Austerlitz: The Battle That Made Napoleon A Military Legend | History Of Warfare | Timeline

This channel is part of the History Hit Network. History proclaims Napoleon as one of the greatest generals in the annals of warfare. His strategic vision, timing, and his consummate grasp of every one of the myriad details which together influence the behavior of a vast army have made him a legendary figure to rank alongside Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Hannibal. The conclusive proof of this military genius was furnished for all time on the slopes of the frozen heights of Pratzen on the 2nd of December 1805. As the famous blood-red son of Austerlitz rose through the mist on the morning of this his greatest battle, Napoleon was confident of victory. But even he could not have forecast just how complete his triumph would be. Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France by his own hand in a ceremony of great pomp and circumstance on the 2nd of December 1804. His moment of supreme glory came after a rapid series of promotions which had seen him move from a little-known captain of artillery to undisputed master of France in only six years. His rise to these dizzy heights had not been without its troubles, however. The new emperor, basking in the adoration of his people, had to fight hard to protect the ideals of the revolution which had put him there. Napoleon had spent almost the whole of the last 11 years at war against various combinations of the forces of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Holland and Italy. So inured to warfare had he become that he accepted that to fight constantly would become an integral part of his life and that of his country. Between old monarchies and a young republic, a spirit of hostility must always exist. In the present state of affairs, every peace treaty means no more than a brief armistice. And I believe that my destiny will be to fight almost continuously. To fight almost continuously was indeed to become the lot of Napoleon Bonaparte. His implacable enemy was, as always, England, a nation which Napoleon detested with a passion. The English armies and navies approved a constant thorn in the side of Napoleon, and his most spectacular defeats then, as later, were at the hands of the British. Memories of the disastrous naval battle of the Nile and Alexandria on land still haunted Napoleon. His anger was kindled anew when Britain was instrumental in bringing together a new coalition. This new coalition, formed from Austria, Russia and Britain, was pledged to destroy forever the destabilizing influence which a young revolutionary nation like France was thought to have on the old order. France was seen as a massive threat to the trade and influence of the old established monarchies who thrived on the status quo. Napoleon was therefore caricatured as an ogre and a man of blood. This was not the first coalition to be brought into play against the French. There had been two others in the recent past whose actions had produced rather mixed results. At this time, however, the Allies felt sure that the overwhelming numbers which they could bring to bed against the French armies would ensure the complete destruction of the upstart General Bonaparte forever. The hopes of the coalition were further bolstered by the intelligence at Prussia, who had been vacillating between actively joining the coalition and acting as a mediator for peace, was now more than likely to join the other nations in arms against Napoleon. This would bring a huge influx of men against the Emperor, and with hindsight, this could well have made the situation untenable for him. In the early months of 1805, the strategic situation therefore looked very promising indeed for the nations of the Third Coalition. What the enemy couldn't know, the Allies couldn't know, was the sheer quality of this new Napoleonic army. Since 1800, France had been largely at peace, and Napoleon completely restructured his military machine. And this is what's going to be really put to test here in the campaign of 1805. If you love history, then you'll love History Hit. Our extensive library of documentary features everything from the ancient origins of our earliest ancestors to the daring mission to sink the Bismarck. History Hit has hundreds of exclusive documentaries with unrivaled access to the world's best historians. We're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else. Sign up now for a free trial and Timeline fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code TIMELINE at checkout. As always, Napoleon was obsessed with the idea of invading England. Since 1803, his armies had been concentrated in the two huge military camps at Boulogne, where the men were poised to launch an invasion across the Channel. During the long wait, these camps had become so well established that the men actually had time to cultivate gardens and construct a makeshift town of wooden huts. Napoleon used these camps as a site for training manoeuvres and for the celebrated distribution of the crosses of the Legion of Honour in 1804. Medals and parades, however, were the only martial purpose to which the camps would be put, as long as control of the high seas rested with the British Navy. The army could not be transported while the