Napoleon the Great

by Andrew Roberts

  Thiébault recalled some of the banter that night. At one point Napoleon promised that if the battle went badly he would expose himself to wherever the danger was greatest, whereupon a soldier from the 28th Line called out, ‘We promise you’ll only have to fight with your eyes tomorrow!’ When he asked the 46th and 57th demi-brigades if their supply of cartridges was adequate, a soldier replied, ‘No, but the Russians taught us in the Grisons [a canton of Switzerland] that only bayonets were needed for them. We’ll show you tomorrow!’109 Thiébault added that the men also ‘danced a farandole* and shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” ’110

  At 4 a.m. on Monday, December 2, 1805, the French troops were moved into their initial positions on the battlefield of Austerlitz, largely unobserved because the lower ground was shrouded in a thick mist that continued to confuse the Allied high command about Napoleon’s intentions through the early hours of the battle. ‘Our divisions were silently assembling in the bright and bitterly cold night,’ recalled Thiébault. ‘In order to mislead the enemy, they made up the fires which they were leaving.’111

  Napoleon had been reconnoitring since long before daybreak, and at 6 a.m. he called marshals Murat, Bernadotte, Bessières, Berthier, Lannes and Soult, as well as several divisional commanders including General Nicolas Oudinot, to his field headquarters on a small hillock on the centre-left of the battlefield called the Žuránˇ, which was later to give him a superb view towards what was to become the centre of the battle at the Pratzen heights, but from where he couldn’t see the villages of Sokolnitz and Tellnitz where much of the early fighting took place. The conference continued till 7.30 a.m., when Napoleon was certain that everyone understood precisely what was required of them.

  Napoleon’s plan was to keep his right flank weak to draw the enemy into an attack in the south, yet to have it well protected by Davout’s approaching corps, while the left flank in the north was held by Lannes’ infantry and Murat’s cavalry reserve at the Santon, on which he placed eighteen cannon. General Claude Legrand’s 3rd Division of Soult’s corps would hold up the Austrian attack in the centre, while Bernadotte’s corps – which was moved from the Santon to re-form between Grzikowitz and Puntowitz – would support the main attack of the day. That would be Soult’s assault on the Pratzen, led by Saint-Hilaire’s and Vandamme’s divisions, which would begin as soon as the Allies’ troops had started to vacate it to attack the French in the south.

  ‘You engage,’ Napoleon said of his tactical art, ‘and then you wait and see.’112 So he kept the Imperial Guard, Murat’s cavalry reserve and Oudinot’s grenadiers in reserve to use either as an emergency force on the southern flank or to trap the enemy once the Pratzen heights were captured. In the Bavarian State Archives is a sketch he drew outlining how the battle had been fought, which shows how remarkably closely it progressed to his original concept. Although Napoleon continually changed his battle-plans according to circumstances, on some occasions engagements did go according to plan, and Austerlitz was one such.

  Shortly after 7 a.m., even before the conference ended and Soult’s men were formed up, fighting had started around Tellnitz when Legrand was attacked by the Austrians as expected. At 7.30 a.m. Soult’s troops were formed up at Puntowitz to deceive the Allies into thinking they were moving on the right flank, whereas in fact they were going to storm the Pratzen heights and smash through the centre of the battlefield. By 8 a.m. the Russians (who did most of the fighting that day) were moving south off the Pratzen heights towards the French right flank, weakening the Allied centre. By 8.30 a.m. the Allies had captured Tellnitz and Sokolnitz, but at 8.45 a.m. Sokolnitz fell back into French hands following a counter-attack by Davout, who personally commanded a brigade there. Entering the village, the thirty-five-year-old marshal, who was fighting his first large-scale battle, received an urgent appeal from the defenders at Tellnitz and sent off his brother-in-law, General Louis Friant, with the 108th Line to charge into the smoke-covered village to recapture it from the Russians. At one point Friant’s superb 2nd Division was down to 3,200 effectives, only half its proper size; but although it was stretched thin it didn’t break. As often happened in the era of gunpowder, there were some severe ‘friendly-fire’ incidents, as when the 108th Line and 26th Légère fired on one another outside Sokolnitz and stopped only when they caught sight of each other’s eagles.

