by Alan Schom
Back on October 11, Napoleon had ordered Murat, whom he put temporarily in tactical command, along with Ney’s and Lannes’s corps, more than fifty thousand men all told, to “march as closely together as possible...in order to crush the enemy,” specifically ordering them to cut off Kutuzov’s army before it could reach the Isar River. But in the midst of closing on Ulm — still led by Ney and Lannes under Murat’s command — Murat had ordered one of Ney’s three division’s, General Dupont’s, to be separated and left on the other side of the Danube. There Dupont and his four thousand men suddenly found themselves isolated and facing some twenty-five thousand Austrians. He courageously defended himself in a furious all-day battle at Albeck, before he was able to retreat to Brenz.[667] Napoleon had then ordered Murat and Ney to move north to come to Dupont’s rescue, and a fierce battle took place on October 14 at Elchingen, on the Danube. Ney in particular distinguished himself, recapturing a damaged bridge, supervising its repair under withering Austrian fire, and then successfully attacking and seizing Elchingen itself (for which he would one day be raised to the peerage as the duke of Elchingen). Thanks to this new bridgehead, that same day Murat had been able to cross the Danube with sufficient troops to a point near Albeck, where the fighting had resumed, arriving just in time to save Dupont’s much reduced division from destruction.
Reunited once again, they went on to take Ulm. Ney now furiously attacked Murat, calling him an incompetent commander who had needlessly endangered one-third of his corps. If words could kill, both Ney and Murat would have died many times over in that hot quarrel, until Napoleon personally intervened and separated them. The two men were no longer on speaking terms, or in much of a mood to cooperate in the field again. This was followed by grave, crippling quarrels between Bernadotte and both Chief of Staff Berthier and Marshal Davout.[668]
Perhaps the bitterest of all these disagreements developed later, during the Austerlitz campaign (as a result of Soult’s incompetence), between the cold, arrogant, emotionless Soult, with his annoying Catalan accent, and the hot-headed Lannes. At Brünn (now Brno) the good-hearted but emotional Lannes actually challenged Soult to a duel, which was prevented only by Napoleon’s intervention once again.[669] And at the conclusion of the campaign, Lannes was in turn bitterly to attack Napoleon for not recognizing his own important contribution to the ultimate success of that battle. Lannes was right; Napoleon had indeed failed to praise him, to give him his due in the Army Bulletin, as he frequently failed to do when others were concerned. Napoleon could not abide his commanders sharing the limelight. Later he and Lannes were to have an even more bitter disagreement, which would result in a permanent severing of private relations between the two men.
In other words, during this campaign all five of the principal French field marshals in or around Vienna, who would soon be crossing the Danube to confront the Russian army at the village of Austerlitz on the plains of Moravia, were already or were soon to become, such bitter personal enemies as to undermine their ability to work together on the battlefield against a foreign army. Nor were these enmities forgotten in future campaigns, resulting in near tragedy time and again.
And yet in the final analysis it was Napoleon’s long-festering anger with Murat — in which the fact that he had bedded Josephine rankled the most, magnified many times by his permitting Kutuzov to escape, which in turn broke the momentum of the entire campaign — that now came to the fore. Then, days later, as the French army advanced on Czar Alexander’s forces, Ney was in hot pursuit of Kutuzov, Prince Bagration holding Oberhollabrünn to protect Kutuzov’s retreat, Russian general Winzgerode suggested an armistice to Murat. Murat foolishly agreed, thereby permitting Kutuzov’s entire army not only to escape again but now to join forces with Czar Alexander — the very thing Napoleon had so desperately hoped to prevent. “I am at a complete loss for words!” Napoleon shouted at Murat on November 16. As commander of the advance guard Murat had no authority to sign any armistice. “Break the armistice instantly and attack the enemy! March! Destroy the Russian army!”[670] But by then it was too late, and Murat had compounded his original gaffe many times over. He had lost sight of his objective and his personal orders, and as a result Napoleon had in turn lost the initial advantage of this campaign, bringing him to a precarious tactical situation as French armies pushed through Brünn as far as Wischau on the road to Olmütz, where most of the combined Russian army (now including Kutuzov) regrouped, not fleeing from Napoleon but marching toward him.