British controlled the seas. The British Navy, however, held the French Navy in contempt and kept the French fleets bottled up in port. A deadlock which the outclassed French Navy never looked like breaking. Despite the increasingly rude taunt from the Emperor to his admirals, the French Navy steadfastly failed to put to sea. So while the French army idled away the time, awaiting a naval breakthrough, the thoughts of the Emperor were assumed to be wholly bent on his planned invasion of England. This was the weakness which the Allies sought to exploit in the coming campaign of 1805. Together, the three major players of the Third Coalition had created a grandiose master plan of great strategic vision, but one which ultimately overlooked some very real practical considerations. A series of four great offensives, each in a different part of Europe, were planned to be launched simultaneously. In the north, a British force, aided by Swedish and Russian elements, would attack Napoleon's ally, the Kingdom of Denmark, with a view towards bringing Hanover back under the sway of the British Crown. It was also hoped that the presence of such a large Allied force, nearly 100,000 men so near his borders, would further help to persuade the King of Prussia to join the Coalition. The next French ally to be subject to simultaneous attack was to be Bavaria. She was to be invaded by the Austrian general, Mack, with 85,000 men. Marching to his aid were a further 85,000 Russians under Kutuzov. Once joined, the forces would seize Ulm and then strike against Strasbourg. Archduke Charles, with 100,000 of the best Austrian troops available to him, was to strike into northern Italy and expel the French from Lombardy, before moving on to invade the south of France. A poise between Mack's force, pressing on to Ulm, and Archduke Charles' forces in Italy, was the Austrian Archduke John, with a further 25,000 Austrians. They were ready to support the armies in either Germany or Italy, depending on how the situation developed. The final arm of this great master plan was a combined Russian and British force from Malta, which was to be augmented by 36,000 exiled Bourbon troops from Sicily, who were to reconquer Naples from the French, then strike northwards to join Archduke Charles in the invasion of southern France. If there's one word with which to describe the Allied grand strategy for the campaign of 1805, I feel that word must be grandiose. Now it looks superb on a map, great broad arrows, four of them, four different offensives to be mounted together against various parts of the French area of influence and so forth. But how the Allies hoped to coordinate those four great offensives, as was necessary for them to have their full effect, the Lord only knows. If the plan was brilliant in its conception, it was to prove disastrous in its execution. The two theatres to the extreme north and south, involving British troops, failed to blossom into any real strategic danger, and the real victories were confined, as usual, to the British Navy, who continued to triumph with monotonous regularity in almost every action fought between the ships of the two countries. The problems of communication meant that the drive into Hanover under Bennigsen was very slow to develop. Consequently, only the Austrian armies operating against Bavaria under General Mack were operational by September. They were expected to be reinforced very soon by Kutasov, with his 85,000 men, marching from Russia. It was here that the grand strategy of the Allies would begin to fall apart. Unbeknown to the Austrian chiefs of staff, the Russians were actually using the old-style Russian calendar, a different calendar from their Allies. This calendar used a system of dating, which was 12 days later from the one used by the rest of Europe. The armies of the period still relied on horses for transport, and the infantry had to march on foot over the huge distances involved. It took literally months to concentrate the armies and march from Russia to Europe, and it was the failure to synchronise the months which was to have catastrophic consequences for the Allies. In the early 19th century, the difference between the two calendars, the old and the new, had grown to 12 days. It is amazing that the Austrian general staff in Vienna did not realise that there was this difference in the calendar system. That's to say that Russian Allies, with whom they were negotiating for their part in the campaign, were working on a different calendar. So if a letter came from St Petersburg promising to be in the Danube Valley by the 20th of October, it really meant they would only be appearing on the 1st of November, new style. That could make a big difference in the actual military events on the ground, as you might suppose. Despite the odds ranged against him, Napoleon was never a man to be overawed or intimidated. For him, a swift action with a clear strategic purpose could unhinge even the greatest disadvantage. In a masterpiece of surprise, cunning and deception, Napoleon was about to pull off his finest masterstroke. The Emperor had at his disposal roughly 400,000 troops, at least 200,000 of which were needed to guard against the various Allied incursions against France and her Allies. The Emperor could therefore take the field