1805 Austerlitz

Napoleon and the Destruction of the Third Coalition

Robert Goetz

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781473894235
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Napoleonische Kriege

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.

Chapter 1
Formation of the Third Coalition and the Opening Phase of the War

Soldiers, the war of the third coalition has started. The Austrian Army has crossed the Inn, violated the treaties, attacked and chased our ally from its capital . . . Even you had to rush in forced marches to the defence of our frontiers.

But already you have crossed the Rhine: we will not stop until we have ensured the independence of the Germanic corps, assisted our allies, and confounded the pride of the unjust aggressors.

We will never make peace without guarantee: our generosity will never again deceive our politics.

Soldiers, your Emperor is in your midst. You are only the advance guard of the great People; if it is necessary, all of it will rise up on hearing my voice to confound and dissolve this new league woven by the hatred and the gold of England.

But, soldiers, we have forced marches to do, some fatigues and privations of all kinds to endure; no matter what obstacles oppose us, we will vanquish them, and we will not rest until we have planted our eagles on the territory of the enemy.*

With these stirring words, Napoleon announced the start of a new war to the newly formed Grande Armée, the largest single army that had ever been fielded by France. Only six weeks earlier the Grande Armée had not even existed. From separate camps, stretching from Brest to Hanover, nearly 200,000 men had been brought together under Napoleon’s personal command. Over 165,000 of them had already crossed the Rhine on their way to engage the Austrian Army in Bavaria by the time Napoleon issued his proclamation from his headquarters at Strasbourg on 1 October. The War of the Third Coalition, as Napoleon named it, would last barely three months during which time the Grande Armée would astonish the world with an unprecedented string of victories culminating in the Battle of Austerlitz.

The Failure of the Peace of Amiens

The outbreak of war in 1805 was the culmination of three years of escalating tensions between France and the other European powers since the signing of the Treaty of Amiens (25 March 1802) had brought peace to Europe. France and Great Britain had been at war continuously for nearly a decade from February 1793 until the signing of the Treaty of Amiens. While the various continental powers had made peace with France at various times, either willingly or unwillingly, the conclusion of the treaty meant that all of Europe was finally at peace. The terms of the treaty were remarkably generous for France. France would retain all of its continental gains, including the former Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), the Rhineland, Nice and Savoy. France’s only concessions would be to withdraw its forces from the three satellite republics (the Batavian, Helvetic and Italian republics) and the Neapolitan ports, effectively a withdrawal of French troops from foreign soil. Britain, on the other hand, would relinquish nearly all of its territorial gains, including Malta, Minorca, Elba, and the French Antilles and withdraw all forces from Egypt, which had just been retaken from the French. Only Trinidad (formerly Spanish) and Ceylon (formerly Dutch) would be retained. While Britain stopped short of meeting Napoleon’s demand for recognition of the three French satellite republics, the British also failed to demand any indemnities for the deposed Prince of Orange or compensation for the King of Sardinia, dispossessed of his mainland possessions. In short, Napoleon had secured full acceptance of the expansion of France to the Rhine and of France’s dominant position in northern Italy and had regained French colonial territories, while the British had fully relinquished their enhanced influence in the Mediterranean in exchange for Trinidad and Ceylon.

In both Britain and France, a war-weary public joyously welcomed the Treaty of Amiens. Beyond the obvious relief from military obligations, peace promised to be good for business on both sides of the Channel. While at war with Britain, France had closed its own ports, as well as the ports of its satellite states and occupied territories, to British goods. With peace restored, French merchant shipping could resume overseas trade while in Britain there was a general expectation that peace would open new markets in France, Italy and the Low Countries to British merchants. British trade had profited from British domination of the seas during the wars of the previous decade, but it was hoped that the restoration of continental trade would more than compensate for some loss of Atlantic and Mediterranean business to French shipping. Over the next twelve months, however, the illusion of peace would be shattered as both sides sought to turn the treaty to their own advantage.

