The battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo are among the most important battles of the Napoleonic era. At Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon defeated an Allied Austro-Russian army to bring an end to the War of the Third Coalition and strengthen his influence in central Europe. At Waterloo a decade later, Napoleon was defeated by Coalition armies led by the Duke of Wellington and Prussian Field Marshal Blücher. He was forced to abdicate for a second time and ended his days in exile on the remote island of Saint Helena.
Diplomatic Context
The Battle of Austerlitz was the decisive engagement of the War of the Third Coalition. The battle took place on December 2, 1805, the first anniversary of Napoleon’s coronation as emperor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The Third Coalition was organized by British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, who had returned to office in 1804 following the resumption of hostilities with France spring 1803. Napoleon was organizing a large army to cross the English Channel and invade Britain at an opportune moment, and Pitt was desperate to find allies on the continent.
The monarchs of Europe had been appalled by Napoleon’s abduction and murder of the Duc d’Enghien, a young French aristocrat linked to the deposed Bourbons. The Russian tsar and Austrian emperor were also affronted by Napoleon’s assumption of an imperial title in May 1804. The Habsburg Emperor Francis of Austria, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor, was afraid that Napoleon might use his increasing influence in western Germany to wrest the elective imperial crown from him.
When Napoleon abandoned his invasion of England in August 1805 and marched his Grande Armée eastwards to confront the Austrians, part of the army violated neutral Prussian territory. The Third Coalition powers urged Prussia to join their alliance. In late November 1805, after Napoleon had marched down the Danube and occupied Vienna, he received a 30-day ultimatum from the Prussians to evacuate his forces. This encouraged Napoleon to seek a decisive battle at Austerlitz, and also led more belligerent Allied officers to take the offensive to deny the Prussians a share of the glory.
The diplomatic context for the Battle of Waterloo was very different to that of Austerlitz. After Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, he had been defeated in Germany in 1813, and by April 1814 he was forced to abdicate after the Sixth Coalition allies occupied Paris. On February 26, 1815 Napoleon escaped from exile in Elba and was restored as emperor of the French within a month. The victorious allies, who had been involved in bitter disputes over the future of Europe at the Congress of Vienna, responded immediately by forming the Seventh Coalition.
While Napoleon claimed that he had no aggressive intentions, the Seventh Coalition allies considered him an outlaw and were determined to depose him a second time. With the prospect of more than 600,000 enemy troops bearing down on France, in June 1815 Napoleon launched a pre-emptive strike against Wellington’s Anglo-Allied army and Blücher’s Prussians in the Low Countries, hoping to defeat them in battle and at the very least strengthen his negotiating hand before the large Austrian and Russian columns arrived from the east.
Armies
The Grande Armée that Napoleon commanded at Austerlitz had previously been earmarked for an invasion of England. Between 1803 and 1805, Napoleon had been organizing this invasion force and established a series of camps around Boulogne for his Army of England. The extended period at the Camp of Boulogne fostered an espirit de corps that encouraged the men to fight not only for themselves but for their comrades-in-arms during the 1805 campaign.
A major factor in Napoleon’s success in 1805 was his army organization. Ably supported by his chief of staff Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Napoleon organized his army into corps of 20,000-30,000 men, each led by his marshals or divisional generals. By marching along separate routes, Napoleon’s men could move quicker compared to the Austrian and Russian armies who marched in large columns which experienced frequent bottlenecks and delays. Napoleon’s speed of march enabled him to surprise General Mack’s Austrians and force his surrender at Ulm in October.
While individual Russian and Austrian units were as skilled and as brave as the French soldiers at Austerlitz, the unwieldy command structures prevented senior commanders from effectively communicating their orders. Several Allied commanders showed initiative at Austerlitz after the initial shock of Marshal Soult’s attack in the center, but their counterattacks were poorly coordinated and easily beaten back. Mutual suspicions between Austrians and Russian officers and men also undermined cooperation on the day of battle.
