Austerlitz 1805: Napoleon Gives Up the Pratzen Heights to Bait the Tsar

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On 2 December 1805, near Austerlitz in modern Czechia, Napoleon's Grande Armée faced the Russian and Austrian armies of the Third Coalition in what became known as the Battle of the Three Emperors. The army had been built at the Boulogne camps to invade Britain, but after French naval defeats Napoleon swung it east, encircled the Austrian general Mack at Ulm, captured 23,000 men and took Vienna. Deep in hostile territory with winter coming and Prussia wavering, he needed a decisive battle, while Mikhail Kutuzov wanted only to keep retreating.

So Napoleon staged weakness. He begged for an armistice, played a frightened commander before the Tsar's aide Prince Dolgorukov, and abandoned the Pratzen Heights over his marshals' objections. Tsar Alexander I sidelined Kutuzov and let the Austrian Weyrother plan an attack on the thin French right. As allied columns left the heights for Telnitz and Sokolnitz, Davout's corps arrived after a forced march, and Soult's men, hidden in the valley and the morning fog, stormed the hollowed center.

Davout's third corps marched about 110 kilometers from Vienna in 48 hours and went straight into the fight.
Asked how long his men needed to reach the heights, Soult answered less than 20 minutes.
The allies lost about 36,000 men and nearly 200 cannon; the French lost around 9,000.
The Treaty of Pressburg imposed a 40 million franc indemnity, and the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806.
William Pitt, hearing the news, said to roll up the map of Europe, and Napoleon never granted anyone the title Duke of Austerlitz.

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