with an army of approximately 200,000 men to meet and defeat Mach and Kutuzov, who between them, together with Archduke John, could immediately call upon some 400,000 men It was to be his inspired handling of the 200,000 men of the Grande Armée which was to lead to Napoleon's triumph over a force double the size of his own. General Mach had occupied Ulm in Bavaria on the 10th of September, 1805. Due to the inconsistency of the calendars, Kutuzov was further away than Mach imagined, leaving the Austrian general isolated around Ulm. Recognising this weakness, Napoleon intended to launch a pre-emptive strike against General Mach before he could effect a juncture with Kutuzov and his Russians. In doing so, Napoleon would destroy a principal part of his opponent's force and reduce the odds for the balance of the campaign to far more manageable proportions. Elaborate plans were laid to disguise the withdrawal of his army from the camps of Boulogne and by so doing, Napoleon managed to fool the Austrians into believing that the bulk of the French forces were still concentrated on the English Channel when in fact they were moving with lightning speed to cross the Rhine and then encircled the Austrians at Ulm on the Danube and attacked them from the rear. The incredibly swift movement of the French army was aided by the Cour d'Armée system which Napoleon had pioneered. Conventional armies were still organised into separate divisions of the infantry or cavalry with supporting brigades of artillery. Supplies, engineering and medical services were all provided centrally. What Napoleon did was effectively to split his army into a series of seven self-contained miniature armies, each of which was a balanced force of infantry, cavalry and artillery. These Cour d'Armée had their own staff and supply systems and were capable of giving battle in their own right. By ensuring that the various Cour d'Armée were never more than a day's march from each other, Napoleon ensured that the contingents of his army had the right mix of troops. The French Cour d'Armée system gave a whole series of advantages to Napoleon of which the most important was certainly flexibility. Now in the earlier centuries armies had tended to march in one great body. That is to say the gunned infantry, the supply convoys and the infantry using one route towards their objective and that could be very slow and time-consuming. By the Cour d'Armée system, however, Napoleon had divided his army down into a whole series of what we might call miniature armies. These army corps numbered in terms of strength from approximately 15,000 men up to as many as 30 or even 40,000 men depending upon how Napoleon considered the abilities of the actual commander deserved. But the advantage of this gay was that each army corps was a balanced force that we now call a proper battle group. It had its own cavalry, its own infantry, its own artillery and above all it had its own staff and a marshal commanding one of these corps really had his own miniature army under his command. Now what this meant of course was that if he ran into unexpected trouble even against an enemy army of several times his own size he was capable by Napoleon's calculation of fighting for up to 24 hours on his own and provided he was reinforced within 24 hours by neighbouring corps he would not absolutely go under. He'd suffer but he would not go under. After some fierce fighting around Ulm in a variety of minor actions it was becoming increasingly obvious that the situation of General Mack was hopeless. Faced with superior French forces he held out in vain for the arrival of the Russians under Kutuzov. But due to the problems with the differencing calendar Kutuzov was still far beyond reach. General Mack was therefore forced to surrender to Napoleon on the 20th of September and although some of the cavalry escaped 60,000 Austrian soldiers eventually lay down their arms and fell into French hands. And Napoleon is seen here accepting the surrender of the General who referred to himself as the unfortunate General Mack. The odds against the Emperor in the campaign overall were now considerably shorter. The French success in forcing Mack into surrender was all the more notable for the comparatively light casualties suffered in the battle. The victorious French troops pictured in this contemporary engraving had captured an Austrian force of 60,000 men in exchange for only 2,000 casualties. But even in the face of this triumph there were still 300,000 Allied soldiers to take care of. Kutuzov, marching slowly to aid General Mack was astonished to learn of the fate of his erstwhile ally and he was determined that his own force should not suffer the same fate. Accordingly, the Russian forces turned around and marched back in the direction of Poland. Napoleon immediately sent his army in pursuit but as they were to prove seven years later in the ill-fated Moscow campaign Russian forces on the retreat could prove elusive foes. And Napoleon's force found themselves unable to pin down the retreating Russians. Obliged to detach various elements of his army to form garrisons and attend to the other theatres of the campaign Napoleon was by the 17th of November reduced to a force of some 78,000 men. By now he had pursued the Russian and Austrian armies 200 