Battle of Austerlitz
- Date
- 2 December 1805
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Moravia (Austerlitz)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
On 2 December 1805, near Austerlitz in Moravia, Napoleon won what is often regarded as his greatest tactical victory. Outnumbered, his roughly 68,000-strong Grande Armée faced about 90,000 Russian and Austrian troops in what became known as the Battle of the Three Emperors.
Napoleon deliberately weakened his right flank and abandoned the commanding Pratzen Heights to lure the Allies into attacking, then unleashed a concealed central thrust that split their army and rolled it up. The crushing French triumph ended the War of the Third Coalition: the Treaty of Pressburg forced Austria to cede territory and exit the war, kept Prussia temporarily neutral, and confirmed French military dominance on the European continent for years to come. The defeat also accelerated the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, which Francis II would formally dissolve the following year. Austerlitz stands as a textbook example of the decisive battle of annihilation.
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Empires active in 2 December 1805
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Haiti declares independence after a successful slave revolution1 January 1804
- Napoleon's invasion of RussiaJune–December 1812
- Battle of Waterloo18 June 1815
- First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
- The Taiping Rebellion1850–1864
- American Civil War and the abolition of slavery1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)
Also relevant
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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