Austerlitz 1805

Osprey's examination of one of the most crucial battles of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). Austerlitz was the battle that established Napoleon's reputation: a classic example of the general's masterly use of deception to lure his enemy into a carefully devised trap. Beginning with the bold and crushing advance of the French Army from the Rhine to the Danube, David Chandler describes the envelopment of Mack's army at Ulm, the manoeuvres to Austerlitz and the counter-attack that resulted in the decisive defeat for the Austro-Russian Army. Excellent overview illustrations of the battlefield at Austerlitz supplement the text by clearly showing the movements of the opposing armies.

This in-depth study of The Battle of Austerlitz, considered Napoleon’s greatest victory, won the Napoleon Foundation’s History Grand Prize. Sometimes called The Battle of Three Emperors, Napoleon’s victory against the combined forces of Russia and Austria brought a decisive end to The War of the Third Coalition. The magnitude of the French achievement against a larger army was met by sheer amazement and delirium in Paris, where just days earlier the nation had been teetering on the brink of financial collapse. In 1805: Austerlitz, historian Robert Goetz demonstrates how Napoleon and his Grande Armée of 1805 defeated a formidable professional army that had fought the French armies on equal terms five years earlier. Goetz analyses the planning of the opposing forces and details the course of the battle hour by hour, describing the fierce see-saw battle around Sokolnitz, the epic struggle for the Pratzen Heights, the dramatic engagement between the legendary Lannes and Bagration in the north, and the widely misunderstood clash of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard and Alexander’s Imperial Leib-Guard. Goetz’s detailed and balanced assessment of the battle exposes many myths that have been perpetuated and even embellished in other accounts.

Austerlitz was Napoleon's greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end. The success blurred his tactical vision and although there were victories after it, the apogee had been reached and the process has begun which resulted in the 1812 Russian campaign and Waterloo, his last battle.

This all-new volume chronicles the events that climaxed on the field of Austerlitz in one of the most famous battles of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). Not only was it the first campaign that Napoleon waged as Emperor of France, but also the first great test for his Grande Armée. The Emperor himself regarded it as his greatest victory and it undoubtedly won him a mastery of Europe that would remain unbroken for almost a decade. Most accounts of the campaign have until now been based almost exclusively on French sources, but following extensive research in the Austrian archives Ian Castle is now able to provide a far more balanced account of Austerlitz.

Not only was Austerlitz the first campaign Napoleon waged as Emperor of France, but also the first great test for his Grande Armee. The Emperor himself regarded it as his greatest victory and it undoubtedly won him a mastery of Europe that would remain unbroken for almost a decade. This volume chronicles the events that climaxed on the field of Austerlitz in one of the most famous battles of history. Most accounts of the campaign have until now been based almost exclusively on French sources, but following extensive research in the Austrian archives Ian Castle is now able to provide a far more balanced account.

The Battle of Austerlitz is considered by many as the most brilliant of all of Napoleon's victories. It took place less than a month after the surrender of General Mack's Austrian Army at Ulm. The Emperor had reconnoitered the field a few days before the battle, judging well where his enemies would place their troops; he predicted with great accuracy their plans. The battle itself, on the 2nd of December 1805 is the height of Napoleon's military professionalism. It clearly shows how a plan, brilliantly simple in its offensive-defensive form, executed to perfection with the right maneuvers at the right moment can bring victory to the bold. Although he found himself in numerically inferior, he tempted his enemies into attacking him while he held a strong defensive position, and then, when his opponents had made the grave mistake of abandoning the high ground at the centre of the battlefield, Napoleon took his chance and counterattacked, dividing his enemies in two while still maintaining an adequate number of reserves to be able to influence the final outcome of the battle and then pursue his defeated enemies. The victorious outcome for France forced the Austrians to sue for peace and sign the Treaty of Pressburg on 26th December 1805, effectively bringing the Third Coalition to an end and taking Austria out of the Napoleonic Wars until 1809. Austerlitz is not only a great battle; we should also remember that it played an important part in the creation of the Napoleonic myth. The Napoleonic Legend, which he himself helped create, began in the days before this battle, by comparing the new Empire's rise to that of the rising sun that illuminated the battlefield where the Emperor achieved his impressive victory. The Victory at Austerlitz was won on the first anniversary of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of the French, and established him as the first amongst the great military leaders in Europe. In Germany this battle is called Dreikaiserschlacht, or the Battle of Three Emperors. However, it was the Emperor of the French that outshone his Austrian and Russian rivals, both in military and in political terms. Though we ought not to forget that if Napoleon had shown as much diplomatic ability as he displayed for military affairs while on campaign, the battle of Austerlitz would not have taken place and the history of Europe would have been different. The bicentennial commemoration and re-enactment of the Battle of Austerlitz took place from the 2nd to the 4th December 2005. The organizer's objective was to mark the anniversary of this event that brought in its wake so many political changes to Europe, as well as remember all those who died in the battle, be they soldiers from the opposing armies or the civilians who saw their villages burnt down during the battle. During these few days over 3,500 uniformed participants met in the Czech Republic to remember this historical event and all those who were present in 1805.

A first-hand account by one of the participants in the epoch shaping battle of Austerlitz, in December 1805. Accounted by many to be Napoleon's finest victory, this account is alleged to contain his own commentaries in the text by Major-General von Stutterheim. Von Stutterheim's text is balanced and free from bias despite being written by a serving member of the Austrian military. Added to the text are the notes of a "French officer," most likely to have been Napoleon himself, who dissects the decisions that he and his opponents took during the battle giving the book an insight into the mind of the world's greatest general.