Napoleonic Wars: March of the Eagles 1805 – 09

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In December 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of the French. Europe had never seen such a sudden and dramatic rise to power – a son of impoverished Corsican nobility became the military dictator of France in little more than 10 years. Revolution and war had cleared Napoleon’s path to the throne, and war would dominate his ten-year reign: a conflict unprecedented in history, leaving millions dead and a continent in turmoil.

Eight months after Napoleon’s coronation, the French Empire and its Spanish ally were at war with Britain. Napoleon had assembled an army of 180,000 men along the Channel coast. However, as long as the British Royal Navy ruled the seas, invasion was impossible. Yet, Britain could not challenge France on land. British Prime Minister William Pitt tried to build a European coalition against Napoleon, using diplomacy and financial incentives. Britain would prove to be Napoleon’s most steadfast enemy, and its press delighted in relentless mockery of the French emperor.

Pitt found willing allies among monarchs who despised Napoleon as a product of the French Revolution and a threat to the existing order. Austria harbored deep grievances, having seen its influence in Germany and Italy steadily eroded by French victories. The final straw came in May 1805 when Napoleon crowned himself King of Italy in Milan. Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Naples joined Britain in an alliance known as the Third Coalition and devised an ambitious plan for a series of joint offensives against France.

The main attack would be made by a combined Austro-Russian army, advancing across the Rhine into France. However, Napoleon got word of their plans and reacted with typical speed and decision. He was determined to strike first, before the Allies could join forces, and ordered his army, now renamed ‘La Grande Armée,’ to march to the River Rhine. His target was the Austrian army of General Mack, which had made a premature advance against Bavaria, a French ally, and was now isolated from the other Allied armies.

Napoleon ordered Marshal Murat, his cavalry commander, to make feint attacks through the Black Forest while the rest of his army enveloped Mack’s army from the north. That summer, Napoleon’s Grande Armée was at its most formidable – well-trained and highly motivated, with its regiments at full strength. It had been newly reorganized according to the ‘corps’ system, later imitated by virtually every army in the world. Each corps, commanded by a Marshal, was a mini-army of 15 to 30 thousand soldiers, with its own infantry, cavalry, artillery, and supporting arms.

This allowed each corps to march and fight independently, enabling Napoleon to break with the old doctrine of keeping his army concentrated and advance with his corps widely dispersed. This helped to disguise his real objective and increased movement speed, as the army could advance along multiple roads and take supplies from scattered villages.

When the enemy’s main force was located, the army could quickly concentrate for battle. This is how Napoleon’s army was able to move at a speed that often surprised and disoriented his enemies. Mack didn’t realize the danger he was in until it was too late. Napoleon’s fast-moving corps crossed the Danube behind him and surrounded his army. Mack launched a series of poorly coordinated counterattacks, but despite some desperate fighting, the Austrians couldn’t break out of the trap.

Mack hoped that Kutuzov’s Russian army could arrive in time to save him, but the Russians were still 160 miles away. On 19th October, just six weeks into the war, Mack surrendered his army to Napoleon. The French took nearly 60,000 Austrian prisoners, and Napoleon had struck his first devastating blow against the Coalition.

Russian General Mikhail Kutuzov was an experienced and cautious commander. His army was exhausted after its long march from Russia. Hearing of the Austrian surrender at Ulm, and knowing he wasn’t strong enough to face Napoleon alone, he ordered a retreat. Napoleon pursued. The Russians fought several sharp rearguard actions but could not save the Austrian capital, Vienna, which the French occupied on 12th November.

Kutuzov slipped away to Olmütz, where he was joined by reinforcements, as well as Emperor Alexander of Russia and Emperor Francis of Austria. Napoleon was furious that Kutuzov had escaped. By now, his army was also exhausted and far from home, with winter approaching. He needed to force a decisive battle quickly. Fortunately for him, the overconfident Russian Emperor sought the glory of battle, overriding the concerns of his veteran commander, General Kutuzov.