The Armée du Nord that Napoleon commanded at Waterloo was a shadow of his Grande Armée of 1805. While there was a core of veterans who had rallied to him during the Hundred Days, many more men were raw recruits with limited battle experience. Likewise, Duke of Wellington was unimpressed with his multinational army at Waterloo including large contingents of Dutch and Belgians who had seen little action, while many of his veterans from the Peninsular War had been sent across the Atlantic to fight in the War of 1812, only to be defeated at the Battle of New Orleans. However, the Prussians had a large contingent of battle-hardened veterans from the 1813 and 1814 campaigns.
By 1815, both Wellington and Blücher’s armies were organized into corps, negating the advantage that Napoleon had enjoyed in 1805. Improved organization allowed the Prussians to recover from defeat at Ligny on June 16 and maintain sufficient cohesion for Blücher to offer Wellington crucial aid at Waterloo on the afternoon of June 18.
Leadership
Leadership and generalship was one of the major factors that made the difference between victory and defeat on the battlefields of Austerlitz and Waterloo. In 1805, the 36-year-old Napoleon was at the summit of his military prowess. His success at Ulm had been an operational masterstroke, but the Russians and Austrians continued to underestimate him. At Austerlitz, Napoleon also had some of his best marshals with him, including Davout, Lannes, and Soult.
After Mack’s surrender at Ulm, the main Allied force was commanded by Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov, who led a skillful fighting retreat back along the Danube to join up with Russian reinforcements in Moravia. However, after Kutuzov raised objections to the battle plan presented by Austrian chief of staff Franz Weyrother and endorsed by Tsar Alexander I, he was unceremoniously stripped of overall command.
Weyrother envisaged attacking the weak French right and rolling up the flank with a large force, around half the Allied army. This plan of action looked good on paper but failed to appreciate the ability of Marshal Davout, perhaps the greatest defensive general of the age, or the prospect of a French counterattack in the center. The maneuver was entrusted to the Russian general Fyodor Buxhöwden, who was allegedly drunk on the day of battle.
At Waterloo, Napoleon was approaching his 45th birthday and had been suffering from various health issues. While he recaptured much of his earlier brilliance during his valiant 1814 campaign on French soil, he had shown uncharacteristic hesitation by failing to commit his Imperial Guard at the Battle of Borodino in 1812.
Napoleon was also without his most talented marshals at Waterloo. Lannes had been killed in 1809, Masséna was in disgrace, while Berthier refused to join Napoleon and died after falling out of a window on June 1, 1815. Napoleon left Davout as Minister of War in Paris and appointed Soult as his chief of staff. His chief subordinate, Marshal Ney, who was given tactical command for much of the day, was a brave commander who struggled to handle large armies. Likewise, the newly appointed Marshal Grouchy, who had been tasked with pursuing the Prussians or otherwise joining Napoleon at Waterloo, was an effective cavalry commander who lacked experience of more senior commands.
While the Duke of Wellington was the same age as Napoleon and fought in inhospitable conditions in India earlier in his career, he did not have Napoleon’s political responsibilities and was in better shape by 1815. During the Peninsular War, Wellington had defeated some of Napoleon’s most talented marshals such as Masséna and Soult but never faced Napoleon himself. The veteran Blücher was 72 and suffered from occasional bouts of insanity, but his boundless aggression and his desire to avenge the depredations Napoleon had inflicted on Prussia after 1807 meant that he was determined to join up with Wellington at Waterloo.
Terrain and Tactics
The tactics at Austerlitz and Waterloo were determined by the battlefield terrain. The dominant feature of the Austerlitz battlefield was the gently sloping Pratzen Heights. In his efforts to secure a decisive battlefield victory, Napoleon abandoned the Pratzen to the enemy and took up his position behind the Goldbach stream facing eastwards, leaving his right flank deliberately weak. He anticipated that the Allies would weaken their center and tasked the 16,000 men of Marshal Soult’s IV Corps to take the Pratzen heights at the opportune moment.
