To put the men on their mettle, an Order of the Day was issued, part of which ran as follows:
The positions which we occupy are formidable, and while the Russians march upon our batteries I shall attack their flanks.*
Soldiers, I shall in person direct all your battalions; I shall keep out of range if, with your accustomed bravery, you carry disorder and confusion into the ranks of the enemy; but if the victory is for a moment uncertain, you shall see your Emperor expose himself in the front rank….
Note that no man shall leave the ranks under the pretext of carrying off the wounded. Let every man be filled with the thought that it is vitally necessary to conquer these paid lackeys of England who so strongly hate our nation….24
This flamboyant order undoubtedly put a keen edge on the men’s courage; they felt at one with their commander in chief, and the fact that he took them into his confidence raised morale to a new height.
His orders issued, the Emperor dined with his officers, partaking of his favorite campaign dish of potatoes fried with onions. He was in his best form, talking cheerfully of Egypt and the lure of the East, gossiping about the reported appearance of a comet over Paris, surely an omen of victory for the morrow. Following a brief rest, he left the ruined hut that constituted his quarters and set out on a further tour of inspection, frequently pausing to stare into the night in an attempt to discern the lie of the enemy’s campfires; a reassuring quantity could be spotted around Augezd to the south. A welcome arrival was the weary Marshal Davout, come to report that his cavalry and advance guard would be in position by eight the next morning, closely followed by the rest of his infantry. A relieved Emperor then returned to his bivouac escorted by cheering soldiers in the famous torchlight procession.
The night passed reasonably quietly; there was one skirmish when a patrol of Austrian hussars reached the outskirts of Zokolnitz, but they were rapidly repulsed. In the early hours of the morning Savary, the chief of the operational staff, returned from a forward reconnaissance with tidings that the enemy in the vicinity of Augezd were at least a corps in strength. The Emperor was roused to hear these tidings, and Marshal Soult was summoned to an impromptu conference. After a keen study of the maps, at 3:00
A.M. the Emperor dictated some slight changes to his original orders, involving a change of emphasis rather than a radical alteration. On account, we may surmise, of the enemy’s strength to the south, the attack on the Pratzen was shifted slightly to the north to make the most of the anticipated weakening of the Allied right center. Vandamme and St. Hilaire would now attack from Puntowitz. Further orders also allocated an additional 4,000 men to strengthen the right during the critical period preceding the arrival of Davout’s corps in force. The Emperor then returned to his pile of straw while his staff busied themselves issuing the new order.
The Battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805: Allied and French plans
The first troops were roused at 4:00
A.M., and as they moved to their allotted positions it was soon noticed that a thick morning mist had developed. This phenomenon caused considerable confusion on the further bank of the Goldbach, where the Allied columns were forming up for their initial attack, and the confusion proved greatly to the French advantage in the first hour of the battle. Nevertheless, at 7:00
A.M., a heavy attack developed around Tellnitz, when Kienmayer’s advance guard clashed with Legrand’s garrison. At first all went well for the French, but a little later the bulk of Doctorov’s strong column loomed out of the fog and by 8:00
A.M. the 1,200 survivors of the 3rd Regiment of the Line were forced to relinquish their hold on the village, their retreat being covered by Davout’s chasseurs and hussars. Further north, meanwhile, Langeron and Przbysewski were in the act of storming Zokolnitz. General Mangeron’s handful of Tirailleurs du Po repulsed the first attack and were then reinforced by General Merle’s 26th Light Brigade, bringing the garrison to a strength of 1,800 and six guns. But by 8:30
A.M. no less than 30 enemy cannon had been brought to bear, and a renewed attack by 8,000 Allies proved too much for the defense, and so Zokolnitz, in its turn, fell into enemy hands. However, away behind Tellnitz, Marshal Davout was organizing a counterattack with Heudelet’s brigade, which included the footsore Corporal Blaise:
Before ordering the attack, Marshal Davout—who did not leave even though the bullets were beginning to bother us—recalled to our minds the action at Marianzelle. Then General Heudelet put himself at our head and we marched boldly forward in battle order until we were halted by a ditch which was too large for us to cross. General Heudelet thereupon ordered our colonel to move us over a bridge away to our left. This necessary movement was the cause of our undoing, for the soldiers were so eager to come to grips with the vaunted enemy infantry that they disordered the ranks in spite of les sages avis of our officers; and when we tried to re-form our battle order under heavy fire, some Austrian hussars, mistaking us for Bavarians in the thick smoke and fog which was a feature of the day, wounded a great many of us and captured 160 men including 4 officers.25
By 8:45
A.M., the village was once again in French hands, but the reoccupation was only short-lived. In the confusion of the battle the 108th Regiment had the misfortune to fire upon the 26th Light as it retreated from Zokolnitz, and this event did little to rally the defense. Thus by 9:00 o’clock the enemy was in almost full control of both villages.
