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Nov 7, 2021 · Troops of the 185th Infantry, 40th Division, advance toward Japanese positions on Panay Island, Philippines, March 1945. In the Pacific theater during World War II, the American land war was ...
- Overview
- Formation of the Third Coalition and Trafalgar
- The Austrian campaign and the Battle of Austerlitz
- Maneuvers in Bavaria and the Battle of Ulm
- Austerlitz: Napoleon’s greatest victory
- Casualties and significance of Austerlitz
The Battle of Austerlitz, which occurred in 1805, was the first engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon’s most significant victories. His 68,000 troops defeated 90,000 Russians and Austrians under General M.I. Kutuzov, forcing Austria to make peace with France and keeping Prussia temporarily out of the anti-French alliance.
Which armies fought in the Battle of Austerlitz?
The French army of Napoleon I fought the Battle of Austerlitz against a Russian and Austrian army under the command of General M.I. Kutuzov.
How many casualties occurred in the Battle of Austerlitz?
The French army had some 9,000 casualties in the Battle of Austerlitz, while Russian and Austrian allied forces had about 15,000 casualties. In addition, about 11,000 Russian and Austrian troops were captured.
Battle of Austerlitz, (December 2, 1805), the first engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon’s greatest victories. The battle took place at Austerlitz in Moravia (now Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic). Napoleon’s 68,000 troops defeated almost 90,000 Russians and Austrians nominally under Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov, forcing Austria to make peace with France (Treaty of Pressburg) and keeping Prussia temporarily out of the anti-French alliance.
From 1803 to 1805 Napoleon was the master of Europe, and he had only the British to fight. France could hope for total victory only by landing an army in the British Isles, while the British could defeat Napoleon only by forming a continental alliance against him. Napoleon began to prepare an invasion: he gathered nearly 2,000 ships between Brest and Antwerp and concentrated his Grande Armée at Boulogne (1803). To cross the Channel, however, the French had to have control of the sea. Still far inferior to the British navy, the French fleet needed the help of the Spanish, and even then the two fleets together could not hope to defeat more than one of the British squadrons. Spain was induced to declare war on Great Britain in December 1804, and it was decided that French and Spanish squadrons, massed in the Antilles, should lure a British fleet into these waters and defeat it. This would make the balance roughly equal between the Franco-Spanish navy and the British: a battle in the entrance to the Channel could then be engaged with some chance of success.
Napoleonic Wars Events
Battle of Lodi
May 10, 1796
Battle of the Pyramids
July 21, 1798
Although Trafalgar spelled an end to France’s naval ambitions, the War of the Third Coalition would be a resounding success for Napoleon. To some degree, Napoleon’s campaign against Austria may be regarded as a measure of self-defense forced upon him by the formation of the anti-French alliance. The possibility of it had long been before the empero...
The Austrians were not standing idle, and the outbreak of the campaign of 1805 was hastened by Vienna’s desire to feed its own army and leave a bare country for Napoleon by securing the resources of Bavaria. It was also hoped that the Bavarians, with their army of 25,000 men, would join the allies. In the latter hope they were frustrated, and the Bavarians under Karl Philipp, prince von Wrede, slipped away to Würzburg. In the former, however, they were successful, and the destitution they left in their wake almost wrecked Napoleon’s objectives. Austrian commander Karl Mack’s march to Ulm was therefore a necessity of the situation. His continuance in this exposed position, if ill-advised against an adversary such as Napoleon, was at any rate the outcome of Mack’s resolve that even if beaten, he would inflict crippling losses upon the French. Mack knew that the Russians would be late to arrive at a planned rendezvous near Passau, at the confluence of the Inn and the Danube. By constructing an entrenched camp at Ulm and concentrating all the available food within it, he expected Napoleon to invest and besiege him. He anticipated that in the devastated country his adversary would be compelled to separate and thus fall an easy prey to the 100,000-strong Russian army that had been pledged to assist him. For that blow Mack had determined to make his own army the anvil, but this plan would not come to fruition.
