2 December 1805, dawn
The morning of 2 December
Before dawn on 2 December the allied columns leave the Pratzen Heights for the Goldbach. Kienmayer’s advance guard and Dokhturov’s first column march on Telnitz, Langeron’s second column and Przybyszewski’s third on Sokolnitz. The fourth column under Kolowrat and Miloradovich, with Kutuzov, is to follow them over the heights. Buxhoeveden commands this left wing of about 43,000 men.
French cuirassiers of 1805, painting by Ernest Meissonier, 1878Wikimedia Commons, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, CC0 (Cuirassiers 1805 Meissonier Chantilly.jpg)
Napoleon holds the Goldbach from Telnitz to Sokolnitz castle with Legrand’s division of Soult’s corps, at first some 5,000 men. Davout’s III Corps, marching 110 km from Vienna in 48 hours, is to bring the right up to about 12,500. Saint-Hilaire’s and Vandamme’s divisions of Soult’s corps, 16,000 men, wait in the mist in the low ground between Puntowitz and Girzikowitz, opposite the Pratzen.
In the north Lannes’s V Corps and Murat’s cavalry stand across the road to Olmütz, with a regiment and 18 guns on the Santon, facing Bagration and Liechtenstein’s cavalry. Bernadotte’s I Corps, the grenadiers and the Imperial Guard are in reserve behind the centre, near Napoleon’s command post on the Žuráň hill. In all Napoleon has about 72,000 men and 157 guns, the allies about 85,000 with 318 guns.
Sources
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
- Ian Castle, Austerlitz 1805: The Fate of Empires (2002).
- Scott Bowden, Napoleon and Austerlitz (1997).
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