miles to the east of Ulm past Znaim to Austerlitz in eastern Bohemia. And his strategic situation was becoming desperate. The French army was now operating at the very limits of an extended supply line which had to be traced back 700 miles to Paris. Mack may have been decisively defeated but the Russian and Austrian armies under Kutuzov were still active. To protect this supply line required large numbers of valuable troops who would be better used to fend off the Austrian armies of the Archdukes Charles and John now threatening from the south and Bennigsen's army which posed a similar threat from the north. There was also the possibility that enigmatic Prussia would choose this moment to join the Allies with 200,000 more troops. Emboldened by the net which they saw tightening around the French forces Kutuzov with his combined Russian and Austrian forces halted their retreat. And took up strong defensive positions around Olmutz from where they warily eyed the French Grande Armée. Ragged and exhausted from three months of constant marching and fighting the French forces were becoming demoralized. Equanier who marched in the ranks of Napoleon's old guard and was later to be promoted to captain in 1815 recalled in his notebook the hardships of the campaign which had involved arduous marching from the outset. We had never known such a terrible march. We did not have a moment to sleep walking in sections all day, all night and we were reduced to holding on to each other so as not to fall. Those who fell did not wake up. Some fell into the ditch and even the blows of the sword had no effect on them. After Ulm we slept in villages completely devastated by a terrible season of snow. The emperor was ahead. He visited the outposts and we had trouble following him. It was one of our most terrible marches. We had 40 places to go to join him. We arrived on the third day, exhausted. Terrible. Equanier had marched 700 miles from Boulogne to Austerlitz in six weeks by way of Vienna which the French troops are shown here entering on the 14th of November 1805. The French armies were largely expected to live off the land and naturalist supplies in any given area soon became exhausted with a prolonged stay. With his men weary, demoralized and hungry and with superior forces threatening on three sides the situation looked bleak for Napoleon. Retreat was out of the question as this would effectively offer victory to the Allies. However, a further pursuit of any Allied retreat would put the army beyond the limits of its rudimentary supply system. A lesser general might have felt compelled to concede defeat at this point but the emperor's solution as always would prove bold and decisive. He saw that only the complete and utter destruction of the main Allied army under Kutasov would solve his problems. He could neither advance nor retreat and only by eliminating Kutasov's command would the complete victory be his. But as yet his enemy showed no signs of preparing to fight. Napoleon therefore conceived the second brilliant scheme of the campaign. A series of elaborate deceptions designed to lure the Allies into attacking Napoleon's forces on ground of his own choosing. There he would destroy them utterly. The Côte d'Armée system allowed Napoleon to trim his army to just three corps. Those of Soult and Lannes along with Murat's cavalry reserve. Yet he could still retain the ability to fight a holding battle with a reasonable prospect of success. Altogether these three bodies represented some 53,000 whom Napoleon planned to use as a bait to draw on the superior Russian and Austrian forces of some 87,000 men. Unbeknown to the Allies waiting nearby were the corps of Bernadotte and Davout who would have strict orders to join Napoleon as battle commenced. Thus bringing his strength up to 75,000 for the actual battle and bringing the odds far closer together at a time when it would be too late for the Allies to disengage. The mere act of bringing the Allied army to battle was not in itself enough for Napoleon. They must be destroyed completely and a simple battle of attrition characterized by direct assaults would not prove sufficient. Napoleon needed both a knockout blow and the entrapment of the defeated army. Once again his military genus would supply the perfect ammunition. The Emperor's plan for the battle which would eventually be fought on the 2nd of December relied on two factors. Firstly enticing the enemy to do battle on the field chosen by Napoleon and secondly in exposing their center to a massive counterpunch once battle had been joined. In both of these objectives Napoleon was to succeed perfectly. However to ensure that the Allies took the bait Napoleon set out to foster every impression of weakness in the French army camped around Austerlitz. He sought to give the impression of an army about to embark upon a precipitate retreat. The outlying elements of the French army were camped in a comparatively strong position upon the Pratzen Heights an area of high ground to the west of the town of Austerlitz. To begin the deception Marshal Soult was ordered to abandon the town and his favorable position on the Pratzen Heights with every indication of undue haste. The Russians were quick to take the bait and followed hard on the heels of the apparently disorganized