Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (28 page)

Yet this was supposition. The Allies lacked detailed knowledge of the current state of the French army, despite it being on Austrian lands.
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On the day of the council of war, Count Stadion, the Austrian ambassador to St Petersburg, now with the army, and the ubiquitous FML Gyulai, set out from Olmütz for Napoleon’s headquarters at Brünn. Sir Arthur Paget, also at Olmütz, expressed his concern as to the nature of their mission. In response, he was assured that the two men went to Brünn to observe the actions of Haugwitz, the Prussian foreign minister, who was due there any day to present Prussia’s ultimatum. Paget, however, saw another purpose to their embassy. He expected a decisive battle to take place within the next few days and, ‘Should
the Allies gain the victory Count Stadion will be upon the spot to animate and second Count Haugwitz, should the reverse be the case he is no doubt destined to sign such a peace as I tremble to think off.’
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Napoleon, unimpressed by their presence in his camp and considering them little more than spies, ushered them away to Vienna and a meeting with his foreign minister, Talleyrand.

It was imperative now for the emperor that the Allies did not withdraw, and while unaware at that moment of the direction Allied planning was taking, it was in his interest to display an apparent weakness. By this he hoped to encourage the Allies to give battle and abandon any plans they may have for retreat. Napoleon held only about 52,000 men close to him around Brünn, but he knew that when he gave the order he could draw Bernadotte and Davout rapidly towards him at short notice.

On 25 November, the day the Allies originally planned to advance, Napoleon sent an emissary towards Russian headquarters to open communications with the tsar. For this purpose he chose his aide, GD Savary, a master of intelligence work, Schulmeister’s employer and the man who carried out the execution of the duc d’Enghien that had so appalled the Russian court. While the letter he carried contained little more than platitudes and an expression of goodwill towards Alexander, Savary used his time carefully in the Allied camp to observe and monitor the situation and attitude of the Allies. The tsar received Savary courteously, as did Constantine, but after a long interview, Savary could not fail to note the belligerent attitude of the officers of the imperial entourage and their influence over the tsar. Savary returned to Napoleon with a letter from Alexander in which he expressed his desire ‘to see the peace of Europe reestablished with fairness and on a just basis’. Yet as Russia did not acknowledge Napoleon’s coronation, imperial protocol decreed that the letter be addressed to ‘The Head of the French Government’ and not ‘Emperor’. This angered Napoleon, but the air of hostility perceived by Savary suited his purposes, suggesting that the Allies were inclined to fight.

Napoleon sent Savary back to request a 24-hour truce and a personal meeting with the tsar. The time would prove useful in drawing the outlying formations of his army towards Brünn. The Russians detained Savary overnight at their outposts and the tsar did not receive him until the morning of 29 November, by which time the Allies were two days into their advance and pushing back the French outposts. Alexander declined the offer, instead sending his great favourite, Prince Peter Dolgorukov, in his place. Napoleon advanced to meet Dolgorukov at the outposts of his army and walked with the prince, ensuring he should see only what the emperor wanted him to see.

Dolgorukov observed what he believed was an army nervous and unprepared for a major battle. Much has been made of the subsequent discussions between Napoleon and Dolgorukov. While the Russian prince was probably the most outspoken and arrogant of the tsar’s aides, it suited Napoleon to play along submissively at first and then later claim indignation at the way the Russian
envoy dictated to him. Faced with proposals for peace from Dolgorukov, which contained nothing new, Napoleon finally tired of the game and dismissed Dolgorukov with the words, ‘Well then, we shall fight’.
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Dolgorukov returned to Allied headquarters brimming with confidence, convinced that Napoleon feared a confrontation and would retire before the advance of the Allied army. This was just the news Alexander wanted to hear. Others with greater military experience doubted Dolgorukov’s interpretation of the situation. As these discussions concluded, the Austro-Russian army marched slowly towards Austerlitz and Napoleon issued orders for the concentration of his army.

The Allied army left Olschan at 8.00am on the morning of 27 November. Now Kutuzov’s regiments found themselves intermixed with those of Buxhöwden’s army, forming five columns, numbered one to five from the right, with a separate advance guard. It advanced astride the Olmütz-Brünn road with I Column on the right, reaching towards the mountains that rose in the north. With a lack of detailed knowledge of the French position, this offered the possibility of turning the French left if an encounter took place on the road. To shield this initial movement, Prince Bagration, now commanding the Army Advance Guard, received orders to maintain his position before Wischau, allowing the army to close up behind him undetected. Kutuzov issued strict orders for march discipline to be maintained, but it is clear from documents issued from headquarters that many regiments allowed their wagons to disrupt the advance.
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The army ended the day extended over 8 miles between the villages of Prossnitz and Prodlitz.

The following morning Bagration formed his advance guard into three columns: the centre column advanced along the road directly on Wischau, while the others swung out to left and right to envelop the town. Two French cavalry regiments stood in the town, commanded by Général de brigade Treillard, with another two behind it in reserve. Général de brigade Sébastiani sat with a regiment of dragoons some 3 miles to the south at Huluboschan. Treillard’s instructions were to withdraw on the approach of the enemy, but surprised by Bagration’s sudden advance, a squadron was cut off and after a spirited resistance the isolated Frenchmen surrendered to the Russian infantry, while four squadrons of Russian hussars took up the pursuit of the retiring French cavalry. In response, Murat initially fed more squadrons into action but then, becoming aware of the approach of a large cavalry force, he ordered them to withdraw. This force, commanded by General Leitenant Essen II, was led forward by the tsar in person. Caught up in the excitement of his first battle, Alexander then enthusiastically rode to the flank where, as Langeron remarked, he was exposed to a danger ‘far more than appropriate for his rank’.

As soon as Napoleon heard of the Allied advance he ordered Maréchal Soult to draw in the detachments of IV Corps and concentrate towards Austerlitz. With every likelihood of battle increasing he now deemed the time right to
order the concentration of the army. GD Caffarelli, standing with his division of III Corps south of Brünn at Pohrlitz, received orders to march by 1.00am the following morning and arrive at Brünn by 6.30am. From there his orders required him to advance along the Olmütz road: confirmation of his final destination would follow. In the meantime, with the rest of III Corps still on the road, Napoleon attached Caffarelli’s division to Lannes’ V Corps. Bernadotte, currently towards Bohemia watching Archduke Ferdinand, received orders to make all speed to Brünn, leaving Wrede’s division of Bavarians to oppose Ferdinand alone. Orders were also despatched to Maréchal Davout, whose other two divisions were at Vienna and Pressburg, to march on Brünn where they were to arrive at the earliest possible moment. To all of them he expressed the feeling that a great battle would take place east of Brünn on either 29 or 30 November. In this he overestimated the speed of the Allies’ ponderous advance.

By the evening of 28 November Bagration’s advance guard occupied the town of Rausnitz, which he captured without loss following an attack by two battalions of the Arkhangelogord Musketeer Regiment.
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All day the French had fallen back before him with little show of a determined resistance. The main army, following behind, occupied a position to the west of Wischau. The Russian officers who predicted that Napoleon feared battle were in high-spirits and ‘this hope became the prevailing opinion at headquarters’.
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The tsar was exhilarated after his first experience of action.

