In 1813, the Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars.

(A) In 1813, the Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars (Correct use of modifiers placement)(Better option among all) (Correct)

(B) The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in 1813, which was called the Battle of Leipzig and which became the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars (1813 was not called as the battle. Which is wrongly modifying year) (Incorrect)

(C) In the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, in 1813, the Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the Battle of Leipzig (All wars in 1813 or The sixth coalition in 1813? Ambiguous! Did Napoleon fought all wars in 1813?) (Incorrect)

(D) 1813 saw the Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, in which the Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire (Year saw the battle?)(No, INCORRECT)

(E) The Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, was a conflict between the Sixth Coalition and the First French Empire in 1813 (All napoleon wars were a conflict? Nope!, Incorrect modifier placement) (Incorrect)

the phrase between the two commas becomes a non essential modifier right? Is the sentence not wrong?
Please let me understand the problem better

Could you please explain why C and E are wrong?

All right, I am seeing sufficient discussion to warrant a full response, so I will post my thoughts on each answer choice below in an effort to help the community. Since the whole sentence is underlined, we can go straight to the answer choices.


There is a phrase to begin the sentence and a modifying phrase to end the sentence, but the part in the middle is a clause. The Sixth Coalition is the subject, and attacked is the verb. The information is presented in a straightforward manner: year, subject, verb, direct object, prepositional phrase, modifier. There are no obvious grammatical or semantic errors here. Keep checking in other answer choices.


By and large, a which clause will comment on the noun that immediately precedes it, and in no way can we construe the First French Empire and the Battle of Leipzig as one and the same. This is a confusing sentence, not what we want in SC.


There is nothing outright wrong in this sentence, but stacking phrases in the beginning delays the main clause and makes the sentence harder to follow. (I sometimes talk about how the GMAT™ prefers right-branching sentences, those that place the subject and verb closer to the beginning, with modifiers following.) Notice how distant the Battle of Leipzig is from the largest conflict, even though they are the same thing. We have left a perfectly clear original sentence for one that is poorly constructed.


Again, I am not sure the construct at the beginning is absolutely incorrect. You can see sentences such as, January 2021 saw a new U.S. President elect take office. But the verb within the object—take, in my sentence—is missing from this iteration of the sentence in question. A year saw a battle take place would be fine, but a year saw a battle? That does seem to personify the year. Get rid of this one.


The placement of the phrase in 1813 muddles the meaning of the sentence. Yes, the modifying phrase the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars can effectively be skipped over when interpreting the main clause, but in 1813 can be viewed in two ways:

1) the battle took place in 1813
2) the First French Empire of 1813 (perhaps there were several) took part in the battle

This is confusing. Which one is correct? Although the context seems to point more to the first interpretation, we cannot say for sure without looking at the original sentence for guidance. Hence, this is a sub-optimal sentence, one that we should put aside.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Same as shades28
Why is A correct?

As far as I understand, the sentence can be read as the following:
In 1813, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars. -> which I don't think is correct

I think this because what is between 2 commas is not essential information.
Could someone help me!

If you see closely ignore the Modifier rules right now. Pause and Read the sentence and see what meaning it conveys.

C and E are both Changing the intended meaning of the Original sentence.
Don't just follow by the rules also check the meaning what the original sentence is trying to convey.

Hope this helps !!

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