Europe. I read the poem a second time listening to the 1812 Overture and found it a great combination.
**I also liked the stanzas Connie quoted! And I think Jean's Tennyson connection is great. Emma Hardy also loved Tennyson. Discussing that poet was one of the first things that drew Tom and Emma together.
Thank you for this poem Werner!
Terrific poem, Werner! I enjoyed reading it out loud for the rhythm and then read it again, looking up the Bridge of Lindenau for the war under discussion. Like "The Peasant's Confession," it effectively hits an emotional chord about the horror of war, and reminded me of America's Civil War, which was often romanticized while describing the physical battle. In both eras, poems (and songs) like this helped to remind people of the war and its effect on individuals, families and communities.
Glad you enjoyed the poem, Pamela, and thanks for commenting! Yes, poetry often really benefits from being read aloud, especially the type of poetry that's greatly influenced by the ballad tradition.You picked up on two themes here that are both real, though they're somewhat contradictory: the horror of war (with, for instance, human bodies hurled into the sky, and a river red with blood) and the note of romanticization that's palpable in certain lines. I've noticed that in Hardy's war-related poems, the former element dominates in the ones about then-current wars, and the latter is more marked in the ones (like this one) about past wars that he "experienced" only at one remove, through oral accounts no doubt somewhat vested with romanticization and nostalgia.
In my original reading of this poem, I really had no idea of the sheer scope of this single battle. Counting both sides, more than half a million men were engaged in the fighting. The casualties were also spectacularly high, estimates ranging from 80,000-110,000 dead in those four days, including six French generals (plus, of course, many more wounded). The locals had difficulty disposing of the bodies, and that task had to continue into the following year. To my knowledge (and I'm a history major) the Western world hadn't seen figures like this ever before, and wouldn't again until World War I.Near the end of the poem, Hardy mentions "kings" entering the city with the victorious armies. This battle was also noteworthy in that three reigning European kings were also present in the field and commanding their troops (albeit from positions safely in the rear!): Alexander I of Russia, Frederick William III of Prussia, and Francis I of Austria.
Mod
I love knowing these historical details. Thank you Werner.
I was watching the BBC Count of Monte Cristo series yesterday, and the Battle of Leipzig was mentioned pertaining to one of the characters having fought there. And thanks to this group, I had a much deeper understanding of that reference!
**Also very much agree with Werner and Pamela's comments on horror and romanticism of war.
Mod
Excellent point!
Works of Thomas Hardy
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(1813)
Scene.—The Master-tradesmen's Parlour at the Old Ship Inn, Casterbridge. Evening.
“Old Norbert with the flat blue cap—
A German said to be—
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
Your eyes blink absently?”
—“Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet
Of my mother—her voice and mien
When she used to sing and pirouette,
And tap the tambourine
“To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:
She told me 'twas the same
She'd heard from the trumpets, when the Allies
Burst on her home like flame.
“My father was one of the German Hussars,
My mother of Leipzig; but he,
Being quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,
And a Wessex lad reared me.
“And as I grew up, again and again
She'd tell, after trilling that air,
Of her youth, and the battles on Leipzig plain
And of all that was suffered there! . . .
“—'Twas a time of alarms. Three Chiefs-at-arms
Combined them to crush One,
And by numbers' might, for in equal fight
He stood the matched of none.
“Carl Schwarzenberg was of the plot,
And Blücher, prompt and prow,
And Jean the Crown-Prince Bernadotte:
Buonaparte was the foe.
“City and plain had felt his reign
From the North to the Middle Sea,
And he'd now sat down in the noble town
Of the King of Saxony.
“October's deep dew its wet gossamer threw
Upon Leipzig's lawns, leaf-strewn,
Where lately each fair avenue
Wrought shade for summer noon.
“To westward two dull rivers crept
Through miles of marsh and slough,
Whereover a streak of whiteness swept—
The Bridge of Lindenau.
“Hard by, in the City, the One, care-tossed,
Sat pondering his shrunken power;
And without the walls the hemming host
Waxed denser every hour.
“He had speech that night on the morrow's designs
With his chiefs by the bivouac fire,
While the belt of flames from the enemy's lines
Flared nigher him yet and nigher.
“Three rockets then from the girdling trine
Told, ‘Ready!’ As they rose
Their flashes seemed his Judgment-Sign
For bleeding Europe's woes.
“'Twas seen how the French watch-fires that night
Glowed still and steadily;
And the Three rejoiced, for they read in the sight
That the One disdained to flee. . . .
“—Five hundred guns began the affray
On next day morn at nine;
Such mad and mangling cannon-play
Had never torn human line.
“Around the town three battles beat,
Contracting like a gin;
As nearer marched the million feet
Of columns closing in.
“The first battle nighed on the low Southern side;
The second by the Western way;
The nearing of the third on the North was heard;
—The French held all at bay.
“Against the first band did the Emperor stand;
Against the second stood Ney;
Marmont against the third gave the order-word:
—Thus raged it throughout the day.
“Fifty thousand sturdy souls on those trampled plains and knolls,
Who met the dawn hopefully,
And were lotted their shares in a quarrel not theirs,
Dropt then in their agony.
“‘O,’ the old folks said, ‘ye Preachers stern!
O so-called Christian time!
When will men's swords to ploughshares turn?
When come the promised prime?’ . . .
“—The clash of horse and man which that day began,
Closed not as evening wore;
And the morrow's armies, rear and van,
Still mustered more and more.
“From the City towers the Confederate Powers
Were eyed in glittering lines,
And up from the vast a murmuring passed
As from a wood of pines.
“‘'Tis well to cover a feeble skill
By numbers' might!’ scoffed He;
‘But give me a third of their strength, I'd fill
Half Hell with their soldiery!’
“All that day raged the war they waged,
And again dumb night held reign,
Save that ever upspread from the dank deathbed
A miles-wide pant of pain.
“Hard had striven brave Ney, the true Bertrand,
Victor, and Augereau,
Bold Poniatowski, and Lauriston,
To stay their overthrow;
“But, as in the dream of one sick to death
There comes a narrowing room
That pens him, body and limbs and breath,
To wait a hideous doom,
“So to Napoleon, in the hush
That held the town and towers
Through these dire nights, a creeping crush
Seemed borne in with the hours.
“One road to the rearward, and but one,
Did fitful Chance allow;
'Twas where the Pleiss' and Elster run—
The Bridge of Lindenau.
“The nineteenth dawned. Down street and Platz
The wasted French sank back,
Stretching long lines across the Flats
And on the bridgeway track:
“When there surged on the sky an earthen wave,
And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
Their sepulchres from below.
“To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
The sullen Elster-Strom.
“A gulf was Lindenau; and dead
Were fifties, hundreds, tens;
And every current rippled red
With Marshal's blood and men's.
“The smart Macdonald swam therein,
And barely won the verge;
Bold Poniatowski plunged him in
Never to re-emerge.
“Then stayed the strife. The remnants wound
Their Rhineward way pell-mell;
And thus did Leipzig City sound
An Empire's passing bell;
“While in cavalcade, with band and blade,
Came Marshals, Princes, Kings;
And the town was theirs. . . . Ay, as simple maid,
My mother saw these things!
“And whenever those notes in the street begin,
I recall her, and that far scene,
And her acting of how the Allies marched in,
And her tap of the tambourine!”