In the collection of the Museum of the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig is the saddle and cap of the horse on which Prince Joseph Poniatowski died in the currents of the Elster. Why they are there and what they look like is told in this story.

Monument and Museum of the Battle of the Nations to commemorate the Battle of Leipzig
One of the greatest and bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic era took place near Leipzig and in Leipzig itself between 16 and 19 October 1813. It involved some 190,000 Napoleonic soldiers and 200,000-250,000 Prussian, Russian, Austrian, Swedish and British troops. More than 110,000 soldiers from both sides of the conflict fell. The battle ended in Napoleon's defeat. On the 100th anniversary of the struggle, to celebrate the victory of the coalition armies, the German Patriotic Association led the construction of a monumental memorial, called the Monument to the Battle of the Nations (Völkerschlachtdenkmal), It is shaped like a majestic temple in a truly Germanic style, 91 metres high.

Next to it is the Battle Museum, where a few memorabilia from the era are on display. Of particular interest to Poles visiting the museum's rooms is a glass case displaying the saddle, cap, girth and stirrups of the horse which was ridden in the last moments of his life by the Commander-in-Chief of the Duchy of Warsaw, Prince Jozef Poniatowski.

Battle of Leipzig
On the third day of the battle, 19 October 1813, most of the retreating troops of Napoleon's army were already outside Leipzig, on the western banks of the Elster River separating the two armies. For there was no longer any possibility of further defending the positions occupied. Only several thousand French and Polish troops remained in the city, embroiled in fierce retreating battles. Around noon, the enemy broke into the city centre. In turn, a small group of Coalition soldiers broke through as far as the river. Confused by this, French sappers prematurely blew up the only fixed bridge, thus cutting off the retreat of their own troops. Only those soldiers who were able to fortunately cross the two major water obstacles, the Pleisa and the Elste, had a small chance of getting out of the quagmire. Among them was Prince Jozef Poniatowski commanding the remnants of the Polish 8th Corps.

The saddle and cap of Prince Jozef Poniatowski's horse
The Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Duchy of Warsaw died as a result of a rifle bullet shot in the breast while forcing his way across the Elster. His mount, which managed to get ashore, was seized by one of the witnesses to the drama, fully aware of who was riding the horse and who had lost his life a few moments before.

The figure of the prince was well known in wide circles of the European elite, and his death made a great impression even on the commanders of enemy armies. With understanding, they accepted the request of the captured Polish generals for an immediate search for the Supreme Commander's corpse. However, this was not an easy task.

According to the officers' accounts: "Poniatowski no longer had any hair on his head when he was alive, but he wore a wig and artificial favours, and so all that remained when he was drowned in the water". The Prince's physiognomy became distorted after being in the water for several days. Nor was the Commander-in-Chief dressed in his richly embroidered service general's uniform. Indeed, on that day he was wearing an ordinary officer's field uniform, only with epaulettes and miniatures of several decorations. Nevertheless, the body was found and recognised on the evening of 24 October 1813. It had been temporarily deposited in the crypt of St John's Church on the outskirts of the town of Grimma, southeast of Leipzig.

The epaulettes, miniatures and sabre pendent from the uniform, as well as parts of the row from the captured mount, were deposited with the Governor of Saxony. After many years and vicissitudes, they found their way to the National Museum in Krakow. The saddle and cap remained in Leipzig, perhaps because they were not part of the prescribed equestrian equipment of Polish officers and generals. The cap, which bore the distinctive insignia of the rank of Major General of the armies of the Duchy of Warsaw, was lost earlier by Prince Poniatowski in the torrents of the Pleisa River.

During the crossing of the Elste, when he fell off his horse after being shot for the second time, he got another horse, the saddle of which is in Leipzig's battle museum. It is of a mottled colour, with a green and red cap and officers' decorations reminiscent of Hussar loops. Not a single formation of the Duchy of Warsaw possessed caps of such a colour and with such insignia. The Commander-in-Chief was therefore given a haphazard mount, lost or abandoned by an officer of a different nationality, possibly even of an enemy formation.

