After proceeding towards Vienna and being sent back to Brünn, Haugwitz arrived there on November 29th.[39] Of the four hours' private conference that ensued with Napoleon we have but scanty records, and those by Haugwitz himself, who had every reason for warping the truth. He states that he was received with icy coldness, and at once saw that the least threat of hostile pressure by Prussia would drive Napoleon to make a separate peace with Austria. But after the first hour the Emperor appeared to thaw: he discussed the question of a Continental peace and laid aside all resentment at Prussia's conduct: finally, he gave a general assent to her proposals, on two conditions, namely, that the allied force then in Hanover should not be allowed by Prussia to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his King, an act of presumption which that monarch was to repudiate.
While exceeding his instructions on this side, Haugwitz did practically nothing to advance the chief business of his mission. Either his own fears, or the crafty mixture of threats and flattery that cajoled so many envoys, led him to neglect the interests of Prussia, and to play into the hands of the very man whose ambition he was sent to check. After the interview, when the envoy had retired to his lodging, Caulaincourt came up in haste to warn him that a battle was imminent, that his personal safety might be endangered, and that Napoleon requested him to repair to Vienna, where he might consult with Talleyrand on affairs of State. Horses and an escort were ready, and Haugwitz set out for that city, where he arrived on November 30th, only to find that Talleyrand was strictly forbidden to do more than entertain him with commonplaces. Thus, the all-important question as to the action of Prussia's legions was again postponed, even when 150,000 Prussians and Saxons were ready to march against the French communications.
Napoleon's letter of November 30th to Talleyrand reveals his secret anxiety at this time. In truth, the crisis was terrible. With a superior force in front, with the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles threatening to raise Bohemia and Hungary on his flanks, while two Prussian armies were about to throw themselves on his rear, his position was fully as serious as that of Hannibal before Cannæ, from which the Carthaginian freed himself only by that staggering blow. Did that example inspire the French Emperor, or did he take counsel from his own boundless resources of brain and will? Certain it is that, after a passing fit of discouragement, he braced himself for a final effort, and staked all on the effect of one mighty stroke. In order to hurry on the battle he feigned discouragement and withdrew his lines from Austerlitz to the Goldbach. Already he had sent General Savary to the Czar with proposals for a short truce.[40] The word truce now spelt guile; its offer through Savary, whose hands were stained with the blood of the Duc d'Enghien, was in itself an insult, and Alexander gave that envoy the coolest reception. In return he sent Prince Dolgoruki, the leader of the bellicose youths now high in favour, who proudly declared to the French Emperor the wishes of his master for the independence of Europe—adding among other things that Holland must be free and have Belgium added to it.
This suggestion greatly amused Napoleon, who replied that Russia ought now to think of her own advantages on the side of Turkey. The answer convinced the Czar that Napoleon dreaded a conflict in his dangerously advanced position. He knew not his antagonist's resources. Napoleon had hurried up every available regiment. Bernadotte's corps was recalled from the frontier of Bohemia; Friant's division of 4,000 men was ordered up from Pressburg; and by forced marches it also was nigh at hand on the night of December 1st, worn with fatigue after covering an immense space in two days, but ready to do excellent service on the morrow.[41] By this timely concentration Napoleon raised his forces to a total of at least 73,000 men, while the enemy founded their plan on the assumption that Napoleon had less than 50,000, and would scarcely resist the onset of superior forces.
Their plan was rash, even for an army which numbered about 80,000 men. The Austrian General Weyrother had convinced the Czar that an energetic advance of his left wing, which rested on the southern spurs of the Pratzenberg, would force back Napoleon's right, which was ranged between the villages of Kobelnitz and Sokelnitz, and so roll up his long line that stretched beyond Schlapanitz. This move, if successful, would not only win the day, but decide the campaign, by cutting off the French from their supplies coming from the south and driving them into the exhausted lands around Olmütz. Such was Weyrother's scheme, which enchanted the Czar and moved the fears of the veteran Kutusoff: it was expounded to the Russian and Austrian generals after midnight on December the 2nd. Strong in the great central hill, the Pratzenberg, and the cover of its village at the foot, the Czar had no fear for his centre: to his right or northern wing he gave still less heed, as it rested firmly on villages and was powerful in cavalry and artillery; but his left wing, comprising fully two-fifths of the allied army, was expected easily to defeat Napoleon's weak and scattered right, and so decide the day. Kutusoff saw the peril of massing so great a force there and weakening the centre, but sadly held his peace.
