Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it, while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an event.
On the 11th, Marshal Mortier defeated the Russians; and on the 13th, the French army entered VIENNA. On the 16th, the French defeated the Russians at Gunstersdorff; and on the 2d of December, the memorable and decisive battle of Austerlitz was fought, where the combined armies of Austria and Russia were signally defeated, and routed with immense loss.
Ouvrard having engaged to pay the Spanish Government only 3 francs, would very willingly have parted with them at that rate, but his hasty departure from Madrid, and the financial events at Paris, affected his relations with the Spanish Treasury, and rendered it impossible for him to afford any support to the Treasury of France; thus the alarm continued, until the news of the battle of Austerlitz and the consequent hope of peace tranquillised the public mind.
Napoleon for his part sprang forth for the campaign of Austerlitz, perhaps the most brilliant military episode in the history of mankind. With incredible facility he threw forward to the Rhine an army of 180,000 men. His policy was as always to overcome the allies in detail. On the twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris. The Empress and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg.
One man was heard to say to another: "Do you see that fellow with a red beard, he's the one who will give the word when we are to fire." It appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Quenisset affair, entrusted with this same function. The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and reached the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted.
Gérard and Gros, David, Ingres, and Isabey committed to canvas the glories of the German campaigns; and the capitulation of Ulm, the taking of Vienna, the passage of the Danube, and the field of Austerlitz still live in the genius of these great painters.
The dilapidated furniture, the frayed velvet, the chandelier soiled with fly-marks, all those poor wrecks now seemed to her like the glorious bullet-riddled debris of a battle-field. The plain of Austerlitz would not have stirred her to deeper emotion. When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering about the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air.
We have gained on the Elbe and the Oder, Pondicherry, our Indian establishments, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spanish colonies. Why should the Russians have the right of opposing destiny and thwarting our just designs? They and we are still the soldiers who fought at Austerlitz.
There was but one of their barbarities that really pained him, and that was the destruction of the Vendome column; he reproached himself for the feeling as being a childish weakness, but his grandfather's voice still sounded in his ears repeating the old familiar tales of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Wagram, the Moskowa those epic narratives that thrilled his pulses yet as often as he thought of them.
On the 1st of December was fought the celebrated battle of Austerlitz, the most glorious of all Napoleon's battles, and in which his military genius shone with the greatest lustre, and which decided the campaign. The dethronement of the King of Naples followed, and the power of Napoleon was consolidated on the continent of Europe.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking