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Praetorium Honoris

Saturday, November 12, 2022

A Bit o' History, Part 2

Exploits of the Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805
Bogdan Willewalde (PD)
The campaigns of the Emperor Napoléon can be summarized as a series of short - less than a year in length, lots of marching, smaller battles won and lost, a climactic battle at the end which left the French triumphant - wars. Until they weren't, think Spain and Russia, which I'll get to shortly.

The Austerlitz campaign was Napoléon's first as Emperor. He had the bulk of his army massed on the Channel coast around Boulogne waiting for conditions to be ripe to move that army across the Channel, invade England, and put paid to the seemingly endless series of anti-French coalitions meant to return France to the status quo antebellum. That is, one of the Bourbons back on the throne in Paris and any (and all) territories seized by the French returned to their "rightful" owners.

Great Britain remained a thorn in Napoléon's side for his entire career, they just would not go away. British gold financed the wars (The Golden Cavalry of St. George as reader Retired mentioned the other day). Britain had a large navy (logical for an island nation heavily dependent on foreign trade) but a small army. She couldn't land on the Continent and defeat Napoléon, her army would be gobbled up by the far larger French military. So she paid subsidies to the rulers of the European empires (Prussia, Austria, and Russia) to keep their armies in the field fighting the French.

Napoléon resolved to invade England and end that. Unfortunately for him, the English Channel presents a number of challenges to an invading army. So Napoléon waited for the Royal Navy to be elsewhere, or for the Royal Navy to be badly damaged by the combined fleets of France and Spain. While he awaited those unlikely things to occur, rumors of the Austrians getting obstreperous again (and two Russian armies marching to support them) reached his ears.

Turning his by now well-drilled and very capable troops to the east, Napoléon resolved to smash the Austrians, then defeat the Russians while those hardy troops were far from home and unsupported by an active ally in the field. 

The strategic situation from 11 to 14 October.
The Department of History, United States Military Academy (PD)
Click to embiggen
Napoléon succeeded, trapping General Mack and a big chunk of the Austrian Army in the area around Ulm (in present day Baden-Württemberg). Which left one Russian force (under Kutuzov, West Point misspelled his name on this series of maps) well forward of the other Russian army under Buxhowden. Which sent Kutuzov and the surviving Austrians east.

Napoléon occupied Vienna, then moved to the northeast to engage the combined Russian forces and what remained of the Austrians. (It's worth noting that there were sizable Austrian forces in Italy, tied down by the French Marshal Masséna with substantially smaller numbers. It's also worth noting that most of the Austrian generals of the time weren't really any good. There were exceptions, we'll meet them.)

All of this led to the Battle of Austerlitz, which occurred one year to the day after Napoléon's coronation. It was a massive French victory which led to the Austrians and Russians leaving the coalition against Napoléon.

While all of that was going on the Prussians were mobilizing and making warlike noises but not actually doing anything to help. 1806 would be the year they were ready when they would join the Fourth Coalition.

Again, hard marching, some small actions, which led to the dual battles of Jena and Auerstädt, both of which resulted in French victories, but ...

Napoléon was present on the field at Jena, where he led the bulk of his forces (96,000 men) against a small contingent of the Prussian army (35,000 men). At Auerstädt, 12 miles north of Jena, Marshal Davout led a single corps (26,000 men) against a far larger contingent of Prussians (63,000) under the Duke of Brunswick.

Davout's victory was magnificent, but can you guess what battle honor was awarded to French units after the campaign? Yup, "Jena," as if Auerstädt was of no importance. One simply does not trump the Emperor, not even Davout, the Iron Marshal, could do that.

But the aftermath saw Prussia beaten down and humiliated. Fortresses manned by thousands would surrender to a single regiment of cavalry. The Prussians wouldn't take the field against the French again until 1813.

But there was one more battle to be fought, the Russians were still opposed to the French and they were in eastern Prussia. The Emperor decided that they must be defeated, so he pressed forward.

Which led to the frozen nightmare of Preußisch Eylau in February of 1807.

(Source)
We'll start with that, next time.




24 comments:

  1. I have noticed there is a good amount of art with these subjects.

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    1. Tons, many of them very inaccurate in the details of what the men wore on the battlefield, but gorgeous to look at nevertheless.