French forces occupying the Pratzen Heights above Austerlitz by the 1st of December. Allied intelligence seized upon these moves as proof of an impending French retreat. The opinion began to establish itself among the Allied commanders that Napoleon should therefore be brought to battle while he was at his weakest. The first part of Napoleon's scheme had succeeded. The Russians had occupied precisely the ground he wanted them to. As early as the 21st of November a member of Napoleon's staff recorded On going back from Vichaux he stopped on the highway about two leagues and a half from Brun near Versailleton a small mound by the side of the road a kind of rather abruptly truncated cone and gave orders that the foot of it should be excavated on the enemy's side so as to increase its escarpment. Then turning off toward the south he entered a high plain contained between two embanked streams running from the north to the southwest. The emperor slowly and silently went over this newly discovered ground stopping several times on its most elevated points looking principally towards Pratzen. He carefully examined all its characteristics and during this survey turned towards us saying Gentlemen, examine this ground carefully. It is going to be a battlefield. You will have a part to play on it. This plain was indeed to be within a few days the field of the Battle of Austerlitz. The town of Austerlitz lay approximately three miles to the east of the Pratzen Heights. The Saint-Anne, as noted by de Seguir lay to the northeast of the Soulane a slightly larger hill of some 850 feet at its peak which separated the hamlets of La Panse-Matte and Gershi-Kawetz. From this point running south along the meandering streams of the Goldblach and the Bossetnitz were the villages of Puntewitz, Kobelnitz, Sokolnitz and Telnitz. To the southeast of this last place lay the Sat-Shan Lake and its surrounding marshes the frozen waters of which would provide Austerlitz with its dramatic and terrible finale. With the Pratzen Heights conceded to the Allies Napoleon intended to draw the main thrust of the Allied attack towards the apparently weak French right flank thereby exposing the Allied center to counter-attack. This attack would be made by the Grande Armée which was withdrawn to an area beyond the Soulane out of the sight of the Allied forces. Shown here is the initial deployment of the French forces. The Soulane and Saint-Anne were defended by the infantry and cavalry of General Lannes and Marshal Murat at the extreme north of the battlefield. While Le Grand's men of Soult's corps were positioned to the south around Kobelnitz. Marshal Soult was also charged with holding the center right from Kobelnitz to Sokolnitz with further units of Le Grand's division of his fourth corps. The late but timely arrival of Marshal De Vaux meant that his cavalry and leading infantry division could be deployed to the east of Telnitz in support of the all-important right flank. In these positions, the French prepared to do battle on December the 1st. The only word for the Allied chain of command at Austerlitz is confusion, frankly. There were a whole group of authorities present and it was very difficult to know who really was in command. Now, nominally, the commander-in-chief, of course, was Kutuzov, heading the joint Austro-Russian army. But he'd been joined over the previous weeks by not one emperor only but two emperors. The Tsar, his own master, had come from St. Petersburg, surrounded by all his staff officers and people of the court who knew very little about military affairs but believed that they did, of course. And then there was the Emperor Francis I of Austria with his entourage. And these three sort of authorities were continually at odds with one another although there were varying coalitions being sort of struck between two groups against a third. Granovitz, two miles west of Austerlitz, was selected by Allied high command as the Allied headquarters. There, the Russian Tsar and Austrian Emperor Francis met to agree a battle plan. Despite the difficulties of command, an Allied plan did emerge which involved a massive thrust through the right of the French line between Telnitz and Sokolnitz. This drive was to be followed by a thrust northwards by four huge columns of troops. A simultaneous assault on the French left flank at the Sulan would engage their forces, thereby isolating them while the areas to the south were secured. To achieve this, however, would mean dividing the Allied army, including nearly 60,000 men given to the command of General Buxhauten with the task of carrying out the main assault on the French right. In effect, this played straight into Napoleon's hand as it stripped the Allied centre of men to support a bold move against the French right wing. The older and perhaps wiser men of Allied command were unconvinced. They respected Napoleon's generalship and urged caution. They felt the plan to be hot-headed and overconfident. The Austrian chief of staff, General Wehrotter, took a particularly high-handed attitude towards his Russian allies and those members of the Austrian staff who did not endorse the plan. In addition, Wehrotter's arrogant manner certainly did not endear him to his fellow officers, as General Langeron, whose troops sat atop the