Death of Prince Józef Poniatowski at Leipzig
. During the retreating battles, the prince still commanded a group of about a hundred soldiers, with whom he attempted to counterattack the enemy's tyrrels coming from everywhere. Unfortunately, he was hit by a rifle bullet near his left collarbone. In this situation, the officers urged him to stop fighting, surrender to the enemy or immediately retreat through Pleisa. The Prince, however, ordered the counter-attack to continue. A participant in the fighting, Captain Klemens Kołaczkowski (1793-1873), recalled that "a new attack on the enemy tyraliers only managed to halt their progress for a moment. There was not one moment to lose! As a last resort, the prince finally followed the advice of the surrounding officers, mounted his horse and jumped into the river! The water was flooding the banks high up; the horse, carried away by its momentum, could not reach the shore. At this sight, the staff captain [Hippolyte] Blechamps [a French officer, adjutant to the Commander-in-Chief] rushed after the Prince, helped him to swim across and get out on the opposite bank". In the words of another adjutant, Colonel Count Ludwik Kicki: "the horse on which he sat in that first crossing had already been left [in the river]".

Thus, Poniatowski arrived on the western bank of the Pleisa wounded, muddy, without his mount, and surrounded by a group of Poles reduced to just a few dozen soldiers. However, the enemy tyrrels were already reaching the Pleisa, and some of them had crossed the river by swimming. In this situation, Poniatowski's group had to escape towards the Elster and look for a convenient crossing of the riverbed. According to the further words of Captain Kolaczkowski: "the prince walked on foot through the gardens lying between the Pleisa and the Elster - here a rifle bullet in the side hit him a second time and he fell into the arms of the officers surrounding him".

A second bullet hit Poniatowski between the ribs. He lost consciousness, but "having soon regained it, with the help of an aide-de-camp he mounted his horse with difficulty, but was already tottering on the saddle".

Faced with relentlessly advancing enemy soldiers, Prince Joseph "threw himself into the Elster. Weakened by his wounds, he no longer caused his horse to buck, but it folded with the current and could not climb the high steep bank. All this happened under a hail of bullets. At the very last moment, the duke, receiving the third wound, slipped from his horse and, swept away by the rush of water, began to sink. The noble Bleschamps rushed to his rescue. In his noble zeal, he threw himself into the river and grabbed the prince. He was seen half embracing him and trying to lift the prince's head above the surface of the water, but the noble man's efforts were in vain. They both disappeared into the currents of the treacherous river!".

The mysteries of the death of Prince Józef Poniatowski
Indeed, Prince Jozef Poniatowski suffered death by drowning in the river almost shot down from his mount, which was already climbing the west bank of the Elster. It is significant that many historians miss an extremely important sentence of the medical examination report. It indicates that the duke took the last shot from the front, in the chest, i.e. when he was facing the enemy. The shot must therefore have been fired from the shore, which, after all, he had already reached. Meanwhile, none of the officers near the place of the Duke's death mentioned the presence of the enemy on the west side of the Elster. On the contrary, their accounts indicate that at that place and time, there were only Polish survivors and French tyraliers on it.

This raises the question of whether the prince was accidentally killed by a mistaken Allied bullet. This cannot be ruled out, as the duke made the leap into the Elster current in the confusion of battle, in a violent, seemingly offensive manner. He had no headgear, but was wearing a muddy, bloodstained plain field uniform and was riding a horse with a non-Polish cap. In the last moments of his life, therefore, he differed little in appearance from the soldier masses of both sides, equally soaked and muddy. Some have maintained that he was accompanied by several horsemen from a squadron of Polish Cracovians in clothing remarkably similar to Cossacks.

Perhaps, then, in the heat of battle, the determined handful of horsemen led by Prince Poniatowski were mistaken for attacking Russian flankers and without a second thought an accurate salvo was fired at them? Unfortunately, several investigations into the circumstances of the death of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army have failed to provide a clear answer as to who fired at him - his own or the enemy's. However, it is certain that the elements of the horse row on display in the Leipzig museum came from the mount on which Prince Józef Poniatowski received his last shot.