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Napoleon with his troops on the eve of battle. Painting by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune. Exactly a year to the day after Napoleon’s coronation as Emperor of France, the climactic battle of the 1805 campaign took place near Austerlitz in Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). It was the culmination of Napoleon’s first campaign as Emperor […]

Napoléon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard (Galerie des Batailles, Versailles) Allied (red) and French (blue) deployments at 1800 hours on 1 December 1805 The decisive attacks on the Allied center by St. Hilaire and Vandamme split the Allied army in two and left the French in a golden strategic position to win […]

For the Austrian army it was indeed a moment to reflect on what had gone wrong in Italy and which reforms of tactics were now necessary. The practices of Guibert, the callous breaking of the rules of ‘civilised’ warfare, required a response. The Archduke Charles began to apply his considerable intellectual talents to thinking about […]

Napoléon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard Between Brünn and Olmütz, where the allies were concentrating, Napoleon carefully reconnoitred the landscape and found, a few miles outside Brünn, the Pratzen plateau. He felt sure this would be where his troops would fight a great battle. At Olmütz meanwhile, Kutuzov was greeted by both […]