  Legrand now defended Sokolnitz with two demi-brigades, one of which, the Tirailleurs Corses, was a Corsican unit nicknamed ‘The Emperor’s Cousins’. He was up against twelve battalions of Russian infantry advancing towards the walled pheasantry just outside the village, which was defended by only four French battalions. During the struggle, the 26th Légère was flung into Sokolnitz and put five Russian battalions to flight, just as Friant’s 48th Demi-Brigade turned back another 4,700 Russians. By 9.30 a.m., however, the Russians had stormed Sokolnitz castle in a general assault; out of the twelve most senior French commanders in Sokolnitz, eleven were killed or wounded. As was often the case, it was the last, fresh, formed-up body of troops to be sent in who swung the battle, justifying Napoleon’s policy of always holding back reserves. By 10.30 a.m. Davout’s 10,000 men had neutralized 36,000 of the enemy, as he fed his infantry and artillery slowly into the battle and held back his cavalry. Davout bought Napoleon the all-important time he needed to dominate in the centre, and furthermore allowed him to reverse the odds there, bringing up 35,000 troops against 17,000 Austro-Russians at the decisive point of the battlefield, the Pratzen heights.

  At 9 a.m. Napoleon was waiting impatiently at the Žuránˇ for two of the four enemy columns to leave the Pratzen heights. ‘How long will your troops take to crown the plateau?’ he asked Soult, who said twenty minutes should be enough. ‘Very well, we will wait another quarter of an hour.’ Once that time had elapsed Napoleon concluded: ‘Let us finish this war with a thunderclap!’113 The attack was to start with Saint-Hilaire’s division, which was hidden in the undulations and lingering mists of the Goldbach valley. By 10 a.m. the sun had risen and burned off the mist, and thenceforth ‘the sun of Austerlitz’ became an iconic image of Napoleonic genius, and luck. Soult harangued the 10th Légère, gave them treble brandy rations and sent them up the slope. The French adopted the ordre mixte combination of line and column to attack, with a line of skirmishers in front, who charged straight into the fourth Russian column that was moving off the heights. Seeing the danger, Kutuzov sent Kollowrath’s Austrians to plug the gaps between the Russian columns. In the fierce struggle that ensued, very few prisoners were taken and virtually no wounded were left alive.

  Saint-Hilaire took Pratzen village and much of the high ground of the plateau amid heavy fighting. Colonel Pierre Pouzet’s advice that he mount a fresh attack under terribly adverse conditions in order to prevent the enemy from counting their dwindling numbers seems to have won the day there, with troops returning to pick up weapons they had previously flung down in retreat. By 11.30 a.m. Saint-Hilaire had reached the plateau, and Soult poured in many more men than the Russians, as soon as they became available. The 57th Line (‘Les Terribles’) again distinguished itself.

  Kutuzov was left watching in dismay as 24,000 French engaged the 12,000 Allied forces still on the heights; he reversed the direction of the last of the south-bound columns, but it was too late. Watching from the Žuránˇ, and also receiving reports from streams of aides-de-camp, Napoleon could see the dense columns moving up the slopes of the Pratzen and at 11.30 a.m. gave Bernadotte the order to advance. Bernadotte asked for cavalry to accompany him, only to receive the curt reply: ‘I have none to spare.’ One can hardly expect politeness on a battlefield, and it was no more than the truth, but if there was such a thing as the opposite of a favourite at Napoleon’s court, Bernadotte filled that role.

  At 11 a.m. Vandamme’s division had stormed Tsar Alexander’s headquarters, the Stare Vinohrady hillock on the Pratzen, attacking with wild enthusiasm to the sound of massed bands, which ‘was enough to galvanize a paralytic’, as Coigne
t recalled. Grand Duke Constantine sent forward the 30,000 men (including cavalry) of the Russian Imperial Guard to take on Vandamme, whose line wavered under the blow. The 4th Line, commanded by Major Bigarré but whose honorary colonel was Joseph Bonaparte, was charged by the Russian Guard Cuirassiers; it broke, turned and fled, although its men had the presence of mind to cry ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ as they ran past Napoleon.114

