THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. 
TACTICALLY CONSIDERED. 
BY 
LIEUT.-COLONEL J. C. DALTON, R.A. 
(Lecture delivered to the Officers of the Garrison at Devonport, 16th December, 1895.) 
Berore proceeding to the purely tactical consideration of this battle it Strategie 
is advisable to glance rapidly at the events which led up to it. eee 
The Treaty of Amiens, March 28th, 1802, which had for the _ battle. 
moment patched up the quarrel between England and France, that 
had been going on without intermission for nine years, was broken in 
1803. Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, irritated at his schemes 
being thwarted, seized Hanover and organized a magnificent army at 
Boulogne, destined for the invasion of England. ‘The Engtish nation 
was roused, and in an incredibly short time 300,000 Volunteers were 
organized and drilling for the defence of their homes. This fact, 
coupled with the irresistible power of the British navy, rendered all 
attempts at invasion futile, and Napoleon, who had been made Hmperor 
in 1804, suddenly changed his plans, and, early in 1805, by a stroke 
of the pen, annexed the State of Genoa to France. This alarmed the 
European Powers, who saw no limit to his ambition. Russia and 
Austria at once declared war against him, and Prussia made preparations 
against a similar contingency. 
Napoleon accepted the situation with confidence; he had never 
possessed a finer army, and by the middle of 1805 his entire force, 
which had been drawn up facing England, from Hanover on the right 
throug: Holland and Belgium to Brest, changed front to rear and 
advanced towards the Rhine and Danube. At the same time the 
French troops in Upper Italy under Massena concentrated in order to 
attack the Austrians in the Venetian country. 
The Rassian army under Kutusoff with the Emperor Alexander lie 
marched to the assistance of their allies, but before they could get up, 
the Austrians had been badly defeated in Bavaria by Napoleon, the 
larger part of Mack’s force of 90,000 men having surrendered at Ulm. 
Only two corps escaped, one under the Archduke Ferdinand reaching 
Bohemia, and the other under Jellachich being intercepted and 
captured by Marshal Augereau near Feldkirch. 
6. VOL, XXIII, 
