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Although he served in the Revolutionary Wars, and as an officer on the general staff in the 1806 campaign, it is as a commander of the Prussian Army in 1813-14 that Kleist is best known, Commanding a corps during the 'War of
Liberation', he was given the task of holding Leipzig at the time of the battle of Lützen, and, outnumbered, was driven back; at Bautzen he helped to hold the Allied right flank; served at Dresden; at Leipzig was notably involved in the desperate fighting around Markkleeberg in the southern sector of the action; and played a vital role in the defeat of Vandamme at Kulm. In 1814 he served under Blucher's command in the defeat of Vauchamps, sherve with disinction at Laon, and led his corps in the advance on paris. In 1815 he commanded the Prussian forces which were to meet Napoleon, until superseded in command by Blücher. He whould not be confused with other Prussian soldiers of the same name, most notably with the superannuated, 73-year-old Governor of magdeburg who surrendered after a feeble defence in 1806, nor with the soldier-poets Ewald von Kleist (1715-59), mortally woundedat Kunersdorf, and Bernd heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (1777-1811), who served in the Revolutionary Wars, left the army in 1799, was arrested by the French as a spy and imprisoned for six months in 1807, and who died in a suicide pact.