Although it might appear that the Allies had secured the first honors of the day in overall terms, the battle was in fact going well for the French. About 8:00 o’clock the rising mists revealed the contours of the Pratzen together with the Russian columns moving south “like a torrent”; as Napoleon had hoped, the Allied center was becoming steadily weaker—already 40,000 Allies were massed against the French right, and more were on their way. Much now depended on timing the French counterattack for the correct moment. The divisions of St. Hilaire and Vandamme were on the appointed start line over the Goldbach, and their presence was still conveniently disguised from the enemy by the lingering fog in the valley. To ensure the necessary élan, the men were fortified with an issue of a triple spirit ration.
“How long will it take you to move your divisions to the top of the Pratzen Heights?” the Emperor enquired of Soult. “Less than twenty minutes, Sire, for my troops are hidden at the foot of the valley, hidden by fog and campfire smoke,” was the reply. “In that case, we will wait a further quarter of an hour.”26 Through his spyglass Napoleon was watching the steady movements of two more enemy columns (Kollowrath and Miloradovitch) toward the south. When he judged that they had moved sufficiently far on their journey, the Emperor gave the word. Hoarse orders were shouted, the drums beat the pas de charge, and the two divisions were on their way, the sunlight glinting along the lines of bayonets as the troops emerged from the protective mists; it was 9:00 o’clock. On the right, General St. Hilaire made rapidly for his objective, the village of Pratzen itself; little opposition was encountered, and very soon the French had pushed beyond the village onto the very summit of the plateau. On the left, advancing toward the peak of Stahre Vinobrady, General Vandamme was not quite so fortunate, running into a determined enemy force at the village of Girzikowitz which held him up for some little time.
The Allies were at first astounded by this sudden threat to their center. Marshal Kutusov and his headquarters, accompanying Miloradovitch’s southbound column, suddenly realized the danger as they reached the crest of the Pratzen en route for Zokolnitz. Halting the troops in his vicinity, Kutusov hurriedly reversed the direction of their march, but only two battalions reached the village of Pratzen before the storm broke. This intervention came too late to stem the tide of the French advance, and by 9:30
A.M. the Allies were reeling back, and the French were well on the way toward becoming masters of the Pratzen Heights.
Away to the north, the French left was also in the process of going into action. Hitherto they had hardly exchanged
a shot with Bagration’s forces, but now Napoleon ordered Bernadotte to move on Blasowitz in support of Soult’s attack. At first, this advance went well, but at 9:30
A.M. two battalions of the Russian Imperial Guard succeeded in recapturing the village. Half an hour later, the entire French left was locked in furious combat with the foe. Murat’s cavalry and a column under Lannes moved forward to pin down Bagration’s infantry and Lichtenstein’s squadrons of cavalry. A swarm of horsemen descended upon Cafarelli’s division, but it was beaten off with heavy casualties by Kellermann’s Light Cavalry. Blithely accepting odds of ten to one, the French troopers dismounted and poured a withering carbine fire into the enemy ranks. This was followed by a charge, and Lichtenstein’s attack lost its impetus. Nevertheless, Lannes was still in trouble, for Bagration’s 30 cannon continued to take a terrible toll, 400 men of Cafarelli’s command being laid low in the space of three minutes, but a brief lull eventually descended on this sector of the field following the charge of the Allied cavalry. However, it was not very long-lived; Bagration was soon launching a new assault against the Santon, but the 17th Regiment of the Line held firm. A little later Lannes restormed Blasowitz at bayonet point, taking 500 prisoners and five guns. Then it was Murat’s turn; the opportunity of driving a wedge between Bagration and Kutusov was too good to miss. Three thousand French horsemen started forward, but they were soon opposed by twice their number as Bagration, aware of the French design, flung every available squadron into the fray. Forty squadrons attacked the flank of Cafarelli’s division as it pressed forward from Blasowitz, but the stalwart infantry changed front and beat off three enemy charges until such time as Murat could move up Hautpol’s and Nansouty’s cuirassiers from reserve. These imposing warriors, horsehair plumes tossing and cuirasses gleaming, pounded forward at a full trot on a 400-yard front, sustaining heavy casualties from the enemy fire, to plunge into the left flank of the Allied cavalry. The sound of the impact was heard throughout the field over the din of battle. For five minutes the struggle swayed to and fro, but then the Allied horse broke under the pressure. Lichtenstein succeeded in rallying part of his flagging cavalry and counterattacked the French who had scattered in pursuit, but this move was thrown into hopeless disarray by the arrival on the scene of the second regiment of French cuirassiers. On the extreme left, meanwhile, Lannes’ infantry had been plodding doggedly forward against Bagration’s divisions. The rate of advance was slow, for the Vth Corps contained a high proportion of relatively inexperienced conscripts who had to be kept closely in hand. Nevertheless, these units acquitted themselves nobly. In his report General Suchet wrote: “During the battle the infantry underwent artillery fire with the greatest coolness. The Emperor’s orders were faithfully executed, and, perhaps for the first time since the beginning of the war, the greater part of the wounded dragged themselves to the ambulances.”27 As a result of these combined efforts on the left, Bagration was virtually sundered from the remainder of the Allied army by noon, and Lannes had carried out his instructions to isolate the enemy right.
The initial capture of the Pratzen plateau proved only the beginning of the battle in the center, and many crises had to be overcome before the French possession of the area was secure. Shortly after 10:00
A.M. St. Hilaire’s division underwent a heavy ordeal when it was suddenly attacked on the right flank by the rear brigade of Langeron’s returning column at a moment when the French were already hotly engaged with Kollowrath’s troops to the fore and Kamenskoi’s reserves on the left. Attacked simultaneously from three sides, the weary French troops began to waver, but St. Hilaire’s determination and courage rallied the men to meet the crisis. Instead of awaiting the full impact of the combined enemy assault, he led his men forward in a desperate bayonet charge, and thereby earned a short respite. This gave Soult time to rush up the six 12-pounder guns of his corps artillery reserve; the marshal came forward in person to supervise their fire. A turious struggle ensued; cannon roared and musketry crackled—but great gaps were torn in Langeron’s lines, and by 11:00 o’clock the worst crisis was past. On St. Hilaire’s left, General Vandamme was, by this time, hotly engaged with 2,500 troops of Kollowrath’s command and a further nine battalions under Miloradovitch, but by midday the enemy was pulling back on this sector as well. Except for their eastern edge, therefore, the Pratzen Heights were securely in Soult’s possession.