With the Allied army closing in, Napoleon ordered his corps to rapidly concentrate on a battlefield he had carefully selected near the town of Austerlitz. Napoleon oversaw the dispositions of his army late into the night, then grabbed a few hours’ sleep beside a campfire. Dawn would mark the first anniversary of his coronation as Emperor and promised a battle that would make or break his young empire.

The morning of 2nd December 1805 was cold and bright, with a heavy mist. Two armies of near equal size faced each other across a seven-mile-wide battlefield. The Allies held the high ground of the Pratzen Heights, while French III Corps, under Marshal Davout, was still marching to the battlefield. Seeing Napoleon’s thinly stretched right flank, the Allies planned a large-scale attack from the Pratzen Heights to overwhelm the French right before swinging around to envelop Napoleon’s army.

Little did they know, Napoleon was counting on his weak right wing luring the Allies into just such a move, whereupon he would launch his own attack on the Pratzen Heights to cut the Allied army in half. His bold plan relied on his correct prediction of Allied movements, the speedy arrival of Davout’s III Corps on his right, and a perfectly timed counterattack.

The battle began around 7 am, as Austrian troops clashed with French troops defending the village of Telnitz. In the face of overwhelming odds, the French fought bravely but were gradually forced back. However, the Allies, instead of carrying out their great enveloping attack, did nothing. The morning mist and the late arrival of orders led to confusion and delay, and it was another hour before the first three Allied columns were on the move.

Soon fierce fighting erupted around Sokolnitz village and castle. Marshal Davout’s corps, which had just force-marched 70 miles in two days, now arrived to strengthen the French right wing. Around 9 am, his lead infantry brigade appeared suddenly through the mist and retook Telnitz before being driven back in turn by Austrian hussars. Two more of Davout’s brigades reinforced French troops at Sokolnitz.

As the mist began to clear, Napoleon saw that, as he had hoped, the Allied left was moving off the Pratzen Heights, and he ordered Marshal Soult’s IV Corps to begin its attack. To the alarm of Allied commanders, two French infantry divisions, until now hidden by the mist, were suddenly seen advancing straight towards the Allied center. General Kutuzov was forced to hurriedly organize a defense of the Heights using troops of IV Column.

Two hours of bloody fighting followed. Musket fire was rapid and furious, and both sides soon ran low on ammunition, turning to the bayonet. By 11 am, the French, with the advantage in training and discipline, had secured the Heights and driven a deep wedge into the Allied position. To the north, a giant cavalry battle developed while a Russian force captured the village of Bosenitz before it was halted by cannon fire from the Santon hill.

A decisive charge by six regiments of French heavy cavalry finally drove back the Allies, allowing Marshal Lannes’ V Corps to move forward and seize Blasowitz and Krug. Now Grand Duke Constantine, commanding the Russian Imperial Guard, led forward this last Allied reserve in a desperate bid to reclaim the Pratzen Heights. A battalion of the French 4th Line Regiment was charged down by Russian guard cavalry, losing its Eagle standard in the fighting.

Napoleon, who had moved up to the Heights, sent in his own Guard cavalry. In this grim melee between the elite horsemen of both armies, the French finally prevailed. Napoleon had broken the Allied center. Now to close the trap on the Allied left wing, still locked in heavy fighting around Sokolnitz. Around 2 pm, Napoleon ordered four divisions to swing south and cut off their retreat.

General Buxhöwden, commanding the Allied left, only now saw the danger he was in. Attacked from three sides, the only escape was south. Many of his troops were forced to flee across frozen ponds. French artillery opened fire, trying to smash the ice with their cannonballs. About 200 men and dozens of horses drowned in the freezing water. The French Emperor had won a brilliant victory. His army had taken more than 10,000 prisoners and captured 45 enemy standards. Thousands of dead and wounded of all sides littered the battlefield, many left untended for days.

