MTL - Napoleon II Reborn-Chapter 54 Battle of Austerlitz (Part 1)

After occupying Vienna, although the opportunity to destroy the Russian army was lost, the French army still gained a lot of benefits. They got a large number of much-needed winter clothes, so that the French army did not have to fight the coalition forces in the severe cold.

However, for the French army, the immediate priority is still to catch up and annihilate the enemy. On the morning of November 28, the Russian-Austrian coalition forces commanded by Alexander I approached the French front. Bagration and Keenmeier (who fled to Munich after the defeat at Nuremberg, then returned to Vienna, and finally won Austria again. The trust of the emperor was sent to command the cavalry. In fact, the emperor could not find an experienced commander at that time, so he 'forgave' him) cavalry and infantry began to charge the French army.

At 9 o'clock that night, Xiao Jie rode with Napoleon and his adjutant Diloc to Murat's headquarters two miles away in the village of Austerlitz. It was freezing cold, but there was no snow. Napoleon stamped his feet and rubbed his hands. Napoleon, who was afraid of the cold, would feel the chill even in the Tuileries Palace in July. Others wore thin summer clothes, but he needed to warm himself up. Now he went straight to the fireplace and found Murat and Soult sitting comfortably by the fire, while Lana sat at the table writing a letter hastily.

"What's the matter, gentlemen, is everything going well here?" asked Napoleon, warming himself on the stove, looking from one person to another. "We don't think it's going well here." Lana said when he walked to Napoleon, "I'm writing to His Majesty to tell you the news." Napoleon quickly glanced at Lana's report, and then said in a He looked up in bewilderment. Xiao was behind Napoleon, while Dilloch was still standing cautiously by the door. "What is this? Lana advocates retreating! This is the first time he has made such a claim! What about you, Marshal Soult?" He suddenly turned to Soulte and asked.

In fact, Lana arrived only a little earlier than Napoleon. He found that Murat and Soult looked very depressed, facing the Russian-Austrian coalition forces that greatly outnumbered him, and the Grand Duke Charles who was approaching here from the south of Vienna. Threatened by Prussia to enter the war, they advocated withdrawal.

It was in this context that Rana drafted the report after agreeing with Murat and Soult. Soult, the first marshal conferred by Napoleon, originally advocated retreating, but he denied it after seeing Napoleon. The surprised Lannes couldn't help but shouted: "Soulte fooled us!" Unexpectedly, Napoleon "I, too, felt the need to retreat," Luncho said.

Hearing what Napoleon said, Xiao Jie was also very surprised. The war has come to this point, and hundreds of thousands of people from both sides are crowded here. How can they withdraw immediately?

It was much warmer here than the barn he occupied a few miles from Goldbach. In this very room Napoleon began dictating orders to Diloc, not the retreat he had just said, but the deployment of a campaign of an entirely different nature. In fact, no one knows for sure what Napoleon was thinking or what his plans were. Xiao Jie also concluded from some clues that Napoleon was preparing for a big battle. Perhaps if he won, the war would end immediately. As early as November 21, Napoleon had studied the terrain between Austerlitz and Brno, and on the Brno-Olomouc road, some five or six miles west of Austerlitz, he He found a place where he said he could annihilate the entire coalition army. The site is located on the steep bank of Goldbach.

Although many people later believed that Napoleon's intention was to "fool" the Russian army and give them the illusion that the French army was about to retreat and flee, the fact is that Napoleon was probably in a state of indecision for a period of time. , only the troops of Lannes, Soult and Murat, plus Bessières Imperial Guard (Napoleon's personal guard, the number is about 5000), he does not think he can defeat the army led by the Tsar himself , The Russian-Austrian coalition forces, which are stronger than the French army in terms of numbers and combat effectiveness. Therefore, he hurriedly ordered Bernadotte's First Army and Davout's Guards to rush from Vienna to join them.

At the same time Napoleon ordered his large army to occupy the Goldbach riverfront from south to north, and with Lannes' Fifth Army as the left flank, together with most of the artillery and Murat's cavalry, cut off the Brno-Austria. Lomouc Avenue. Soult's 7th Army was spread out on the center and right flank, with the greatest concentration between the Kobenitz and Lannes corps, and the right flank extended southwards to Sokolnitz and Diernitz. Napoleon lined up west of Goldbach. Behind Lana was the Imperial Guard of 5,000 men. Although Napoleon later bluffed, in fact he only had more than 100,000 men, 450 artillery pieces, and less than 15,000 cavalry. He had to face 180,000 enemy troops, 600 cannons, and cavalry twice as many as himself. Had the enemy attacked now, Napoleon might have been routed in Vienna. But the Russians moved as usual slowly and cautiously; the Archduke Charles foolishly missed the opportunity to encircle the French from behind, leaving them surrounded by the Austrians and the Tsarist troops coming from the east. Napoleon's luck is always good, he escaped the possibility of total annihilation. Xiao Jie couldn't help sighing: "It seems that God is still on the side of France." Then, Bernadotte's First Army arrived, and the number of French troops increased to 140,000, which was still at a disadvantage.

As part of Napoleon's "lure the enemy deep" plan, he abandoned the Pratzen Heights to lure the enemy to come to fight, which was an extremely risky decision. This is the situation that Napoleon explained afterwards. In fact, he probably did not have enough troops to occupy the high ground at that time-another 40,000 people and a certain proportion of cannons were needed to occupy and hold the high ground. Archduke Charles still did not attack Napoleon from behind to cut him off from Vienna, and the Russians did not arrive at Austerlitz until 1 December. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com Napoleon is now just waiting for the arrival of Davout's Guards, and it is estimated that he will arrive at night. In that case, the strength of the French and Allied forces will tend to be balanced, even though reinforcements from the Allied forces are also coming here.

The Russian-Austrian coalition forces are coming fiercely: 40,000 people from the Bagration Army are deployed on the Brno-Olomouc Avenue, facing the Lana Army; nearly 60,000 people from Lichtelsden occupy the Platzen Heights and threaten Sur Special, on their right flank is the 30,000-strong Krollat ​​Army and the 5-member Reserve Army of the Grand Duke Constantine. Soult's corps faced an enemy army of 6 people, and the enemy's troops were densely deployed at two weak points of Soult: the center and the right flank, and the strength of the enemy was very different.

Napoleon explained to his generals that this was a trap he had set. He strengthened the left flank and exposed it to the enemy in order to induce the enemy's main force to attack the left flank, while exposing Soult's center and right flank in order to induce the Russian troops moving on the flank to take the bait. But to complete such a movement, the Allies would encircle their 60,000 men moving from the Platzen Heights to Sirte's flanks, while the remainder of their forces would be engaged against the Lannese Army. Napoleon's plan was to break through the empty center and occupy the Pratzen Heights, and together with Soult and Davout's army, formed an anti-encirclement against Lichterstern's army.

However, Xiao Jie saw a fatal weakness in Napoleon's plan: if the coalition forces did not attack the right flank of the French army, but broke through Soult's weak center, the French army would be divided into two and be defeated by the coalition forces one by one. However, he believed that Napoleon would not lose in the previous wars, and he was unwilling to let the wheel of history deviate too far from the track, so he just kept this view in his heart.

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