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Napoleon’s first orders had directed the French forces in Hanover to Würzburg, Auguste-Frédéric-Louis Viesse de Marmont’s corps in Holland to Mainz, and the Grande Armée to lower Alsace. When Napoleon learned that Mack was in the Black Forest, he swung his own army to its left, began crossing the Rhine on September 25, and passed through Württemberg and Franconia in columns which converged on Mack’s rear. Mack, who was still at Ulm, awoke too late to his danger. Napoleon’s forces began crossing the Danube around Donauwörth, 50 miles (80 km) downstream from Ulm, on October 7, 1805. Uncertain of the Austrians’ latest positions, Napoleon now extended his front along the Lech River, detaching one corps toward Munich to contain the Russians should they appear. Despite bad weather, shortage of supplies, and clumsiness on the part of some of Napoleon’s subordinates in the course of Mack’s encirclement, the Battle of Ulm was a spectacular French victory. Some 8,000 Austrians under Franz von Werneck surrendered near Heidenheim on October 19, and the bulk of Mack’s army was taken prisoner at or soon after his capitulation at Ulm, concluded on October 20. So vigorous was the pursuit of the escaping Austrians that only one division was able to join the Russians under Mikhail Kutuzov, who reached the rendezvous point at the Inn in mid-October with fewer than 40,000 men and who now retired as Napoleon advanced. Leaving Michel Ney to drive the archduke John from Tirol, Napoleon entered Vienna on November 13. The archduke Charles, who had been campaigning against Marshal André Masséna in Italy, was recalled to Austria but came too late to defend Vienna and withdrew into Hungary.
Napoleon’s position soon became critical, demanding an early victory if he was not to be overwhelmed. A second Russian army had joined Kutuzov and the Austrians at Olmütz (Olomouc), making the force there 90,000 strong, and the French right flank was menaced by the approach of the Austrian archduke Charles with 80,000 men. Prompt success was necess...
The allies lost 15,000 troops who were killed or wounded and 11,000 who were captured, while Napoleon lost 9,000. The remnants of the allied army were scattered, and they abandoned more than 130 guns on the field. The French victory at Austerlitz was Napoleon’s masterpiece. It dramatically reversed his militarily and politically dangerous situation...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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By the time George Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 3rd, the British had also seized Bunker and Breed's Hills. Washington set about transforming his untrained force of farmers and private citizens into an effective fighting force. In November 1775, Henry Knox arrived at Washington's camp bringing cannons captured at Fort ...
Jun 8, 2017 · Battle of Forum Gallorum. Northern Italy, Italy. The Battle of Forum Gallorum was fought near a village in northern Italy, on April 14, 43 BC, between the forces of Mark Antony and the legions of the Roman Republic under the overall command of consul Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus, aided by Aulus Hirtius and the untested Octavian.
- Reference
- Harry Atkins
- Battle of the Pyramids (21 July 1798) This battle actually took place five years before the Napoleonic Wars are generally considered to have started but it was one of the fights that would set the stage for Napoleon’s confrontations against various coalitions of nations between 1803 and 1815.
- Battle of Marengo (14 June 1800) A narrow and hard fought victory, the Battle of Marengo occurred during the War of the Second Coalition — a precursor to the coalitions that France would fight in the later Napoleonic Wars.
- Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) This famous naval battle took place at Cape Trafalgar off the south-western coast of Spain, between the British Royal Navy, led by Admiral Lord Nelson, and the fleets of France and Spain.
- Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805) Perhaps the most significant and decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars, Austerlitz ranks as one of Napoleon’s greatest victories.
Nov 10, 2020 · Georges Scott/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain. France: June 1 to June 26, 1918. The Battle of Belleau Wood, one of the most brutal battles fought by American forces in World War I, saw US Marines ...
Battle of Antietam, a decisive engagement on September 17, 1862, in the American Civil War that halted the Confederate invasion of Maryland. President Abraham Lincoln used the costly Union victory as an opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