By November 28, five full weeks after the fall of Ulm, Napoleon still had not confronted the Russian army, and the Grande Armée was far from looking or feeling quite so grand. Napoleon did not know what was wrong with Murat. In the past he had driven to his objective as instructed, often turning the fate of battles as a consequence. Now he seemed almost a hindrance, dragging his feet. But this was his first time in the field as a marshal and the first time since the bitter dispute over the succession to the imperial throne. Since the taking of Ulm he had been demonstrating an independence of action, a willfulness, that was contrary to the spirit and needs of this campaign, clearly demonstrating his unreliability as a corps commander.
Napoleon, too, was not his old self. Everything seemed to be going wrong, compounded by “disorders in the rear of the army” where thousands of troops had deserted and rampaged through conquered villages. “The Emperor is displeased,” Berthier had just informed the army. “Scoundrels are doing their utmost to dishonor the army,” and Napoleon had been compelled to create five mobile police columns, 150 men each, headed by a commission of four officers and a judge advocate to seize deserters and execute summary courts-martial on the spot, wherever such disorders were occurring. This was relatively minor, but still, things were getting out of hand, and Napoleon had to take strong action to halt mass desertion, including those fleeing hundreds of miles back across the Rhine. He ordered that all deserters were to be arrested, which only increased the large-scale demoralization that set in after Ulm.[671]
The most important objective, however, was still to meet with and destroy the enemy. On the morning of November 28 the Russo-Austrian army under Alexander I approached the French lines, as cavalry and infantry units of Bagration’s and General Kienmaier’s corps clashed with the French. Napoleon had broken off negotiations with the Austrians, as well as with the Prussian foreign minister, Count von Haugwitz, who had come there on that diplomatic mission, and now all returned empty-handed to Vienna.
At 9:00 P.M. that evening Napoleon and Duroc rode over to Murat’s headquarters at the Welspitz posting station on the Brünn-Olmütz Road, some two miles from Austerlitz. It was freezing, the earth as hard as rock, but at least it was not snowing. Napoleon stamped his feet and rubbed his delicate hands. He who found even the Tuileries cold in sweltering July, requiring a fire while others wore the lightest summer clothing, now walked directly over to the large Moravian stove around which he found Murat and Soult comfortably settled, with Lannes sitting nearby at a rough table, hastily completing a letter.
“Eh bien, messieurs, all going well here?” he asked, his eyes darting from one to the other as he hovered over the enamel stove. “We don’t think so,” Lannes said as he approached Napoleon, “and I was just writing to Your Majesty to tell you so.” He quickly read Lannes’s brief report, looking up with a mock-quizzical expression. Duroc remained discreetly near the door. “What’s this, Lannes advises retreat! It is the first time he has ever done such a thing. And you, Marshal Soult?” he said suddenly turning in his direction.
Lannes, who had in fact arrived just a few moments before Napoleon, had found Murat and Soult looking gloomy, both bent on a strategic withdrawal from an untenable position, greatly outnumbered by the combined Austro-Russian force before them. This was aggravated by the threat of Archduke Karl’s army (it alone was larger than Napoleon’s) still south of Vienna, still uncommitted, threatening to move in their direction. Then there was the growing Prussian threat, as Haugwitz had made only
too clear, should they mobilize in time against the French. Napoleon’s Grande Armée had gotten itself into a bind of menacing proportions.