In the end, Britain quickly became frustrated at Napoleon’s refusal to open French-controlled ports to British trade and in the autumn of 1802 grew concerned over the strengthening of French control over Italy with the French annexation of Elba (August), Piedmont (September) and Parma (October). In addition, reports of the intelligence activities of Colonel Sebastiani, travelling to Egypt, Syria and Corfu, produced concerns of renewed French designs for conquest in the eastern Mediterranean. These concerns reached a peak when excerpts from Sebastiani’s report were published in the French newspaper Le Moniteur, including the statement that “six thousand men would suffice to reconquer Egypt.”* News that General Decaen had been sent to India in March 1803 raised fears that Napoleon intended to stir up opposition to Britain there. Another French agent was reported to be making contacts in Muscat. In the north, Napoleon refused to withdraw French forces from the Batavian Republic until the British withdrew from Malta, despite repeated demands of the Dutch leader Rutger Schimmelpenninck that Napoleon do so immediately. With serious concerns over French intentions, along with misgivings at having given away too much at Amiens, the British government felt justified in delaying its own withdrawal from Malta indefinitely, even though Napoleon had done nothing to violate the terms of the treaty explicitly.

Napoleon was justifiably outraged over British refusal to relinquish Malta according to the terms of the treaty, though he steadfastly refused to recognize the role his own actions had played in generating suspicion as to his motives. By the end of March 1803 Napoleon had resolved upon a show of force designed to intimidate Britain into handing over Malta in compliance with the terms of Amiens. He ordered the formation of an army at Nijmegen that would be poised to invade Hanover, the hereditary territory of the British king. On 15 April, General Mortier was placed in command of this army. Plainly Napoleon would have preferred Britain to back down and relinquish Malta. However, he looked upon war as an opportunity. “A first consul,” he stated, “cannot be likened to these kings-by-the-grace-of-God, who look upon their States as a heritage . . . His actions must be dramatic, and for this war is indispensable.”†

With the mobilization of Mortier’s Army of Hanover, the gauntlet had been hurled down and the British were quick to pick it up. On 16 May, Parliament declared an embargo of France and French-controlled ports. Two days later, a British frigate seized a French vessel after a brief exchange of fire under the terms of the blockade, the first overtly hostile act of the new war. On 20 May Napoleon declared that Britain had broken the peace, on the 22nd he ordered the arrest of all British citizens in France, and on the 23rd General Mortier marched into Hanover at the head of 12,000 men.

At the time that Anglo-French hostilities resumed in May 1803, the British had little support on the continent. Austria, still recovering militarily and economically from two losing wars with France, had little interest in renewing the struggle. Prussia expressed more concern over the closing of Hanoverian ports to British commerce, which produced serious economic repercussions across northern Germany, than over the French occupation of Hanover itself. In Russia, Tsar Alexander fancied himself as the logical mediator between the two traditional enemies, a position that Napoleon had previously encouraged, and in the summer of 1803 he instructed his ambassador in Paris to present a proposal for Russian occupation of Malta as a compromise position. At the same time, Alexander sent several frigates to Corfu, where Russia maintained a small garrison (with the full approval of Napoleon) to discourage any French seizure of Corfu and to be prepared for the occupation of Malta should Napoleon accept his proposal. By the summer of 1803, despite what one eminent French historian termed “smoldering hostility” against France, continental Europe remained unwilling to become involved in the latest Anglo-French conflict. The events of the next twenty-four months, however, would generate determined opposition to France and enable the formation of the Third Coalition.

The Formation of the Third Coalition

Following the resumption of war between France and Britain, Russia and Prussia first sought to reach agreements with France. Alexander’s offer of mediation, presented to Napoleon in July 1803, fell on deaf ears. The Russian ambassador in Paris, Markov, was known to be pro-British and Napoleon thought he perceived an Anglo-Russian plot designed to entrap him, but in fact Alexander’s attempts at mediation had strained relations with the British, who had expected Russian support. Nevertheless, in August Napoleon demanded the recall of Markov and in the summer of 1803 he ordered the reoccupation of the Neapolitan ports. These actions triggered an immediate response in St Petersburg in the form of assurances of support for the Bourbon rulers of Naples and orders for additional land and naval forces to bolster the defense of the Ionian Islands. At the same time, the Francophiles in the Russian court had been discredited and Anglophile ministers gained influence with Alexander, leading to tentative discussions of an alliance with Britain on the one hand, and renewed British offers of subsidies for Russian land forces committed to the struggle against France on the other.

