Failing to trap the Russians as he had trapped the Austrians, there was nothing for Napoleon to do but to press the pursuit. League after league the French penetrated a hostile country, new armies mustering on all sides to rush in upon them, until they were in the heart of Moravia. The Emperor Francis of Austria had joined the Czar Alexander, and the combined Russo-Austrian forces, outnumbering the French, confronted Napoleon at Austerlitz. The position of the French, far from home and surrounded by populations rushing to arms, was critical. Napoleon realized it, and so did his foe. There is no doubt that he would have welcomed an honorable peace, but the terms offered by the Czar were so insulting that he indignantly rejected them. Hastily concentrating his army, he made ready to fight. He artfully cultivated the self-confidence of the enemy, and put them under the impression that he was trying to escape. They had the hardihood to believe that they could turn his position, cut him off from his line of retreat, and do to him at Austerlitz as he had done to Mack at Ulm.
Indeed, the position of the French army demanded all of Napoleon’s firmness, all of his genius. He had about eighty thousand men; the Emperors in his front had ninety thousand. His right was threatened by the Archduke Charles with an army of forty thousand; his rear by the Archduke Ferdinand with twenty thousand; on his left flank was unfriendly Prussia with a magnificent force of one hundred and fifty thousand. The combined armies in his front, taking the offensive, attacked the French advance guard at Wischau, and routed it. Napoleon was uneasy. He sent envoys to the Czar and sought a personal interview. Surrounded by young hotheads, Alexander repulsed the overture, sending Dolgorouki to meet the Emperor of the French. Full of the idea that the French were frightened and would pay handsomely for the privilege of getting back home, young Dolgorouki demanded of Napoleon the surrender of Italy, Belgium, and the Rhine provinces.
“What more could you ask if you were in France?” exclaimed the indignant Napoleon. The envoy’s manner was as offensive as his language, and Napoleon finally ordered him off. Violently irritated, Napoleon stood talking to Savary for some time, striking the ground with his riding-whip, as he dwelt upon the insolence of the Russians. “Please God, in forty-eight hours I will give them a lesson!”
An old grenadier stood near, filling his pipe for a smoke. Napoleon walked up to him and said, “Those fellows think they are going to swallow us up.”—“If they try it,” said the veteran, “we’ll stick in their craws.” Napoleon laughed, and his brow cleared.
Drawing his army back to a still better position, Napoleon studied the ground thoroughly, reconnoitred diligently, and waited. He soon guessed the plan of the enemy, to turn his right flank. But to do this they must expose their own flank to him, and he would strike them as they marched. So confident was Napoleon that he could destroy his enemy if the turning movement across his front were attempted, that he lured them still farther by withdrawing from the high-ground, the Pratzen plateau—“a grand position,” from which he could easily have inflicted upon the Russians an ordinary defeat. But an ordinary defeat was not what he wanted; he manœuvred to lead his foes into a false movement where they could be annihilated.
On December 1, 1805, about four in the afternoon, Napoleon could see through his field-glass that the great turning movement of the Russians had commenced. He clapped his hands and exclaimed, “They are walking into a trap; before to-morrow night that army will be mine!”
Ordering Murat to make a sham attack and then retire so as to confirm the enemy in his delusion of a French retreat, Napoleon dictated a stirring address to his troops, pointing out to them the Russian mistake and the advantage the French could take of it. Everything done that could be done, the great captain called his staff about him, and sat down to dinner in the hut which served him for a bivouac. Seated around the table on wooden benches were Murat, Caulaincourt, Junot, Rapp, Ségur, Mouton, Thiard, and others. As serenely as though he were in Paris, Napoleon led the conversation to literary topics, dramatic poetry especially, and commented at length on the merits of various authors and plays. From these subjects he passed on to Egypt, and again spoke of the wonderful things he would have done had he taken Acre. He would have gained a battle on the Issus, become Emperor of the East, and returned to Paris by way of Constantinople. Junot suggested that they might, even now, be on the road to Constantinople. But Napoleon said: “No. The French do not love long marches. They love France too well. The troops would prefer to return home.” Junot questioned this; but Mouton bluntly declared that the Emperor was right, that the army was tired out, it had had enough: it would fight, but would do so because it wished to win a battle which would end the war and allow the men to return home.
Throwing himself upon some straw in his hut, Napoleon slept till far into the night. Then he mounted his horse, and once more went the rounds to see that all was right. He went too near the Russian lines: roused some Cossacks, and escaped capture by the speed of his horse. Getting back into his own lines, he was stumbling along on foot in the darkness when he fell over a log. A grenadier, to light his way, made a torch of some straw. The blaze showed to other soldiers the Emperor. Upon a sudden impulse, more torches were made of straw, while the shout arose, “Live the Emperor!” It was the anniversary of the coronation, and the troops remembered. The one torch became a score, the score a hundred, then thousands, until a blaze of light ran along the line for miles, while the shout of “Live the Emperor!” roused even the Russian hordes. It was such an ovation as only a Cæsar could inspire. It was so unstudied, so heartfelt, so martial and dramatic, that Napoleon was profoundly moved. “It is the grandest evening of my life,” he exclaimed.
At dawn he called his staff to the hut, ate with them standing, and then, buckling on his sword, said, “Now, gentlemen, let us go and begin a great day!” A moment later he sat his horse on a hill that overlooked the field, his staff and his marshals around him. As the sun cleared itself of the mists, “the sun of Austerlitz,” the final orders were given, the marshals galloped to their posts, and the famous battle began. By four o’clock that evening the Russo-Austrian army was a wreck—outgeneralled, outfought, knocked to pieces. Napoleon had ended “this war by a clap of thunder.” The Czar fled with the remnant of his host, escaping capture at the hands of Davoust by the well-worn falsehood of an armistice. The Emperor Francis came in person to Napoleon to sue for peace, was kindly received, and was granted terms far more liberal than he had any right to expect.
On December 27, 1805, the Treaty of Presburg was signed. Austria ceded Venice, Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia to Italy; Tyrol to Bavaria, which Napoleon erected into an independent kingdom; Würtemberg and Baden received cities and territory as rewards for adherence to France. Austria sanctioned all of Napoleon’s recent encroachments in Italy, and agreed to pay an indemnity of $8,000,000.