Concurring with Murat and Soult, Lannes had thus drawn up this report based on a consensus of the three marshals. Addressing Soult again, Napoleon questioned him further. Soult, usually the most uncommitted, the most reserved, indeed, the shiftiest of Napoleon’s first batch of marshals, who had moments earlier fully agreed on the necessity of retreat, now balked. Spinning around to face him, an astonished Lannes lashed out, “Soult is making fools of us!” Tempers flared, the wily, imperturbable Soult remaining emotionless as all three men stared at him, tension in the room rising. “I, too, feel it is necessary to withdraw,” Napoleon finally said breaking the painful silence, mollifying slightly a betrayed Lannes and defusing the situation somewhat as the three marshals turned and left the room.[672]
In this room, which was warmer than the large drafty barn he was occupying a few miles away behind the Goldbach, Napoleon started dictating orders to Duroc — not for the withdrawal he had just indicated but for maneuvers of a different nature. In fact, precisely what Napoleon was thinking or planning still remains far from certain. As early as November 21 he had studied the ground between the villages of Austerlitz and Brünn, and at a point some five to six miles west of Austerlitz, on the Brunn-Olmütz Road, he had found a position where he said he wished to lay a trap for the advancing Allied army, the main line of these new positions lying behind the steep banks of the Goldbach.[673]
Although it was later suggested that Napoleon was absolutely set on “luring” the Russians here, the fact is that Napoleon himself had probably been wavering for more than a week as to the choice of actions to take. With only Lannes’s, Soult’s, and Murat’s corps as well as Bessières’s Imperial Guard present, Napoleon could not hope to defeat the mighty force being led by the czar himself, which outnumbered and outgunned them. He therefore sent urgent orders to Bernadotte and his remaining 10,500 men, and to Davout, more than eighty miles away with his reduced corps of just 16,300 men, to march from Vienna to join him there as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile Napoleon ordered what remained of his Grande Armée to take up positions in a north-south line along the west side of the Goldbach, with his left flank manned by Lannes’s 19,200 men, to dig in straddling the Brünn-Olmütz Road at Santon Hill, where they placed most of their artillery, with a screen of Murat’s cavalry before them barring the road. Soult’s larger corps of 23,600 men was spread across the center and right flank, with the strongest concentration between Kobeneitz Pond and Lannes’s corps. The last of his men stretched out in a very thin line southward, extending Napoleon’s right flank to the hamlet of Telnitz and Satschan Pond. Napoleon’s entire line remained to the west of the Goldbach and following its course. Behind Lannes stood only 5,500 men of the depleted Imperial Guard.
Despite his later boasting, Napoleon had only about 57,000 men, little artillery (139 guns) and cavalry (fewer than 8,000) to oppose 85,700 men now approaching with 278 cannon and a cavalry that outnumbered their own three to one. If the Allies had struck now, on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, Napoleon probably would have been destroyed or sent falling back quickly in disarray to Vienna. But the Russians were slow and cautious, as usual, and Archduke Karl foolishly failed to close in behind Napoleon and catch the French army between his own superior Austrian force and the czar’s, now approaching from the east. Napoleon’s famous luck was holding, saving him from almost inevitable destruction. Then Bernadotte’s corps finally arrived, bringing the French force up to 67,500, but still leaving them in a greatly inferior position.
As part of his alleged “entrapment” project, Napoleon had made the extremely risky decision to leave the long stretch of the Pratzen Heights, hundreds of feet above and before him across the Goldbach, completely unmanned and undefended, in order to entice the Russians into battle there. This is what Napoleon claimed afterward, but in reality he probably did so because he didn’t have sufficient manpower or materiel to hold it properly — which would have required at least an additional 40,000 men with equivalent additional artillery.
Still, the archduke failed to advance from behind and sever Napoleon’s link with Vienna, and it was only on December 1 that the Russians arrived at Austerlitz, Napoleon now only awaiting Davout’s corps, which was expected to arrive during the night.
The Austro-Russian force was formidable, including Bagration’s corps of 13,700 deploying across the Brünn-Olmütz Road facing Lannes, Liechtenstein’s, and Buxhöwden’s combined force of 59,000 men manning the Pratzen Heights facing Soult, supported behind them to their right by Kollowrat’s corps of 16,200 men and Grand Duke Constantine’s reserve corps of 10,500 men. Soult’s corps alone, 23,600 men, were facing 59,000, including very heavy concentrations around the two weakest points of Soult’s line — the center and right flank — where he was hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.
Napoleon still claimed it was all a trap. He had reinforced his left flank to discourage a major attack there, while leaving Soult’s center and right deliberately uncovered to encourage a flanking movement there by the Russians. To make such a move, however, the Allies would have to remove most of their 59,000 men from the Pratzen Heights to complete the swing around and envelopment of Soult, as the rest of their force simultaneously attacked Lannes. Napoleon’s apparent plan was then to drive through the emptied center to seize the Pratzen Heights, and swing round Liechtenstein’s and Buxhöwden’s enveloping force with Soult’s and Davout’s corps. To what extent this was another case of rationalization after the fact is not clear. Napoleon’s real risk remained in the event the Allies did not oblige him by swinging all their troops around his right flank but instead drove right through Soult’s thinned center, dividing the entire French army into two separate sections, which could then have been captured or destroyed.
