IN AUGUST 1805, Napoleon abandoned his plans for the invasion of Britain and diverted his army to the Danube Valley to confront Austrian and Russian forces in a bid for control of central Europe. The campaign culminated with the Battle of Austerlitz, regarded by many as Napoleon’s greatest triumph, whose far-reaching effects paved the way for French hegemony on the Continent for the next decade. In this concise volume, acclaimed military historian Gregory Fremont-Barnes uses detailed profiles to explore the leaders, tactics and weaponry of the clashing French, Austrian and Russian forces. Packed with fact boxes, maps and more, Napoleon’s Greatest Triumph is the perfect way to explore this important battle and the rise of Napoleon’s reputation as a supreme military leader.
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.
A London Sunday Times Book of the Year A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year Alistair Horne explores the theme of military success and failure in How Far From Austerlitz? chronicling Napoleon's rise and fall, drawing parallels with other great leaders of the modern era. The Battle of Austerlitz was Napoleon's greatest victory, the culmination of one of the greatest military campaigns of all time. It was also the last battle the "Father of Modern Warfare" would leave in absolute triumph, for, though he did not know it, Austerlitz marked the beginning of Napoleon's downfall. His triumph was too complete and his conquest too brutal to last. Like Hitler, he came to believe he was invincible, that no force could halt his bloody march across Europe. Like Hitler, he paid dearly for his hubris, climaxing in bitter defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In a matter of years, he had fallen from grace.
In this authoritative and beautifully illustrated new account of Napoleon's greatest victory and the campaign that preceded it, Ian Castle sheds new light on the actions of the commanders and questions the assumptions—and explores the myths—that have shaped our understanding of the event ever since. His account follows every twist and turn of a war that was fought out across central Europe two centuries ago. In particular he reconstructs the course of the action in every sector of the Austerlitz battlefield, using French, Austrian and Russian records, and re-evaluates the place of the battle in the history and mythology of the Napoleonic era.
A leading expert examines one of Napoleon's most decisive but least analysed victories In early July 1809 Napoleon crossed the Danube with 187,000 men to confront the Austrian Archduke Charles and an army of 145,000 men. The fighting that followed dwarfed in intensity and scale any previous Napoleonic battlefield, perhaps any in history: casualties on each side were over 30,000. The Austrians fought with great determination, but eventually the Emperor won a narrow victory. Wagram was decisive in that it compelled Austria to make peace. It also heralded a new, altogether greater order of warfare, anticipating the massed manpower and weight of fire deployed much later in the battles of the American Civil War and then at Verdun and on the Somme.
Presenting a significant new interpretation of Napoleonic warfare, Robert M. Epstein argues persuasively that the true origins of modern war can be found in the Franco-Austrian War of 1809. Epstein contends that the 1809 war -- with its massive and evenly matched armies, multiple theaters of operation, new command-and-control schemes, increased firepower, frequent stalemates, and large-scale slaughter -- had more in common with the American Civil War and subsequent conflicts that with the decisive Napoleonic campaigns that preceded it. - Jacket flap.
In August 1793 of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), Republican France teetered on the brink of collapse. On every front her enemies' armies swept forward across her borders – the very survival of the Revolution itself was at stake. In Toulon, the strategically vital home port of France's Mediterranean fleet, a coup had overthrown the Republican government and handed over the city to the blockading British navy. In this, perhaps her darkest hour, France's saviour was at hand in the shape of a Captain of Artillery whose name all Europe would soon know - Napoleon Bonaparte. This title describes the Republican victory at Toulon that not only saved the Revolution but also saw the young Napoleon Bonaparte begin his meteoric rise to power.
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.
