This is How you Austerlitz!

Exploits of the Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805¹
Bogdan Pavlovich Willewalde (PD)

Why yes, I am still ranting about the movie.

I was driven to look up who was the military consultant for Ridley Scott's Napoleon. Who to blame for this abject departure from history? Turns out he had a British military consultant and a French historical advisor. I read this about his military consultant, the title of this article ...

Critics of Napoleon epic have fallen for emperor’s fibs, says film’s military expert

... pretty much told me all I needed to know, but I read the article anyway. One word, poppycock. (Though in The Guardian's defense, they do look at both sides of the argument, the last line in the article struck a chord with me.)

Want to know how to do warfare in the Napoleonic era? Hire a British ex-paratrooper? I'm sure the guy knows modern warfare, but he sucks at history. He's the kind of guy I would hire to teach actors and extras how to act like soldiers. From what I saw, he did okay at that. He's done some excellent work on other films, check out his demo reel from his LinkedIn page.

So he knows the small bits, but if he was responsible for setting up the battle scenes (particularly Austerlitz and Waterloo) then Sir Ridley should have hired someone else. Which is where I assume the French historian was relied upon. I'm not seeing any expertise on his LinkedIn page to support hiring him as a consultant on the wars of Napoléon.

Sir Ridley could probably have hired the guys who do the Austerlitz and Waterloo reenactments and gotten a lot more bang for his buck (literally).

The reenactment of these battles are held periodically, Austerlitz is reenacted once a year and from what I have read is always on the anniversary of the battle, the 2nd of December and takes place on the ground where the battle was actually fought. Waterloo is reenacted every five years on the actual ground but is on a weekend near the anniversary of the battle. (I had the extreme fortune to have attended the reenactment on the 18th of June 1995, a Sunday, the 180th anniversary of that battle. Same day of the year, same day of the week, and, wonder of wonders, the weather was damned near identical to what it was like in 1815!)

The Waterloo reenactment is a much larger affair (after all it's within spitting distance of Brussels and its international airport) whereas the Austerlitz reenactment is smaller but seems to be growing every year. (I suppose when your reenactment is in the wilds of Czechia, sixty plus miles from Vienna, you have to be happy that you get as many reenactors as you do. I will say this, the guys who do Austerlitz do it very well.)

So why do I keep going on and on about this? Other than my obsession with the Napoleonic period, well, I hate seeing Hollywood make a hash of history. If they do it, at least make it entertaining (and here I'll cite Sir Ridley's Kingdom of Heaven and The Last Duel for being ripping good yarns and well-made films, in terms of history, meh, not real accurate). I have friends who found Napoleon very entertaining, perhaps I make too much of the film's mistakes. But I also found it to be a very boring movie, it wasn't edited well and it seemed to drift from one scene to the next without a lot of context.

I know, I know, "You want history, read a book!" That I have read so many books on this era is probably why I dislike the film as much as I do.

Now the title of the post "This is How you Austerlitz!" is because I wanted to expose you to a few short videos. The first is by a guy who toured the area of Austerlitz. (It's not called that anymore, now it's Slavkov u Brna, Austerlitz is the name of the place in German. Remember, back in the day this was part of the Austrian Empire, and what language do Austrians speak?) I show you this to illustrate how far off the location Sir Ridley chose for the film was.

The following clip is from this year's (2023) reenactment of Austerlitz. Note that Sir Ridley's film is mentioned as well.

The rest of the clips are all of the reenactments at Austerlitz. Take my word for it, the reenactments gave me a far better flavor for this sort of thing than Sir Ridley's film.

Also from the 2023 reenactment. (There wasn't nearly as much snow there in 1805, if you believe the paintings of the battle. Yeah take those with a grain of salt as well.)

This is from an earlier reenactment, though the text accompanying the video didn't make it all that clear (note the lack of snow!)

And last (and perhaps least, though the cinematography is better, the historical accuracy isn't) here's the scene from Ridley Scott's Napoleon:

For anyone looking to make a film about Napoléon, call me, I'm available.

I'm still a fan of Ridley Scott's films but ...

Now I'll get down off my soapbox.

For now ...

¹ I rather wish I could have found the original title of this painting. It's in the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg, no, not the one in Florida. The painting depicts the capture of the Eagle of the 4ème Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne by the cavalry of the Russian guard at Austerlitz. The French lost only one eagle at the battle of Austerlitz.