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#OTD 215 yrs ago, exactly one year after his coronation as Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte won perhaps his greatest battle when he annihilated a combined Austrian & Russian army at Austerlitz & effectively ended the War of the Third Coalition.
Thread follows.
Thread follows.
Napoleon, outnumbered, needed a decisive victory. “Soldats, il faut finir cette campagne par un coup de tonnerre!” he told his men. He planned to bait the allies into attacking his deliberately weakened right flank while he smashed their center on the Pratzen Heights.
The allies took Napoleon’s bait. Despite fog & wooded, swampy terrain, the allies moved down from Pratzen to attack Friant’s Corps anchoring the French extreme right at Sokolnitz Castle.
As the allies pressed their attacks on the French right, Friant's men - who arrived by forced march - struggled to hold on. French Marshal Davout sent reinforcements in the nick of time to save Friant (and the flank) from collapse.
Meanwhile, on the French left, Napoleon ordered Marshal Lannes’ Corp & Marshal Murat’s cavalry to prevent the Austrian Prince of Lichtenstein's cavalry from supporting the allied attacks on the French right or reinforcing the allied center. Brutal cavalry skirmishes followed.
The fog lifted & the French hammer blow fell. Napoleon gave the order and Marshal Soult sent two divisions to seize the Pratzen Heights. Kutuzov's Russian forces holding the heights were overwhelmed. It should be noted that Kutuzov opposed the allied war plan, but was ignored.
The Pratzen Heights taken, French forces under Soult & Bernadotte (later King of Sweden) rolled up the Austro-Russian rear as allied forces floundered in the ponds and woods of the Goldbach Valley below.
La victoire en chantant!
Nous ouvre la barrière!
La Liberté guide nos pas!
La victoire en chantant!
Nous ouvre la barrière!
La Liberté guide nos pas!
Austerlitz was Napoleon's masterpiece. Prussia, seemingly on the verge of joining the allies against him, demured & accepted his terms. Additional concessions from Austria followed and Czar Alexander was humiliated. Napoleon was de facto master of continental Europe.
