Slavkov u Brna - Austerlitz
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Slavkov u Brna - Austerlitz |
[Prologue] [Description
of the armies] [Before the Battle] [The
Battle]
[After the Battle] [Tradition]
In 1805, Napoleon's army represented a new type of military, which had its beginnings in the French Revolution. The fact that the revolution had ended and that power had been seized by Napoleon, had no impact on the influnce which the revolution had exerted on the army. The French revolutionary army had been created at that moment when France had been endangered by enemy feudal states. It was born from the people's resistance to the invaders and this spontaneous mobilization of the nation, the "citizens in arms" , who protected their endangered motherland, impressed its character on the new French army. Against the clumsy regiments of the feudal armies, which consisted of mercenaries without the capacity to make independent decisions, driven by the whips of the sergeants and who moved mechanically, suddenly stood an enemy unencumbered by years of military drilling.
The armies of the old feudal world maneuvered during a battle in rigid, linear formations, which had been developed in the eighteenth century. The were unable to use the advantages of terrain and their units moved on the training and battlefields like figures on a chessboard. As the officers and sergeants would yell, the foot soldiers, in their precisely designed formations, would execute complicated maneuvers and acrobatics. The instinct for survival was beaten out of the soldiers with hard punishment and as a result they marched into the enemies' fire in lock step. Fields chosen for battles were usually flat and featureless, with unobstructed views and would therefore not impede the progress of the battle lines. The main strategic aim of a battle was not so much the destruction of the enemy's military power, but rather the defense of one's own territory and the occupation of that of the enemy.
In comparison with this, the new French army destroyed the enemy's files with sudden onslaughts, attacks by dispersed snipers and an extended order of battle. The army destroyed the slower enemy with the violence of its strikes, in which it made good use of the variety of terrain and natural features. Against the long and shallow lines, the French began to use more and more often a compact formation of columns, up to sixteen rows deep, which could consist of an infantry battalion, or a square of foot soldiers known as a carre, which were formed against the attacks of calvary, or free formations of light infantry - in all possible combinations as required by the military situation at the moment. And this strategy created miracles. These tactics put the enemy at a loss, suprised by its violence and made it possible to defeat the enemy to a man.
The strategic aim of the French army was to reach, by fast marches, the heart of the enemy's power and to destroy it in a decisive battle. The French army was capable of marching at twice the speed of its enemy. All these principles, which belonged to the revolutionary army, were taken over by the Emperor Napoleon. Gifted with exceptional talent, the commander was able to make maximum use of this new way of fighting and to elevate it to an even higher level of perfection. He also gave the army a new, fixed organization and structure, the principles of which have even been preserved in modern armies. The sum up of all these new and progressive elements of the military craft played a crucial role in the success of the French campaign at Austerlitz. The difference in tactical and strategic principles was not, however, reflected in the armament and equipment of the soldiers of the armies which encountered each other at Austerlitz. Arms and technical equipment on both sides were almost equal. Nor was there a substantial difference in the artillery. The French, however, were able to make better use of their artillery and to multiply its fire power through large concentrations of guns. In spite of the progressive character of French strategy, Napoleon introduced a surpisingly small number of technical innovations to his army.
The main distinguishing feature of these armies was the uniform. The uniform distinguished, at first glance, not only the different armies, but also, within each army, the different types of soldiers and even the various regiments. The blue uniform: blue coats, white trousers, and red epaulettes were typical of the French army from the time of the French Revolution. The blue coated foot soldiers were the heart of this army. The color blue was also prevalent in the uniform of the emperor's guard, which was an elite unit of the French imperial army. The uniforms of the cavalry regiments, especially the light cavalry - jaegers and hussars, had livelier colors. Here, every regiment had different color combinations in the components of the uniform. Most French regiments were distinguished by a regiment number, which was worn on a visible part of the uniform.
White uniforms were characteristic of the Austrian army. The white coat, sung about in many folk songs, had for generations been a symbol of military duty as well as the involuntary fate of many a young men. The white coat was trimmed in colored collars, cuffs and epaulettes, each color representing a different regiment. The normal foot soldiers in leather helmets, the elite grenadiers in high fur caps - the "bearskins", and cavalry dragoons and cuirassiers all wore the traditional white uniforms. Artillerymen wore brown coats, while the hussars had the most colorful uniforms, which had been derived from the Hungarian national costume.
The color green was prevalent in the Russian army. The color combinations in collars, cuffs and epaulettes helped to distinguish between regiments. In 1805, foot soldiers began to wear cylindrical billed felt caps, while cavalry regiments used a helmet with a high comb, which was not only an ornament but also protection for the head against cutting strokes. The elite guard of the Tzar were distinguished by the beauty of their uniforms. The Cossacks formed an irregular cavalry within the Russian army which was not, unlike the other cavalry units, trained to fight in closed, regular formations, but attacked in an unorganized troop. At the time of the Battle of Austerlitz, Cossacks did not have a uniform and their regiments were a mixture of various types of garments.
Two different concepts of battle confronted each other at the Battle of Austerlitz. In spite of the fact that Russians and Austrians were still under the strong influence of old linear tactics and the Prussian school of King Frederick the Great, they had learned their lesson in recent defeats and began to disengage themselves from these old schemes. They gradually began to adjust their tactics to the French school. However, they were still at the beginning of this process and, as a result, their actions in 1805 were an unsettled mixture of tactical elements which were far from the maturity and perfection of French methods.
One of the great advantages of Napoleon's military orgainization was the fact that the army corps included a wide variety of weapons. The structure was also consistent and soldiers in these corps served under the same commanders for some period of time, which in turn allowed these commanders to grow closer to their men. These corps were introduced by Napoleon in 1800 as a test and from 1805, he used them on a regular basis. Nothing like that existed in the camp of the enemy. Battallions were orgainized into marching columns at random and these columns were then under the leadership of different generals in different situations.