The Battle of the Three Emperors, as it became known, was a crushing blow to the Third Coalition. As Russian forces retreated back to Russia, Francis I of Austria was forced to accept a humiliating settlement with France, agreeing to pay a 40-million-franc indemnity and give up more territory in exchange for peace. But meanwhile, news had reached Napoleon of a disastrous Franco-Spanish defeat at sea off Cape Trafalgar. British Admiral Lord Nelson, at the cost of his own life, had masterminded a victory so complete that it ensured British naval dominance not just for the rest of the war, but for the next 100 years.

Britain, master of the sea; Napoleon, unbeatable on land. When William Pitt received news of Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz, he reportedly said, “Roll up that map of Europe, it will not be wanted these ten years.” A month later, Pitt was dead, but his warning that Europe faced another ten years of war and upheaval proved prophetic.

In December 1805, at the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, won a crushing victory against the joint forces of Austria and Russia. Napoleon now dominated Europe, able to hand out spoils as he saw fit. In February 1806, he sent an army led by Marshal Massena to overthrow the king of Naples, who had dared to side with his enemies, and gave his throne to his own brother, Joseph, instead. Another brother, Louis, was made King of Holland. His German allies, Bavaria and Württemberg, were elevated to the status of kingdoms.

While Napoleon made himself ‘Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine’ – a new alliance of German states that would contribute 60,000 troops to his army. In recognition of the new reality, Emperor Francis of Austria formally dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne a thousand years before, but now without influence or purpose. Austria had been humiliated; France remained at war with Britain, Sweden, and Russia.

But in the summer of 1806, all eyes were on Prussia. The Prussian king, Frederick William III, regarded Napoleon with deep mistrust and had been about to join the Coalition against him when news arrived of its disastrous defeat at Austerlitz. He was heavily influenced by his wife, the celebrated Queen Louise, who detested France and Napoleon. She led the influential ‘War Party’ at the Prussian court.

Matters came to a head over Hanover – a German state that had belonged to British King George III, been occupied by the French, and given by Napoleon to Prussia as compensation for other territorial changes. Now the Prussians learned that Napoleon had secretly offered to give Hanover back to Britain in exchange for peace. Frederick’s advisors persuaded him that war was the only honorable course. But Prussia then made a basic strategic blunder, sending an ultimatum to Napoleon without consulting its new allies in the Fourth Coalition. Their forces were too far away to help Prussia, which would now face Napoleon’s Grande Armée with just the small state of Saxony for support.

In 1806, the Prussian army had a fearsome reputation, dating back 50 years to the reign of Frederick the Great. Napoleon, a student of history, regarded it with respect. But Prussia’s army had been allowed to rest on its laurels. Its generals were old, its staff work hindered by bureaucracy and personal rivalries, and its movements ponderous and predictable. Prussian soldiers, however, could be relied on to fight with pride and determination, while Prussian cavalry was regarded as among the best in Europe.

In October 1806, Napoleon invaded Saxony with an army of 166,000 men and 256 guns. Advancing in three columns, the French crossed the mountain forests of the Thüringer Wald, along roads carefully reconnoitered by scouts and spies. Napoleon intended to threaten Leipzig and force a decisive battle with the Prussian army, which he believed was near Gera. The Prussians were in fact further west, concentrating near Erfurt, on the west bank of the River Saale. Its commander, the Duke of Brunswick, had hoped to threaten the flank of Napoleon’s advance. But wrong-footed by the speed of the French, he now ordered a retreat north to find a new defensive line.

On 10th October, at Saalfeld, Marshal Lannes’ V Corps clashed with a Prussian advance guard commanded by Prince Louis-Frederick, the king’s cousin. The Prussian force was routed, and Prince Louis himself was killed in combat. Three days later, Lannes made contact with a large Prussian force near Jena and sent news to Napoleon. The French Emperor, believing he’d found the main Prussian army, rapidly issued orders for his corps to concentrate for battle at Jena. Bernadotte’s I Corps and Davout’s III Corps were to cross the Saale and fall on the Prussian flank from the north.