all-important Pratzen Heights, remembered. When we had all assembled, General Wehrotter arrived, unfolded upon a large table an immense and most accurate map of the environs of Austerlitz and read the deposition in a loud tone and with a self-satisfied air which indicated a thorough persuasion of his own merit and our incapacity. It really was like a college teacher reading a lesson to young scholars. Kutuzov, seated and half asleep when we arrived, at length fell into a sound nap before we departed. The Tsar was eventually persuaded by his young officers of the soundness of the plan and it was adopted, thereby launching the Allies unwittingly down the road to defeat. They had been fooled by Napoleon's unforced abdication of the Pratzen Heights and now apart from the wary Langeron and Kutuzov believed the French to be a spent force. In the few seconds it took the Tsar to consent to Wehrotter's plan, he effectively sealed the Allied fate. Napoleon was in very good spirits and sat late into the winter night surrounded by his men, often deep in thought, brooding upon the coming battle before sliding off into sleep fully clothed by his campfire. On December the 1st, the eve of the battle, the French troops received a rousing order from their emperor. Soldiers, I shall in person direct all your battalions. I shall keep out of range if without a custom bravery you carry disorder and confusion into the ranks of the enemy. But if the outcome is for a moment uncertain, you shall see your emperor himself in the front rank. Napoleon subsequently left his command HQ and made a tour of his position. It was one year to the day since his coronation as emperor of the French and what seemed like the whole of the French army joined him in a torchlight procession through the bivouacs of his men. It was a journey which led to the famous scene remembered by Captain Coignet. All the men of the squad took straw handles in each hand. The men lit them one to the other and all shouted Long live the emperor! by throwing them into the air. The whole army gathered and I am sure that 200,000 flames were burning while the fanfares were playing and the drums were beating the weapons. This has been the finest evening of my life. Napoleon was heard to murmur after returning to his bivouac. Coignet was to meet the emperor many times during his long career and one incident inspired the famous painting of Napoleon and Coignet together. While Coignet gathered material for his memoirs there was little for the emperor to do but wait. The trap had been set. Only time would reveal if the enemy had taken the bait. As December the 2nd dawned the men of both armies awoke to find a thick fog enshrouding the streams, villagers and rolling slopes of the battlefield. The unanticipated arrival of the fog was to give unforeseen aid to Napoleon's plan. He did not have to wait long for evidence of its assistance. The problems of command in the allied army were also helping the emperor. There was a great deal of chaos and congestion in the allied lines as the troops in the various columns struggled to get into position for the planned attack. The difficulties of the allied command were further evidenced by the ever-anxious Tsar who publicly ridiculed Kutasov over his reluctance to commence the battle before some of the chaos had been checked. With the harsh words of his Tsar in his ear Kutasov ordered the allies to make their assault on Telnitz on the French right exactly as Napoleon had intended. Despite the fact that the attack had been launched prematurely a furious battle for the position developed between the troops of General Kienmeier's advance guard and General Legrand's French defenders. The villagers changed hands at least twice with some desperate fighting but by nine o'clock Telnitz and Sokelnitz lay in allied hands. It looked as if things were going well for the allied armies. Among its officers was General Stutterheim of Austria who would later publish his account of the battle. And our Tsars suffered heavily under their sharpshooters who were heavily used by the terrain around the village of Telnitz with its vineyards and salt-smelling graves. But they were not able to defend the cavalry. Twice we were struck back and twice we advanced again. A never-ending fire of muskets followed. The Säckler infantry regiment fought courageously and two-thirds of its members were killed or wounded. Finally, two battalions collided under the support of a light infantry battalion and stormed the enemy. They attacked the village and took it in. At nine o'clock the enemy received reinforcements and in dense fog they managed to recapture the village. But at that moment two Tsars and General Nostitz fell over the French infantry and demanded their surrender. A hundred of these infantrymen were taken prisoner and our troops retreated far ahead. The enemy left the village. Telnitz was recaptured. Although the capture of the villages appeared to be an important achievement for the Allies far more significant was the clearing mist at the top of the Pratzen Heights which revealed to Napoleon exactly what he had hoped to see. Two Allied columns converging in huge numbers upon the French right flank inexorably weakening their centre. The moment of truth was fast arriving. Despite the urging of his staff