CHAPTER XV
(1805.)
HE arrival of the Russian forces and the severe conditions exacted by the conqueror made the Emperor of Austria resolve on once more trying the fortune of war. Having assembled his forces and joined the Emperor Alexander, he awaited Bonaparte, who was advancing to meet him. The two immense armies met in Moravia, near the little village of Austerlitz, which, until then unknown, has become for ever memorable by reason of the great victory which France won there.
Bonaparte resolved to give battle on the following day, the 1st of December, the anniversary of his coronation.
The Czar had sent Prince Dolgorouki to our headquarters with proposals of peace, which, if the Emperor has told the truth in his bulletins, could hardly be entertained by a conqueror in possession of his enemy’s capital. If we may believe him, the surrender of Belgium was demanded, and that the Iron Crown should be placed on another head. The envoy was taken through a part of the encampment which had been purposely left in confusion; he was deceived by this, and misled the Emperors by his report of the state of things.
The bulletin of those two days, the 1st and 2d of December, states that the Emperor, on returning to his quarters toward evening, spoke these words: “This is the fairest evening of my life; but I regret to think that I must lose a good number of these brave fellows. I feel, by the pain it gives me, that they are indeed my children; and I reproach myself for this feeling, for I fear it may render me unfit to make war.”
The following day, in addressing his soldiers, he said: “This campaign must be ended by a thunderclap. If France is to make peace only on the terms proposed by Dolgorouki, Russia shall not obtain them, even were her army encamped on the heights of Montmartre.” Yet it was decreed that these same armies should, one day, be encamped there, and that at Belleville Alexander was to receive Napoleon’s envoy, coming to offer him peace on any terms he chose to dictate.
I will not transcribe the narrative of that battle, so truly honorable to our arms—it will be found in the “Moniteur”; and the Emperor of Russia, with characteristic and noble simplicity, declared that the dispositions taken by the Emperor to insure success, the skill of his generals, and the ardor of the French soldiers, were all alike incomparable. The flower of the three nations fought with unflagging determination; the two Emperors were obliged to fly in order to escape being taken, and, but for the conferences of the following day, it seems that the Emperor of Russia would have found his retreat very difficult.