Away on the French right flank, a bitter struggle of varying fortune had been proceeding all morning. After the fall of Tellnitz and Zokolnitz, the Emperor became somewhat anxious about the sector, and shortly after 9:30
A.M. he detached General Oudinot’s grenadiers from the reserve with orders to strengthen the southern flank. In the event, however, the situation in this area rapidly improved once Soult’s attack on the Pratzen became operative. A lull descended as the Allied columns on the left awaited orders in the light of the new situation, and when Kutusov attempted to withdraw part of the second and third columns to strengthen his center, the cavalry of the IVth Corps played an important role by launching several charges against the countermarching Allies, with the result that the move was considerably hampered and delayed. During this period, the three routed French regiments were afforded time to form a new line to the west of the villages they had lost, and by 10:00 o’clock they were reinforced by the arrival of General Friant’s weary division (part of Davout’s corps) from Gross Raigern. These valuable additions to the fighting line enabled the struggle for Zokolnitz to be renewed; Brigadier Lochet stormed the village with two regiments, capturing two standards and six Russian guns. Leaving the 48th Regiment to garrison the regained objective, Lochet led forward the IIIth Regiment in a bold attempt to storm the castle of Zokolnitz on the eastern bank of the Goldbach. Before he reached his target, however, Langeron launched a vicious counterattack against Zokolnitz, virtually wiping out the 48th, and Friant had no alternative but to recall the IIIth to meet the new threat. For the rest of the morning, 8,000 French infantry and 2,800 cavalry fought off 35,000 Allies in an agonizing battle of attrition; although the greater part of Zokolnitz passed back yet again into Russian hands, the tenacious Lochet never relinquished his hold on the southern edge of the town, and the French line held.
By midday, therefore, the battle was going decidedly in Napoleon’s favor. On the left, Lannes and Murat, with some assistance from Bernadotte, had successfully contained and isolated Bagration on the Allied right; in the center, Soult was in control of the Pratzen in the very midst of the enemy array; on the right, Davout had largely stemmed the tide of the Allied advance, supported in the rear by Oudinot’s grenadiers linking the sector with the center. A French victory was practically assured, but the extent of the triumph was still in doubt.
The time was approaching for the final breaking of the Allied line, and the envelopment and destruction of at least the exposed left flank. As a preliminary move, Napoleon extricated Bernadotte’s corps from the battle against Bagration, and moved the Imperial Guard onto the left bank of the Goldbach to form a powerful masse de décision. Imperial Headquarters was also moved onto the Pratzen. Deciding that the decisive effort should have as its aim the envelopment of Buxhowden’s command, Napoleon ordered the entire French center to incline to its right. By this time, only one serious obstacle stood between the French and success—the serried ranks of the redoubtable Russian Imperial Guard, horse and foot, which now moved magnificently forward from its reserve position to fill the void developing in the Allied center.
The Battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805: the final French attack, 2:30 p.m.
Shortly after 1:00 o’clock, the Grand Duke Ferdinand led up four fresh battalions of this élite corps to attack the weary and powder-stained troops of General Vandamme. Unfortunately for the success of this assault, the 3,000 Russians were too eager to come to grips with the French after a morning of infuriating inaction, and consequently charged full tilt with the bayonet from a distance of 300 yards. By the time they reached their o
bjective, therefore, most of the men were seriously out of breath; nevertheless, the Russian Guard broke through the forward French line with little difficulty and were brought to a halt only by the concentrated fire of the second formations. Its impetus temporarily exhausted, the Russian Guard fell back in good order on Krzenowitz to reform.
At this moment, Vandamme received Napoleon’s order to incline to his right, but in executing this movement he inevitably exposed his left flank and rear. Such an opportunity was not overlooked by the Grand Duke Constantine; 15 squadrons of the Guard cavalry at once fell on Vandamme’s flank, supported by a renewed frontal assault by the Russian grenadiers.
Under very heavy pressure General Vandamme kept his head in admirable fashion, and immediately moved two battalions of the 4th Line and the 24th Light to cover his exposed flank. The Russian attack was so impetuous, records de Ségur, “that Vandamme’s two battalions on the left were overwhelmed! One of them, indeed, after losing its eagle and the greater part of its weapons, only got up to flee at full speed. This battalion, belonging to the 4th Regiment, almost passed over ourselves and Napoleon himself—our attempts to arrest it being all in vain. The unfortunate fellows were quite distracted with fear and would listen to no one; in reply to our reproaches for thus deserting the field of battle and their Emperor they shouted mechanically, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ while fleeing faster than ever.”28
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 54