to attack Napoleon waited for what seemed like an eternity while two more enemy columns vacated their centre. Now judging that the perfect moment had come he gave the order to attack. The time had arrived for Napoleon's masterstroke. Concealed in the fog still lingering at the bottom of the valley were two French divisions under Marshal Soult some 16,000 men in all. The divisions of Vandamme and Saint-Hilaire. From within the dense fog and choking thick smoke of battle in the valley these two divisions emerged to take the Pratzen Heights. Their dramatic entry into battle was heightened by the red light of the new sun which reflected the steel of their bayonets towards their enemy. The utterly astonished Allies were taken completely by surprise and it was not long before the Frenchmen had surged beyond the village of Pratzen up the incline and onto the heights themselves. With them went Captain Coignet. The Russian Marshal Kutasov who had opposed the Allied plan from the beginning was the first commander alert to the danger but his orders for the hurried diversion of his troops came far too late to halt the advancing Frenchmen. Major General Stutterheim of the Austrian army afterwards recalled what he had witnessed. Von der dritten Kolonne und der ganzen linken Ranke des Heer verlassen reichte die Division der rechten Ranke nicht aus um die Franzosen zu spalten. Die Mitte werde von vier Divisionen angegriffen oder zumindest bedroht. Und diese Attacke konnte sie nur 27 zerschwächter Bataillons ohne jede Hoffnung auf Verstärkung entgegensetzen. So würden schätzungsweise etwa 12.000 Männer von 24.000 angegriffen und das ist keine Übertreibung. Die französische Heer war in Wirklichkeit viel kleiner als das der Verbundeten aber durch eine konzentrierter Aufstellung und bessere Weisungen war der Feind an dieser Stelle doppelt so stark wie woanders. Es ging sehr hitzig zu. Da versuch Werder den Boden, den die Vohut verloren hatte, zurück zu gewinnen. Die Russen gingen zum Angriff über aber sie rufneten das Feuer auf zu große Entfernung sodass es nicht viel nutzte während die französischen Kolonnen weiter verrückten ohne auch nur einen einzigen Schuss abzufeuern. Aber aus einer Entfernung von etwa 100 Schritten rufneten sie dann ein Mosketenfeuer das sich überall ausbreitete und sehr vernichtet war. Der Feind zog seine Massen nach und nach zu mehreren Reihen auseinander und marschierten schnell auf die Hohe zu. The situation did indeed look bleak for the Allied center. Meanwhile to the extreme north on the French left flank the Allies had made their planned simultaneous attack and a ferocious battle had developed between the cavalry of Marshal Murat and General Liechtenstein and the infantry of General Lahn and General Bregration. The fortunes of the two opposing sides ebbed and flowed and the casualties steadily mounted as Bregration's artillery in particular exacted a heavy toll on Lahn's division. The Russian artillery was to fight with great distinction throughout the Napoleonic Wars. And today was to prove to be no exception. The fate of the battle in the north lay in the balance and it was only when Marshal Murat committed his remaining regiment of cavalry to the fray that the French began to gain the upper hand. It was said that their thunderous assault on the Allied left wing with its drumming of thousands of hooves could be heard about the tumult of battle across the entire field. A brief Allied rally was ended by a second full-blooded charge and before long Lahn and Murat had succeeded in their objective of isolating the entire Allied right flank from the dramatic events in the centre. Napoleon surveyed the situation at midday and was entirely satisfied with the state of battle. In addition to Murat's and Lahn's achievements in the north Marshal Soult held the recaptured Pratzen Heights while to the south on the beleaguered right flank Marshal Davout had stood firm against the mighty initial Allied advance. Only unimaginable misfortune or a miracle could prevent the French army completing a famous victory. For the Allies a final hope of redemption remained in the shape of the elite Russian Imperial Guard whose highly trained troops eager to battle still lay in reserve. It was about one o'clock that these precious troops comprising some 3,000 men were hurled in desperation upon the tired men under the French General Van Damme. The Russian grenadiers were able to break through the French front lines at the point of the bayonet but were repulsed by the murderous fire of the support divisions. Wearily they were forced to effect an orderly retreat towards Krenovic to regroup. Almost at once the last remaining Allied reserve of the Guard cavalry made a determined and ferocious attack on Van Damme's left and rear. Reforming behind them the grenadiers of the Russian Guard joined in with a renewed attempt on the French front lines. Finally this concerted pressure achieved its aim and the French lines began to waver scattering the battle-weary troops in all directions and de Saguir remembered the scene. The unfortunate fellows were quite distracted by fear and would listen to no one. In reply to our reproaches for thus deserting the field and their Emperor they shouted mechanically Viva Emperor! While fleeing faster than ever. However the rest