On the eve of battle Napoleon made the rounds of all front-line troops who, in their great enthusiasm, lit hundreds of straw and pine torches, tens of thousands cheering, “Vive l’Empereur!” over and over again, their voices carrying across the few hundred yards separating the French and Allied positions. A heavy wintry ground fog set in as Napoleon finally retired in the wee hours of the morning.
At the crack of dawn, the dense fog still concealed French positions as 278 Russian and Austrian big guns suddenly opened fire on them. In theory Allied orders came from Czar Alexander and Emperor Franz at their joint headquarters in the village of Krzenowitz. But it was the Austrian chief of staff, Weirother, who presented the battle plan to the senior commanders at 1:00 A.M. on December 2 — a meeting through which Kutuzov allegedly peacefully slept. Weirother it seems was determined to oblige Napoleon and the trap set with Soult’s weakened right flank. When Kutuzov, who disagreed with the Austrian strategist, was overruled, he went back to sleep.
By eight o’clock in the morning the Russians and Prussians were hitting Soult’s division round Telnitz very hard, forcing the French to withdraw from that hamlet. With Davout’s troops from Vienna finally in place, the French would soon order a counterattack, fighting continuing at Telnitz and Sokolnitz throughout the morning.
As the ground fog lifted at about eight o’clock, it revealed the dramatic depletion of Austro-Russian troops along the Pratzen Heights, as they moved in a massive formation against the seemingly weak French right wing. Napoleon immediately ordered part of Soult’s corps to occupy those same heights.
It was only as Kutuzov and Miloradovich, leading the southern Allied corps sweeping around the French right flank, began their all-out attack around Telnitz and Sokolnitz that they saw the error of their ways in having abandoned the Pratzen Heights, but by then it was too late.
Bernadotte, supporting Soult’s attack, came under very heavy fire from the Russian Imperial Guard, while to the far left, Lannes, who had been heavily engaged from the start, proved too much for General Bagration’s 13,700 men. By noon Lannes, with the support of Murat’s cav
alry, completely isolated Bagration’s entire force from the rest of the Allied army, as they fell back up the road toward Olmütz. Also by noon, most of the heavy fighting by the remaining Allied forces had been brought well under control by Soult’s troops, especially by the hard-fighting division under the ever valiant General Vandamme, giving the French center control over the crucial Pratzen Heights. As for the whereabouts of Marshal Soult himself throughout the day’s fighting, he was nowhere to be seen, having retired to a safer refuge “because of eye trouble.” (He always had interesting excuses for his cowardice.)
By two o’clock Lannes’s corps, along with Murat’s cavalry, were pursuing Bagration’s division toward Haussnitz, while Bernadotte’s I Corps, which had replaced Soult’s IV Corps (now along the right flank) had pushed past the vacant and now secured Pratzen Heights in hot pursuit of Liechtenstein’s and part of Archduke Constantine’s and Kollowrat’s units, which were falling back in panicked flight on the village of Austerlitz.
By this same time, therefore, with the Pratzen Heights swept clean of Allied troops, the real drama concentrated on Napoleon’s extreme right flank, where “the Russians were no longer fighting to win a victory, but to save their very lives,” as General Thiébault put it.[674] Soult’s entire corps had swung completely away from the center to the south of Kobelnitz, concentrated between the hamlet of Sokolnitz and the Chapel of Saint Anthony, against Buxhöwden’s corps, while from the west, Davout’s smaller III Corps enveloped Buxhöwden’s bewildered troops in a magnificent crescent, enforced on the other end by Bessières’s Imperial Guard, forcing Doctorov’s infantry division and Kienmaier’s cavalry to flee south of Telnitz, through the frozen swampland, across the equally frozen Salschon and Meunitz Ponds. Although Vandamme did find himself under very heavy pressure for a while, as fifteen squadrons of the elite Russian Imperial Guard nearly overwhelmed him, the splendid Vandamme — “a man of Kléber’s stature” — held off until Bessiere’s cavalry, along with Drouet’s division, reached him, thereby tightening the closing crescent on the Allies. Napoleon, whose headquarters were in the center of the fighting, foiled an attempted cavalry maneuver by the Russian Imperial Guard by sending in the dependable Rapp with a couple of squadrons of chasseurs of the French Imperial Guard, as well as the Mamelukes, crushing the elite Russian cavalry.