But Napoleon was wrong – Lannes faced a 35,000-strong Prussian rearguard commanded by General Hohenlohe. The main Prussian army, 52,000 men under the Duke of Brunswick, was further north, moving straight into the path of Davout’s III Corps. The Battle of Jena began at 6:30 am on 14th October, in thick fog. Marshal Lannes’ V Corps already had a toehold on the plateau west of the town and river. His first task was to drive back the Prussians and win room for the rest of the French army to deploy.

His infantry led the way, and fierce fighting broke out for the villages of Cospeda, Closewitz, and Lützeroda. Meanwhile, Augereau’s VII Corps advanced through a ravine, emerging onto the plateau on Lannes’ left flank, while Soult’s IV Corps climbed steep tracks to form on his right. Napoleon joined Lannes in the center of the battlefield, organizing a 25-gun battery to support the attack on Vierzehnheiligen. The village was won but then lost to a determined Prussian counterattack.

On the right, around 10 am, Soult’s infantry secured Closewitz but was counterattacked on its right flank near Rödigen. A decisive charge by Soult’s light cavalry drove off the Prussians, routing their infantry and capturing two enemy colors. As VI Corps began to arrive on the plateau, its fearless but impetuous commander, Marshal Ney, ignored orders and dived into the fighting around Vierzehnheiligen, becoming briefly cut off by a Prussian counterattack and having to be rescued by Guard cavalry.

General Hohenlohe was expecting the arrival of 15,000 more troops under General Rüchel at any moment. Until then, he remained largely inactive, shoring up his line and ordering limited counterattacks. But he had run out of time. Napoleon had begun the day with just 25,000 men. By 12:30, a steady stream of reinforcements had brought his strength up to 96,000. As the Emperor rode past the Imperial Guard, one young soldier, eager to be sent into action, called out “Forward!” Napoleon stopped and demanded to know who’d spoken, then rebuked the soldier as a youth who ought not to offer advice until he too had commanded in 30 battles.

But the moment had arrived. Although the Guard, to its frustration, remained in reserve, the other French corps were ordered forward in a general attack. The Prussian army began to give ground – at first, it kept its discipline, but then disintegrated in a general rout. Murat’s cavalry were launched in pursuit, riding down and sabering hundreds of fleeing Prussians. General Rüchel’s two divisions finally arrived at the worst possible moment. They briefly held up V Corps’ advance but were soon outflanked, broken up by cannon fire, and charged down by French cuirassiers.

Meanwhile, 12 miles to the north near Auerstädt, Marshal Davout was marching southwest, expecting to fall on the Prussian left wing at Jena. Instead, he encountered the Duke of Brunswick’s main Prussian army, heading north to take up new positions. Davout’s III Corps, 27,000 men and 48 guns, was about to face odds of two-to-one, while Bernadotte’s I Corps, which had orders to support Davout, was nowhere to be seen. Davout, nicknamed the Iron Marshal, showed no signs of alarm. He formed his first division into a defensive line centered on the village of Hassenhausen, his infantry forming squares to repel a series of cavalry charges by General Blücher’s Advance Guard.

His other two infantry divisions arrived to strengthen the line, standing firm in the face of repeated Prussian attacks. But Prussian movements were slow and poorly coordinated, nor did they use their numerical advantage to try and outflank Davout. At a crucial moment, the Duke of Brunswick was shot through the eyes – a wound that proved fatal. King Frederick William himself took command. Several Prussian units remained uncommitted. But the king, convinced he faced the main French army under Napoleon, hesitated.

Around 12:15, Marshal Davout counterattacked – the Prussian army turned and fled. Davout had won a stunning victory against the odds – but at a heavy price. His corps suffered 25% casualties – one man in four killed or wounded – while inflicting twice as many losses on the Prussians. When news reached Napoleon that Marshal Davout had engaged and defeated the main Prussian army, he reacted first with disbelief, then heaped praise upon the ‘Iron Marshal,’ later awarding him the title ‘Duke of Auerstädt.’ Marshal Bernadotte, in contrast, was nearly court-martialed for failing to support Davout.

Napoleon’s army began a masterful pursuit of the beaten Prussians, giving them no time to regroup. Two weeks after the twin battles of Jena-Auerstädt, Napoleon’s troops