of the Allied force were quite unable to take advantage of the Russian Guard's success. Napoleon redirected five squadrons of the Marmelukes from his own Imperial Guard to rescue the situation and despite a fierce and bloody battle the initiative was regained by the French. The Marmelukes in keeping with their fine tradition fought ferociously and Captain Coignet recalled their famous charge. At one o'clock the survivors of the Russian Imperial Guard retreated in disarray leaving behind them the Allied centre completely destroyed. All that remained now was for Napoleon to turn victory into a rout and at two o'clock the Imperial Guard Marshal Soult's divisions and General Oudinot's grenadiers were ordered to drive south toward Telnitz and the forces still fighting under the Russian General Buchshaum. At the same time the cavalry of Marshal Devout swept in to attack from the west. Buchshaum completely cut off and with no orders from Allied high command issued a desperate order to split his force. His left wing retreated eastward while the main body attempted to counter strike to the north. But these were futile attempts for the troops were soon overrun and forced back towards the frozen lake Satchan. The Frenchmen in no mood to show mercy pursued their beaten foe ruthlessly. General Thiebaud noted afterwards up to the last hour of the battle we took no prisoners it would not do to run any risk. One could stick at nothing and thus not a single living enemy remained to our rear. Marshal Devout's order to his troops was equally ruthless. Let not one escape. And so a scene of the utmost horror unfolded. As thousands of terrified Allied troops and horses desperately attempted to escape from their relentless pursuers across the frozen lake. Napoleon ordered his cannon to pound the ice which broke into pieces plunging screaming men and horses into the freezing waters. Contemporary accounts claim that upwards of 10,000 Allied troops met a terrible end in this way. Subsequent evidence suggests that the actual numbers were considerably smaller perhaps 3,030 cannon with their horse teams. But even so it was a horrific end for so many brave men. Far away from the scene of this carnage to the north of the battlefield the final moments of the battle had arrived. By 4.30 General Bregracio had managed to extricate his men and retreat far enough from the exhausted French troops to allow hostilities to cease. Within the hour the remainder of the field fell silent and the battle of Austerlitz was over. What had begun as the great Allied opportunity to finally defeat and destroy Napoleon Bonaparte had ended not only in their own defeat but in catastrophe. The Allied casualty figure revealed the extent of the disaster which had befallen them. Over 15,000 troops had been killed 12,000 more taken prisoner. In stark contrast the French lost 1,400 men with 573 captured. Major General Stutterheim looked back on a terrible day. The Russians fought very bravely at the beginning and the Guards and the Yulans were distinguished by their special courage. The French infantry maneuvered with cool precision fought with courage and carried out their cool march with united forces. After some unsuccessful attempts the Russian battalions fell into disarray. The result of their careless behavior and their second and third columns was defeat and finally the complete defeat. Many Russians were killed and wounded not to mention the many missing who are always helpless in such a situation. And so Napoleon had completed a famous victory a total triumph which revealed to the world his military genius. Austerlitz had been a tactical tour de force a battle which had been fought at a time and a place of Napoleon's choosing a fight which had to some extent been won before a shot was fired. It had been a masterly illustration of the art of turning apparent total defense into devastating all-out attack. The battle of Austerlitz was one of the greatest and completest victories that Napoleon ever achieved. Not only did it win the campaign in fact it won the war at one major stroke. There is no doubt that this battle left Napoleon the master of southern central Europe. The emperor had deceived the allies completely and they had rushed headlong into his carefully laid traps. The enormity of the defeat on the field however was as nothing compared to its consequences. The following day December the 3rd Austria sued for peace while the beaten battered Russians limped away to the safety of Poland and Hungary a thoroughly demoralized army. Napoleon had indelibly stamped his mark on the affairs and fortunes of Europe offering an ominous portent of the bloodshed which would blight the continent for the next 10 years. Above all it established the reputation of the Grand Armée as the most effective fighting force of its age. At the end of the battle of Austerlitz Napoleon conveyed his satisfaction in a letter to the Empress Josephine. It read, I have beaten the Austro-Russian army commanded by the two emperors. I am a little weary. I have camped in the open for eight days and as many freezing nights. Tomorrow I shall be able to rest in the castle of Prince Kaunitz and I should be able to snatch two or three hours sleep there. The Russian army is not only beaten but destroyed. I embrace you. Napoleon.