On Napoleon’s right flank, in a strong defensive position, stood Marshal Davout’s corps, thrown back at an angle to the main front of the army, so as to induce the enemy to extend themselves widely on that side before opening their attack. Marshal Soult’s corps, the most powerful in the Grand Army, formed the centre; supported by the Imperial Guard, Oudinot’s Grenadier Division, and two divisions of Mortier’s corps. Marshal Lannes’ corps, with Bernadotte’s, was on the left, as well as Murat’s cavalry. Napoleon proposed to allow the Russian leading columns to circle round his right flank and get into action with Davout. Then, as soon as they were committed to their attack in that quarter, Soult’s immense force would hurl itself on the Russian centre and break through it by sheer weight of numbers. Thus the Allied Army would be cleft in two, after which Napoleon would only have to fling his weight to either side for the enemy to be destroyed in detail. During Soult’s move, Lannes on the left flank was to hold in check by a brisk attack the Russian right wing and reserves, which would prevent assistance reaching the centre until too late to save the day. So the battle was planned; so it was fought and won.
Sketch Plan of the Positions of the Armies at the opening of the Battle of AUSTERLITZ
The Allied columns were seen during Sunday afternoon to be steadily moving southward over a high ridge opposite the French camp, crowned near the centre by the lofty plateau of Pratzen, the key of the position on the Russian side. They streamed along from the direction of the village of Austerlitz, a short distance away to the north-east, from which the battle took its name. A tract of low marshy country, the valley of the little river Goldbach, four miles across, with two or three hamlets dotting it here and there, connected by narrow cart-roads, divided the two armies. The French position, facing eastwards, was on a range of tableland along the west side of the valley of the Goldbach.
THE KEY OF THE POSITION
Monday morning came, and the “Sun of Austerlitz”—so often apostrophised by Napoleon in after days—rose in a cloudless sky above the early mists lying dense over the marshy ground of the low-lying valley between the armies. The dominating crest of the Pratzen plateau showed above the mist almost bare of troops. On the evening before it had bristled with Russian bayonets, glistening in the rays of the setting sun. Pratzen, the master-key of the battlefield, had been left unoccupied. The enemy’s corps had taken no measures to hold it in their haste to get forward to attack the French right wing, and cut Napoleon off.
Soult’s corps—the entire French army had been under arms since four o’clock—was ordered to descend into the valley before the morning mist dissipated as the sun rose. Under cover of the mist Soult was to get as close as possible to the foot of the Pratzen Hill, so as to be on the spot ready to seize the height immediately the battle opened on the right.
Napoleon waited, standing among the marshals on foot near the centre of the position, until between seven and eight o’clock. Then sharp firing suddenly broke out from the direction of Davout’s corps, and a few minutes later an aide de camp came galloping up with the news that the enemy were attacking the right wing in great force. “Now,” said Napoleon, “is the moment.” The marshals sprang on their horses and spurred off to head their corps.
So Austerlitz opened.
Its first brunt, as Napoleon had foreseen, fell hard and heavily on the French right wing; but Davout’s men there proved well able to maintain their ground. The sturdy linesmen on that side disputed every foot of the position at the point of the bayonet against four times their numbers.