In Kutscherau, a village just over 4 miles south of Wischau, these territorial losses and gains had a great impact on the lives of the local population. The French first arrived on 22 November, ‘a wild and haggard people’, and took all the oats and hay they could find, along with the entire store of winter fodder belonging to the priest, Anton Meixner. Over the next three days they stole clothes, wine and horses. On 25 November GB Sébastiani arrived and restored order, although Meixner complained that he was required to provide Sébastiani and twelve officers with food and drink for the next three days. Then, on 28 November, as the French fell back, the Russians arrived in Kutscherau. Meixner likened them to a plague of locusts: ‘No cellar was deep enough or lock strong enough for them not to be broken open and everything that they found removed’. The following day Buxhöwden arrived in Kutscherau with his entourage, complete with hunting dogs and women, who were of a type that Meixner felt he could not describe before ‘the ears of decent people’. The Russian general assembled eleven coaches and the same number of wagons, ninety-six horses and 139 men, which the priest had to find means to feed that day. When all had departed the devastated village, Meixner was left to reflect, ‘we have the right to consider that the Russians have not arrived here to force out the enemy but to bring us painful perdition and starvation … what more could they have committed if they had appeared as the enemy?!’
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Napoleon appeared at the Posoritz post house that evening, and following a meeting with Murat, Soult and Lannes – during which Lannes and Soult almost came to blows – he gave the order for their men to fall back to new positions. In the very early hours of 29 November, the first day that Napoleon had considered battle possible, Soult withdrew his corps from Austerlitz, passed over the Pratzen Plateau and retired to positions behind the Goldbach stream. Lannes and Murat also moved their men to locations directed by Napoleon, closer to the Olmütz–Brünn road. Now the army occupied the area so closely scrutinised by Napoleon eight days earlier.

The Bosenitzerberg, which drew the emperor’s attention at that time, now bristled with artillery and had earned the name ‘Santon’ from his soldiers. It is said that those veterans of the Egyptian campaign gave it the name in reference to the santons – hilltop chapels where the remains of holy men were interred – they had encountered in the Middle East. Yet Napoleon need not have hurried his men back: the five columns of the Allied army spent the entire day repositioning to the south of the Olmütz–Brünn road, to positions on the high ground between Huluboschan and Kutscherau, covering no more than 4 miles. However, Bagration did press forward with the advance guard, although only for 3 miles, to a position just to the west of the Posoritz post house, where he encountered French outposts occupying a hill close to Holubitz.

Although quickly reinforced, these outposts soon fell back when threatened by a Russian advance. Finally, under cover of darkness, the last remaining outposts melted away, back to the main body of the army behind the Goldbach. Some 3 miles to the south-east of Bagration, FML Kienmayer led his cavalry unopposed into Austerlitz. Despite this limited progress, the main body of the Austro-Russian army, which started the day only 12 miles from Napoleon’s final battle line, ended the day no closer. While the Allies dithered, the French acted. Orders calling Davout to unite with the army at Brünn arrived in Vienna at about 3.00pm that day. Quickly forwarded to the corps commander at Pressburg, Davout immediately sent the order back to Vienna for GD Friant to lead his division north, while GD Gudin commenced the long march from Pressburg. Friant marched throughout the night, linking up with Bourcier’s dragoon division on the way.

Also on 29 November Napoleon finally met with Haugwitz at Brünn. This much-heralded meeting lasted four hours, during which the emperor largely outmanoeuvred the Prussian minister. Then, as Haugwitz returned to his quarters at the end of this meeting, a message and carriage arrived. The letter advised him that as battle was imminent he should proceed immediately to Vienna, where Napoleon assured him he could continue the discussions with Talleyrand – who received instructions to do no such thing. And so Haugwitz, like Stadion and Gyulai before him, was pushed aside to allow Napoleon to concentrate fully on the approaching battle.

Friant and Bourcier continued their relentless march throughout the 30 November. By the evening they had reached Nikolsburg, 45 miles north of Vienna and only 25 miles south of Brünn. Bernadotte continued his march towards Brünn while Soult, Murat and Lannes completed their concentrations.

In the Allied camp matters were as disorganised as usual. The original dispositions dictated by Weyrother called for an advance that outflanked the French left. The lack of a determined defence in the early encounters with the enemy outposts convinced him that the French were determined to avoid conflict and draw back on the Brünn–Vienna road. On 29 November, therefore, he realigned the Allied army to the left of the Olmütz–Brünn road, from where it could now threaten the right of the French and cut the Vienna road. This shift to the left continued on 30 November, but rather than just a redeployment, Weyrother’s directions included a redesignation of the column identities. The original II Column became the new III Column, likewise the old III Column was renamed IV Column and IV Column became II Column. As well as this change in column designation, officers and regiments also transferred between columns. These complex changes tested to the limit the ingenuity of the already overworked staff officers.
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