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    2. Thanks for the historical background and the art. Before photography, your art conveys the best impression of what the battles looked like. A question - are there any surviving sketches of battles made at the time (not painted after the fact)?

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    3. During the Civil War yes, the Napoleonic? That I don't know, possible, but I doubt it.

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  2. For such a large land based empire, the Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire seems to have very few bright spots after Prince Eugene of Savoy in the last 17th- early 18th century.

    As an odd historical note, when discovering that General Santa Anna had set up his camp on a plain near the San Jacinto River, Sam Houston (then general) was reported to have said "The sun of Austerlitz has risen again" prior to The Battle of San Jacinto (21 April 1836)

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    1. Excellent quote. I must needs dig for an extended version of this story. Our founders were learned men. The "betters" today wouldn't have been fit to wipe out their chamber pots with their own shirt tails.

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    2. Today's would not be fit to wipe them out with their tongues!

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    3. TB - The Austrian Empire was made up of multiple distinct cultures, the people spoke many different languages, and by this time the Hapsburgs were almost completely ineffective in running the Empire. Yet it lasted until 1918!

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    4. STxAR - Yup, learned and wise, they also didn't proclaim themselves to be "experts" as the current lot likes to do.

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    5. MM - Gross, but completely on target!

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    6. Had the same thought, but Matis beat me to it.

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    7. Sarge, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is endlessly fascinating to me. I am a little more up to snuff on the reign of Franz Joseph. It just encompassed such a large area with such a diverse population, and managed to do so for a very long time.

      I have been able to travel to Vienna and the Hofburg (and the treasury). The history is just overhelming.

      And, of course, the title of "All-Highest" may be the best title ever.

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  3. You've raised my curiosity enough I picked up the book "Waterloo Lectures, A Study of the Campaign of 1815" by Colonel Charles Chesney (1826 to 1876, Royal Engineer and Professor of Military History at Sandhurst. Looks interesting as it seems he made it a point to seek out original material from all sides so as to paint a better picture of what really happened. (Note how I managed to mention "paint a better picture" to go with all of the paintings you include in your posts.)
    ;-)
    Barry

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  4. Thank you for putting the strategic / tacti-cool maps in this post. Those help me no end to see what's happening and keep it straight in my head. About all I knew of this time period was "Every puppy has his day, Every body has to pay, Every body has to meet his Waterloo". I appreciate the "expanded" history education. ;)

    My second college history professor was a Korean War veteran, and he allowed as how his class would focus on the wars we fought from 1870 to present, as those were MAJOR turning points in our history. We slogged through the normal stuff. He explained the run up to the big wars, but the smaller ones were lightly touched. A little about the 38 Colt that wasn't enough to stop the drug fueled men we met in the Philippines, so that led to the acceptance of the 1911 Browning pistol and the 45 ACP. Great nuggets like that turned up regularly. Texas Technical was a decent state college back then... when they taught you the facts.

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    1. Those little wars always seem to get short shrift, time is a factor in teaching history, there never seems to be enough of it. Yet I remember we always skipped those little wars, many of which had a large impact on future conflicts.

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  5. I don't have a p-mail for you Sarge, thought this might be of interest so I'm doing it this way.

    https://www.gypsyjournalrv.com/2022/11/november-oa/

    Q. I was impressed to read that you have made over a million dollars from your books on Amazon. That is quite an accomplishment. I told my brother about it and that you are self-published. He said that is impossible, that self-published books never sell that many copies, and that you must have a publisher. Was I wrong?

    A. You were not wrong. There are many self-published authors like myself who have earned well over a million dollars in royalties.

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    1. I have been looking at Amazon, believe me. Thanks for the link!

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  6. Heh! My Grandma was living at Ostróda (ex-Osterode), one railway station from Iława (ex- Preussich Eylau).
    She was accountant at big meat-processing factory built back in 1970s when communists tried to get industries modernised via western credits.
    That ensured our family source of quality sausages, ham etc. as the usual practice at various factories was that staff had part of the payments in products of them.

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    1. Now that's pretty awesome, history in one's backyard, so to speak!

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  7. Poor trigger discipline on the part of the chap on the horse, left foreground.

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    1. And the French uniforms are wrong for 1805. Guy's a painter, not a soldier.

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