Napoleon had already divined their secret. In his order of battle he took his troops into his confidence, telling them that, while the enemy marched to turn his right, they would expose their flank to his blows. To announce this beforehand was strangely bold, and it has been thought that he had the plan from some traitor on the enemy's staff. No proof of this has been given; and such an explanation seems superfluous to those who have observed Napoleon's uncanny power of fathoming his adversary's designs. The idea of withdrawing one wing in order to tempt the foe unduly to prolong his line on that side, and then to crush it at the centre, or sever it from the centre, is common both to Castiglione and Austerlitz. It is true, the peculiarities of the ground, the ardour of the Russian attack, and the vastness of the operations lent to the present conflict a splendour and a horror which Castiglione lacked. But the tactics which won both battles were fundamentally the same.
He had studied the ground in front of Austerlitz; and the priceless gift of strategic imagination revealed to him what a rash and showy leader would be certain to do on that ground;[42] he tempted him to it, and the announcement of the enemy's plan to the French soldiery supplied the touch of good comradeship which insured their utmost devotion on the morrow. At midnight, as he returned from visiting the outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor." Thus was the great day ushered in. The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army's heroworship: the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised that, after all, the French would stand their ground and fight, whilst others saw in the flare a signal that Napoleon was once more about to retreat.
December the 2nd may well be the most famous day of the Napoleonic calendar: it was the day of his coronation, it was the day of Austerlitz, and, a generation later, another Napoleon chose it for his coup d'état. The "sun of Austerlitz," which the nephew then hailed, looked down on a spectacle far different from that which he wished to gild with borrowed splendour. Struggling dimly through dense banks of mist, it shone on the faces of 73,000 Frenchmen resolved to conquer or to die: it cast weird shadows before the gray columns of Russia and the white-coats of Austria as they pressed in serried ranks towards the frozen swamps of the Goldbach. At first the allies found little opposition; and Kienmayer's horse cleared the French from Tellnitz and the level ground beyond. But Friant's division, hurrying up from the west, restored the fight and drove the first assailants from the village. Others, however, were pressing on, twenty-nine battalions strong, and not all the tenacious bravery of Davoust's soldiery availed to hold that spot. Nor was it necessary. Napoleon's plan was to let the allied left compromise itself on this side, while he rained the decisive blows at its joint with the centre on the southern spur of the Pratzenberg.
For this reason he reduced Davoust to defensive tactics, for which his stubborn methodical genius eminently fitted him, until the French centre had forced the Russians from the plateau. Opposite or near that height he had posted the corps of Soult and Bernadotte, supporting them with the grenadiers of Oudinot and the Imperial Guard. Confronting these imposing forces was the Russian centre, weakened by the heavy drafts sent towards Tellnitz, but strong in its position and in the experience of its leader Kutusoff. Caution urged him to hold back his men to the last moment, until the need of giving cohesion to the turning movement led the Czar impatiently to order his advance. Scarcely had the Russians descended beyond Pratzen when they were exposed to a furious attack. Vandamme, noted even then as one of the hardest hitters in the army, was leading his division of Soult's corps up the northern slopes of the plateau; by a sidelong slant his men cut off a detachment of Russians in the village, and, aided by the brigade of Thiébault, swarmed up the hill at a speed which surprised and unsteadied its defenders. Oudinot's grenadiers and the Imperial Guard were ready to sustain Soult: but the men of his corps had the glory of seizing the plateau and driving back the Russians. Yet these returned to the charge. Alexander and Kutusoff saw the importance of the heights, and brought up a great part of their reserves. Soon the divisions of Vandamme and St. Hilaire were borne back; and it needed all the grand fighting powers of their troops to hold up against the masses of howling Russians. For two hours the battle there swayed to and fro; and Thiébault has censured Napoleon for the lack of support, and Soult for his apathy, during this soldiers' battle.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ]