three o'clock
Between two and three o'clock , we learned that the Swedes and the Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf , and were about to take us in the rear , a mode which pleased them much better than fighting face to face . Marshal Ney immediately changed front , throwing his right wing to the rear . Our division still remained supported on Schoenfeld , but all the others retired from the Partha , to stretch along the plain , and the entire army formed but one line around Leipzig . The Russians , behind the road to Mockern , prepared for a third attack toward three o'clock ; our officers were making new dispositions to receive them ; when a sort of shudder ran from one end of our lines to the other , and in a few moments all knew that the sixteen thousand Saxons and the Wurtemberg cavalry , in our very centre , had passed over to the enemy , and that on their way they had the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with them , on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte 's division . This treason , instead of discouraging us , so added to our fury , that if we had been allowed , we would have crossed the river to massacre them . They say that they were defending their country . It is false !