As mentioned above, the allies took the bait and decided to attack Napoleon’s right on December 2, failing to appreciate that Marshal Davout had force-marched his men to the villages of Sokolnitz and Telnitz overnight. With three allied columns engaged against Napoleon’s right and another beginning to join them, Napoleon ordered Soult to advance on the Pratzen. This bold tactical maneuver split the Coalition army into two, and the Allies never recovered.
The battle of Waterloo was fought a few miles to the south of the town of Waterloo, where Wellington had spent the night before and after the battle. After receiving assurances that the Prussians had retreated north to Wavre, Wellington chose a low ridge line to block Napoleon’s advance on Brussels. In order to disrupt Napoleon’s attacks against his lines, Wellington deployed skirmishers at the farms of Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, and Papelotte in front of his lines. Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte witnessed particularly intense fighting during the battle.
While Napoleon successfully baited the Allies to attack him at Austerlitz, Wellington was far more prudent, and Napoleon had no choice but to go on the offensive if he hoped to defeat his enemy and break through to Brussels. By contrast to his tactical genius at Austerlitz, Napoleon’s tactics at Waterloo were uninspired. He began with a heavy bombardment to soften up Wellington’s lines, but the latter kept most of his army safe behind the reverse slope of the ridge. Throughout the day, the French launched several frontal assaults which came close to breaking Wellington’s line, but no attempt was made to outflank the British position. Instead, Napoleon himself faced a flank attack in mid-afternoon when the Prussian IV Corps under General Bülow attacked his right at Plancenoit.
Weather
Weather conditions played a major role at both Austerlitz and Waterloo. At Austerlitz, the weather played to Napoleon’s advantage. Napoleon’s tactics at Austerlitz relied heavily on deception, and the morning mist shrouded large parts of Napoleon’s army as the Allies marched against his right flank. By the time the sun emerged to burn away the mist to reveal Soult’s men marching up the hill, it was too late for the Allied units to organize an effective resistance. Napoleon’s men came to regard ‘the Sun of Austerlitz’ as an auspicious sign of their victory.
The cold December morning also ensured that the Satschan ponds to the south of the battlefield were frozen. According to Napoleon’s official bulletin, as the Allied troops fled over the frozen lakes, French artillery broke the surface of the ice, condemning thousands of allied soldiers to an icy death. However, the tale appears to be exaggerated as no human remains were found after the ponds were drained.
While Napoleon was helped by the weather at Austerlitz, at Waterloo the weather had a detrimental effect on his plans. The day before the battle had seen heavy rain as Napoleon and Wellington’s forces were engaged in a running fight along the road to Brussels. Napoleon’s decision to wait until the late morning to begin his attack at Waterloo has usually been ascribed to him allowing time for his powder to dry in order to carry out his artillery bombardment. However, the waterlogged ground meant that Napoleon’s army was not fully in position by 11 o’clock on the 18th. The delay gave the Prussians crucial time to march towards the battlefield to support Wellington.
Outcome
Austerlitz and Waterloo marked major turning points in Napoleon’s career. After his victory in the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine in western Germany in July 1806, prompting Emperor Francis to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire. In October 1806, Napoleon defeated the Prussians at Jena and Auerstedt in Saxony. The following June, Napoleon defeated Prussia’s Russian allies at Friedland, leaving him in effective control of western and central Europe following the Treaty of Tilsit.
The Battle of Waterloo, on the other hand, marked the end of Napoleon’s military career. He abdicated for a second time on June 22 and sought to flee to North America. The blockade by the British navy and the threat of capture and execution by the Prussians ultimately forced Napoleon to surrender to the British. He was eventually exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821.
King Louis XVIII was restored to the French throne for a second time, while Congress of Vienna had completed its business a few days before the Battle of Waterloo, and its provisions were subsequently implemented. Despite the fraught negotiations, the peace agreement prevented further hostilities between the major European powers until the Crimean War of 1853-1856.