  At 1 p.m. Napoleon sent Bessières and Rapp with five squadrons of Guard cavalry, and later two more, including one of Mamluks, to help Vandamme regain the initiative on the Pratzen from the Russian Imperial Guard. Marbot was present when Rapp arrived, with a broken sabre and a sword wound to the head, and presented to the Emperor the flags they had captured along with his prisoner, Prince Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky, commander of a squadron of the Russian Guard. ‘One mortally wounded chasseur presented his standard and fell down dead on the spot,’ recalled an eyewitness.115 When François Gérard painted the battle, Napoleon asked him to depict that moment of Rapp’s arrival. Less glorious was the Mamluk Mustapha, who although he had captured a standard told Napoleon that if he had killed the Grand Duke Constantine he would have brought him his head, to which the Emperor retorted: ‘Will you hold your tongue, you savage?’116

  In the north of the battlefield, Murat and Lannes engaged General Pyotr Bagration, who took large numbers of casualties. By noon Napoleon had every reason to be satisfied. Soult had taken the Pratzen heights, the Santon’s defences were keeping the line stable in the north and Davout stood firm in the south. At 1 p.m. he moved his headquarters up to the Stare Vinohrady, where he could look down the Goldbach valley and work out his plan for the annihilation of the enemy. His chamberlain Thiard was present when Soult came to find Napoleon there and Soult was complimented on the brilliant part that he had played. ‘For the rest, Monsieur le Maréchal, it was on your Corps that I was most counting on to win the day,’ he said.117 Napoleon then sent Saint-Hilaire’s and Vandamme’s divisions around the rear of the Russians fighting at Sokolnitz, and, despite still being outnumbered three to one, Davout ordered a general offensive between Tellnitz and Sokolnitz. By 2 p.m. the outcome of the battle was not in doubt.

  With the Pratzen heights now occupied by Bernadotte, Napoleon was able to order Oudinot, Soult and the Imperial Guard south to envelop Buxhöwden, as Davout’s cavalry attacked towards the southern village of Augedz. Napoleon then left the Pratzen heights at speed for the tower of the Chapel of St Anthony which overlooked the whole lake region, in order to command the last stage of the battle. Buxhöwden’s Russian force was split in two and fled east of the frozen lakes and across them, whereupon Napoleon had his gunners open fire on the ice. This incident led to the myth that thousands of Russians drowned as the ice cracked, though recent excavations of the reclaimed land at Lake Satschan turned up only a dozen corpses and a couple of guns.118 Overall, however, the Allied forces suffered terribly as they fled the field closely pursued by French cavalry and fired upon by artillery that had been brought up to the heights. (Austrian cavalrymen wore no backs to their breastplates, which made them lighter to carry in attack but left them highly vulnerable to sword and lance thrusts and to canister shot in retreat.) Although a Russian regiment and two Austrian battalions that had shut themselves up in Sokolnitz castle were massacred, large-scale surrender was allowed in the pheasantry and far beyond, as the French bands struck up ‘La Victoire est à Nous’.

  At 10 p.m. Napoleon returned to the Stara Posta. ‘As may be imagined,’ recalled Marbot, ‘he was radiant, but frequently expressed regret’ that his brother Joseph’s regiment should have lost its eagle to that of Alexander’s brother, the Grand Duke Constantine.119 The next day Napoleon berated those soldiers for losing their eagle to the Russian Guard cavalry. Even though he wasn’t a member of the regiment, a spectator to this monumental dressing-down recalled, ‘I must own that my flesh crawled. I broke into a cold sweat, and at times my eyes were coursing with tears. I do not doubt the regiment would have performed miracles if it had been led into action at the very next instant.’120

  ‘Soldiers of the Grande Armée,’ Napoleon wrote to his victorious army on the night of Austerlitz, with his customary rhetoric:

  Even at this hour, before this great day shall pass away and be lost in the ocean of eternity, your emperor must address you, and say how satisfied he is with the conduct of all those who have had the good fortune to fight in this memorable battle. Soldiers! You are the finest warriors in the world. The recollection of this day, and of your deeds, will be eternal! Thousands of ages hereafter, as long as the events of the universe continue to be related, will it be told that a Russian army of 76,000 men, hired by the gold of England, was annihilated by you on the plains of Olmütz.121

  He added that they had captured 140 cannon and 10,000 prisoners and ‘left 26,000 men dead on the field’. The next day he revised the number of cannon down to 120 but trebled the prisoners-of-war taken, along with twenty generals. Reliable modern sources put the Austrian and Russian losses at 16,000 killed and wounded, including 9 generals and 293 officers, and 20,000 captured, as well as 186 guns, 400 ammunition wagons and 45 standards.122 The French losses came to 8,279, of whom only 1,288 were killed. Of the wounded 2,476 needed long-term care, although Saint-Hilaire’s division had suffered 23 per cent casualties, and Vandamme’s 17 per cent.

  With large numbers of Russians still unengaged, Archduke Charles on his way from Italy and the Prussians threatening to declare war against France, the Allies could theoretically have fought on, but the Austrians’ nerve was broken at Austerlitz and so too was Alexander’s. He retreated into Hungary. Prince Johann of Liechtenstein arrived at the Stara Posta soon afterwards to discuss terms. ‘Never, perhaps,’ noted General Dumas, ‘was so important an affair treated of in any palace of the European sovereigns as in this miserable dwelling.’123 Napoleon explained his victory to Joseph, saying the enemy ‘was caught in flagrante delicto while manoeuvring’ (he was clearly fond of the phrase). He was almost equally succinct in his letter to Josephine: ‘I have beaten the Russian and Austrian army commanded by the two emperors. I am a little tired. I have bivouacked eight days in the open air, with the nights rather cool … The Russian army is not merely beaten; it is destroyed.’124 A masterful plan, an appreciation of terrain, superb timing, a steady nerve, the discipline and training instilled at Boulogne, the corps system, exploitation of a momentary numerical advantage at the decisive point, tremendous esprit de corps, fine performances on the day by Friant, Davout, Vandamme, Soult and Saint-Hilaire, and a divided and occasionally incompetent enemy – Büxhowden was drunk during the battle – had given Napoleon the greatest victory of his career.*

  17

  Jena

  ‘Prussia was hatched from a cannonball.’

  Attributed to Napoleon

  ‘When I receive the monthly reports on the state of my armies and my navy, which fill twenty thick volumes … I take greater pleasure reading them than a young lady does in reading a novel.’

  Napoleon to Joseph, August 1806

  On the morning after Austerlitz, having changed his shirt for the first time in eight days, Napoleon rode around the battlefield. On the shore of Lake Satschan he saw a Lithuanian sergeant who had been shot in the thigh, lying on a block of floating ice. ‘His blood stained the ice bright red,’ recalled Marbot, ‘a horrible sight.’1 The soldier called out to Napoleon, who sent two officers to swim over. Afterwards he rewarded them with rum, asking them how they had enjoyed their bath.2 (The sergeant later joined the Guard lancers.)

  The next day, Napoleon granted Emperor Francis’s request for an interview, and at 2 p.m. the two men met for the first time by a fire at the foot of the Spaleny Mlýn windmill, 10 miles south-west of Austerlitz on the road to Hungary. They embraced cordially and spoke for 90 minutes. ‘He wanted to conclude peace immediately,’ Napoleon told Talleyrand afterwards, ‘he appealed to my finer feelings.’3 On getting back on his horse, Napoleon told his staff: ‘Gent
lemen, we return to Paris; peace is made.’4 He then galloped back to Austerlitz village to visit the wounded Rapp. ‘A strange sight for the philosopher to reflect on!’ recalled one of those present. ‘An Emperor of Germany come to humble himself by suing for peace to the son of a small Corsican family, not long ago a sub-lieutenant of artillery, whose talents, good fortune and the courage of the French soldier had raised to the summit of power and made the arbiter of the destinies of Europe.’5 Napoleon refused to commit his thoughts about Francis to paper when writing to Talleyrand – ‘I’ll tell you orally what I think of him.’ Years later he would say that Francis was ‘so moral that he never made love to anyone but his wife’ (of whom he had four).6 He was less charitable in his assessment of Tsar Alexander of Russia, who had not sued for peace. In a letter to Josephine he wrote ‘He has shown neither talent nor bravery.’7