Slavkov u Brna - Austerlitz
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Slavkov u Brna - Austerlitz |
[Prologue] [Three armies,
two strategies] [Description of the armies] [The Battle]
[After the Battle] [Tradition]
The enemy armies took up their positions on Monday evening, December the lst, in the countryside between Brno and Austerlitz (Slavkov). The terrain, which would, on the following day, become the battlefield, was approximately 10 by 12 kilometers in area and is characterized by rolling hills. On the north, this area was bounded by the imperial road to Olomouc, beyond which begin the foothills of the Drahany Highlands. In the south, the countryside opened onto the South Moravian Lowlands. Some six kilometers from the Olomouc Road begins a range of hills running almost parallel with the road. These is the Prace Ridge. Their high point, which is above the village of Prace, is 325 meters in elevation. This is the highest point in the surrounding area and therefore became the target of military operations during the battle. This hill slopes downward to the east, where rises another, lower hill, the Old Vineyard (298 meters). This hill is situated between the villages of Prace and Blazovice in the district of Jirikovice. At the beginning of the battle, the Allied headquarters (and with that, the Russian and Austrian emperors) would be situated on this hill. The Prace Ridge, in direction of the Olomouc Road, has a long and gentle slope, while the southern slopes incline steeply in the direction of a small river, Litava, which flows around the hills in a southwesterly direction. This small river, or rather a large stream, formed another line bounding the battlefield. If we look at this region on a map of area around Brno, we will see that the battlefield itself could be almost completely enclosed within a scalene triangle, whose northern, horizontal side is the Olomouc Road. Its eastern side is bounded by the the Litava River and by its confluence with Rakovec. The western side of this triangle, which is at a right angle with the Olomouc Road, is bounded by Zlaty potok (Gold Creek), which is a tribuatry of Litava, and has its confluence with it south of Telnice. At this confluence, which forms the southern corner of the triangle, these two streams form a large pond, the Meninsky rybnik (Menin Pond). On Litava, near the Meninsky rybnik, is a second, smaller pond, the Zatcansky rybnik (Zatcany Pond). Both of these ponds played a very important role at the close of the battle.
North of the Olomouc Road, that is to say, outside of this triangle, there is another high point. This point, Santon Hill, is located above the village of Tvarozna and is 306 meters in elevation. Napoleon had this hill fortified before the battle with the 17th Light Infantry Regiment and 18 cannons. Not quite two kilometers from this point, south of the road, is Zuran Hill, from which Napoleon directed the initial stages of the battle. Zuran Hill commands a view of the entire Prace ridge and the valley of Zlaty potok, which flows from Ponetovice in a rather wide and muddy bed towards the Meninsky rybnik and its confluence with Litava.
There are about dozen villages within this triangle, in all of which heavy fighting would break out in the morning. Other villages, mainly north of the Olomouc Road, would be witness to side battles. Their inhabitants, mainly farmers, were serfs on the various estates into which this region was divided.
The Allies arrived at the eastern edge of this area from Olomouc and occupied Prace Hill, which Napoleon had abandoned shortly before. Napoleon had withdrawn with his army towards Brno, beyond the line of Zlaty potok, to a point near Sokolnice and Kobylnice. Thus he offered his enemy this hill, which was the highest point in the vicinity, on a golden platter. This was part of his plan to give his enemies a sense of overconfidence and to give the impression that he was withdrawing in the face of their superior force. In the meantime, his forces stopped on Zlaty potok, where Napoleon intended to lure the Allies at dawn. Beyond this creek, however, there was only Legrand's infantry division and one cavalry division from Soult's Fourth Corp to hold the front. During the night, the French emperor relocated his other forces to the north, towards the Olomouc Road. From here, his forces should have attacked the Allied armies from the rear and the flank as soon as they began their march from Prace Hill to the valley of Zlaty potok.
Napoleon spent the night before the battle in a shack beneath Zuran Hill, which had been hurriedly erected by his engineers from boards, beams and brush. Napoleon had earlier chosen this hill near the Olomouc Road as his command post. In the meantime, the Imperial Guard had settled in a depression below Zuran Hill and the First Corp of Marshal Bernadotte waited in reserve near Slapanice. This corp had only arrived from Jihlava shortly before the battle. The main attack against Prace Hill was to be launched by two divisions of Soult's Fourth Corp (Saint-Hilaire and Vandamme), covered on the left by Lannes's Fifth Corp and Murat's cavalry.
From their positions, the Allies observed movement in the French camp during the night, but they simply explained it away. They believed that Napoleon was hastily abandoning his positions and retreating. When Napoleon himself appeared among his soldiers in the village of Jirikovice, which is situated beneath Prace Hill and near the road, they erupted in spontaneous ovations. They gave him a thundering welcome, lighting straw torches to illuminate his way. Someone had rembered that December the 2nd was the anniversary of Napoleon's coronation and so it was celebrated in this way. The improvised fireworks lasted late into the night and all the roofs of Jirikovice were sacrificed to the celebration. The Allies watched this event from the hill and drew the conclusion, false though it was, that the enemy were burning their camp before withdrawing.
That night, the Allied commanders met at the Spacil estate in Krenovice to discuss the last variant in the plan of the next day's battle. The plan had been developed by General Franz von Weyrother, the Austrian general in command of the General Staff Quarters and was now presented by him to the other generals. According to this plan, the Allied army should come down from Prace Hill, cross Zlaty potok and force the enemy to the north. This would cut the operational line of the French, which was the Brno - Vienna Road, the umbilical cord of the French army. The Allied armies should be supported by the Allied cavalry under Generals Liechtenstein and Uvarov on the Olomouc Road and beyond this road by the Russian corp of General Bagration. Bagration should capture Santon Hill, above the village of Tvarozna and attack the withdrawing French flank. It was not a bad plan, but it did not take into account the speed and maneuverability of the French.