Prussia had opened negotiations with Napoleon in June 1803, offering a guarantee of Prussian neutrality if France agreed to reopen Hanoverian ports. Napoleon refused this offer and instead demanded that Prussia become an active ally of France in exchange for reopening the ports. Negotiations continued in a desultory fashion until finally being abandoned in April 1804. Immediately following the abandonment of negotiations with France, Prussia began working out a defensive alliance with Russia.

For Austria, it seemed that no amount of persuasion could budge the country from its determined position of neutrality. Between September 1803 and January 1804, the Austrians snubbed Russian offers of a defensive alliance guaranteeing the support of 100,000 Russians in the event of war with France. Francis II,* Holy Roman Emperor and hereditary ruler of Austria and the sprawling Habsburg dominions, even went so far as to declare that “France has done nothing to me.” In March 1804, however, an event would occur that would fan the smoldering hostility of the continental powers into flames of open opposition.

Throughout 1803 and into 1804, various conspirators had plotted against Napoleon. Their conspiracies drew in royalists and disaffected republican generals who wanted to see Bonaparte removed from power, either through a coup or by assassination. Napoleon’s secret police learned of several of the plots and arrested suspects for questioning, collecting enough information to locate and arrest a former leader of a royalist rebellion in the 1790s, Georges Cadoudal, and a former hero of the revolutionary armies, General Pichegru. Other prisoners, after being subjected to torture, implicated General Moreau and revealed that a prince would soon arrive in France to head the plot to overthrow Napoleon. Soon after, an informant passed on information indicating that a Bourbon prince, the Duc d’Enghien, was living at Ettenheim in Baden, a short distance from Strasbourg. In addition, the informant claimed that other émigrés had assembled at Offenburg.

Although the evidence against the Duc d’Enghien relied on vague information extracted from prisoners under torture, Napoleon resolved to take decisive action against the forces conspiring against him. On 14 March 1804, a party of French cavalry launched a raid into Baden, scouring Offenburg and seizing the Duc d’Enghien at Ettenheim. Although no émigrés were found at Offenburg, calling into question the reliability of the informant, papers were found at Ettenheim that proved that the Duc d’Enghien was in the pay of Britain. In legal terms, this could not be considered a crime outside of the borders of France, but Enghien had served in an émigré army against the French republic in the past wars, and a law passed during the Terror had required that all such individuals be brought to trial no matter where they lived. The evidence was sufficient to convince the French officers conducting the raid to bring him back to France for trial. After spending five days in prison, the duke was brought before a tribunal and shot three hours later, despite the fact that the tribunal had not felt the case against him to be very strong. Over the next several months, additional conspirators were arrested. Some were tried and executed, while General Pichegru mysteriously died in his cell before trial, reportedly by his own hand.

News of the execution of the Duc d’Enghien reverberated throughout Europe. The King of Sweden, the unstable Gustav IV Adolf, immediately severed ties with France. The other powers expressed their outrage at the French raid into a neutral country, the arrest (or kidnapping) based on scanty evidence, and the execution based on the mockery of a trial. The duke’s possible complicity in the plot to assassinate Napoleon notwithstanding, the methods used in his seizure and execution outraged the rest of Europe and belied French claims of the moral superiority of their republican institutions over the corruption of monarchical Europe. Even Napoleon’s disdainful references to the hypocrisy of Russian regicides, aimed directly at Alexander who had rewarded a number of his father’s assassins with high positions, could not deflect the public outcry at the seizure and rapid nocturnal execution of the last surviving member of one of the oldest families of the French aristocracy.

From the spring of 1803 to the spring of 1804, Anglo-Russian cooperation had been limited to pursuing a common policy of containment of any French attempts to expand in the Mediterranean. This cooperation formed the nucleus around which the Third Coalition would form. Prime Minister Addington, his popularity plummeting due to what was perceived as his weak handling of the war effort, resigned in April 1804 and was replaced by William Pitt the Younger. Pitt, the architect of the prior coalitions against France, immediately began working toward uniting the divided continental powers. However, despite the fresh hostility whipped up by the execution of the Duc d’Enghien, n...