Battle of Austerlitz

Background

In 1805 Britain, Austria, Russia and smaller states formed the Third Coalition against Napoleon, newly crowned Emperor of the French. Napoleon abandoned his planned invasion of Britain and marched the Grande Armée from the Channel coast to the Danube. In October he trapped and forced the surrender of an Austrian army at Ulm, then pursued the retreating Austrians and their Russian allies down the Danube, occupying Vienna in November.

That left the French deep in central Europe at the end of a long line of communication, with winter coming and Prussia weighing whether to join the Coalition. The Russian army under Kutuzov, joined by the remains of the Austrian forces, had fallen back into Moravia around Olmütz, where Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Francis I joined it. Napoleon needed a decisive battle before the Allies could combine further; Kutuzov favoured continuing the retreat, but the Tsar and his younger advisers wanted to fight.

Napoleon chose ground west of the small town of Austerlitz (now Slavkov u Brna), east of Brünn (Brno), and set out to make the Allies attack him there. When Francis offered an armistice on 27 November he accepted talks, and he ordered Soult to give up Austerlitz and the Pratzen plateau, the high ground in the centre of the field. He deliberately left his own right wing looking weak, inviting the Allies to come down off the heights and try to cut him off from Vienna. The Allies took the bait: they occupied the plateau and planned exactly that attack for 2 December, the first anniversary of Napoleon's coronation.

The armies

Napoleon had about 72,000 men and 157 guns on the field (published estimates run from 65,000 to 75,000). Soult's IV Corps, some 16,000 strong, held the centre and right, with Legrand's division strung thinly along the Goldbach stream; Lannes' V Corps and Murat's cavalry reserve held the north, anchored on the fortified Santon hill and its 18 guns; Bernadotte's I Corps and the Imperial Guard stood in reserve. Davout's III Corps was force-marched about 110 km from Vienna in 48 hours to stiffen the right, and part of it arrived only as the battle began. The French were well trained, experienced and confident in their corps system and their commanders.

The Allied army numbered about 85,000 (estimates 73,000–89,000), roughly 70% Russian, with about 318 guns. Alexander was effectively in charge; Kutuzov was nominal commander but in practice led the IV Column, and the plan was that of the Austrian chief of staff, Franz von Weyrother. Russian infantry was steadfast but many junior officers were undertrained; Austrian cavalry and artillery were good. The command was the weak point: a multinational staff, columns marching to a complicated written plan, and orders that reached some commanders late.

The battle

CDB90 records the battle as a single engagement, number 117 (AUSTERLITZ), from 08:00 to 17:00, and codes the Allies as the attacker. Times below are approximate; the Fondation Napoléon's timeline starts the fighting an hour earlier than CDB90.

The Allied attack on the French right (07:00–09:00). Weyrother's plan sent the bulk of the Allied army, in successive columns under Buxhoeveden's overall direction, down from the Pratzen plateau against the villages of Telnitz and Sokolnitz on the Goldbach. Kienmayer's advance guard attacked Telnitz first, held by the French 3rd Line and the Tirailleurs du Pô. Langeron's and Przybyszewski's columns followed against Sokolnitz. The French right was outnumbered, but Davout's first troops arrived and retook Telnitz, and Sokolnitz changed hands several times during the day. The Allied columns were delayed by fog, by the narrow village fighting and by Liechtenstein's cavalry crossing their line of march on its way to the northern flank.

The stroke on the Pratzen (about 08:30–11:00). From his command post on the Žuráň hill Napoleon waited while the Allied centre emptied. As the mist cleared, at about 08:45 by most accounts, he ordered Soult forward. Saint-Hilaire's division climbed the plateau towards Pratzen village and Vandamme's division attacked to the north towards the Staré Vinohrady heights. The surprise was considerable: the Allies had assumed the French were waiting below. Kutuzov's IV Column, Russians and Austrians under Miloradovich and Kollowrat, fought hard to hold the plateau, but within about half an hour to two hours of hard fighting Soult's divisions held the high ground and the Allied army was cut in two.

The Guards clash (late morning to early afternoon). Kutuzov, and then Grand Duke Constantine with the Russian Imperial Guard, counter-attacked to retake the heights. The Russian Guard drove back part of Vandamme's division before Napoleon sent in the heavy cavalry of his own Guard under Bessières. A large cavalry fight followed on the northern slopes of the plateau; it was decided in the French favour after Drouet's division of Bernadotte's corps came up with the Guard horse artillery. Napoleon then moved his headquarters forward to St Anthony's Chapel on the plateau.

The north (all day). Separately, Lannes and Murat fought Bagration and Liechtenstein's cavalry astride the Brünn–Olmütz road. After hard fighting Lannes drove Bagration back, but Bagration withdrew in good order; Murat opposed a pursuit and Napoleon called it off.

The destruction of the Allied left (about 13:00 to dusk). With the centre broken, Napoleon turned Soult's corps and the Guard south against the rear of the Allied columns still entangled at Telnitz and Sokolnitz, while Davout held them in front. Caught between the two, Buxhoeveden's wing broke. Thousands were captured around Sokolnitz and the villages behind it; other troops escaped south and east, some across the frozen ponds at Satschan and Měnín, which French artillery on the heights near Aujezd fired on. Some men and guns went through the ice. The Allied retreat became a rout in the afternoon, and the fighting died away at dusk.

Aftermath

The Allies lost about 15,000–16,000 killed and wounded and 12,000–20,000 captured, 27,000–36,000 in all, with about 186 guns and 45 standards. French losses were about 1,300–1,500 killed and some 7,000 wounded, roughly 9,000 in all.

Francis sought terms at once; a truce was signed on 4 December (the Fondation Napoléon gives 6 December for the armistice) and the Russians were allowed to march home. The Treaty of Pressburg on 26 December took Austria out of the war: it ceded territory in Italy and Germany and paid an indemnity of 40 million francs. In 1806 Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine and Francis dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia, which had hesitated to join the Coalition, went to war alone in 1806 and was crushed at Jena–Auerstedt.

Austerlitz became the model Napoleonic victory, ranked by historians with Cannae, and is central to Tolstoy's War and Peace. Its most famous detail is exaggerated. The story, which began with Napoleon's own account, has thousands drowning in the ponds as French guns broke the ice; modern estimates of the dead there run from about 200 to 2,000, and when the ponds were drained a few days later local records say only two or three bodies were found, with around 150 horses. Today the Cairn of Peace (1909–12) stands on the Pratzen plateau.

Wargaming it

Austerlitz is large but clearly shaped, which makes it one of the most gamed Napoleonic battles. The whole field, roughly 13 by 10 km, works at brigade or division level, one base or unit per brigade and turns of 30 minutes to an hour; a corps-level game can cover it in an evening. Its sectors also make good stand-alone games: battalion-level fights for Telnitz and Sokolnitz, the Pratzen assault, or Lannes against Bagration in the north.

The key terrain is the Pratzen plateau, with the Goldbach and its villages as the French line on the right, the Santon anchoring the left and the ponds closing the south. The defining mechanic is information. The battle depends on the Allies leaving the plateau, so umpired or hidden movement, fog limiting sight until about 09:00, and Allied orders that are fixed or slow to change all help. Davout's arrival should be variable.

The decisions are Napoleon's timing (strike too early and the Allied columns turn back; too late and his right breaks) and, for the Allied player, whether to commit fully to Weyrother's plan at all. Good what-ifs: the Allies keep a stronger reserve on the Pratzen; Davout arrives late; Kutuzov gets his way and the Allies refuse battle; Bagration presses harder in the north. A blind game in which the Allied player must write orders before the fog lifts recreates the day's problem well.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.