LITMIR.BIZ

      MURAT AT BATTLE OF JENA

      General Murat was the Sheridan of France, the most dashing and daring cavalry leader in Napoleon’s armies. Napoleon said of him: “It was really a magnificent sight to see him in battle, heading the cavalry.” At Jena he played an efficient part in breaking the ranks of the Prussians.

       In the north the king of Prussia, furious at the violation of his neutral territory by the French under Bernadotte, gave free passage to the Russian and Swedish troops, and formed a league of friendship with the Czar Alexander. He then dispatched his minister Haugwitz to Napoleon, with a demand that concealed a threat, requiring him, as a basis of peace, to restore the former treaties in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Holland.

      With utter disregard of this demand Napoleon advanced along the Danube towards the Austrian states, meeting and defeating the Austrians and Russians in a series of sanguinary conflicts. The Russian army was the most ably commanded, and its leader Kutusoff led it backward in slow but resolute retreat, fighting only when attacked. The French under Mortier were caught isolated on the left bank of the Danube, and fiercely assailed by the Russians, losing heavily before they could be reinforced.

      The Advance on Vienna

      Despite all resistance, the French continued to advance, Murat soon reaching and occupying Vienna, the Austrian capital, from which the emperor had hastily withdrawn. Still the retreat and pursuit continued, the allies retiring to Moravia, whither the French, laden with an immense booty from their victories, rapidly followed. Futile negotiations for peace succeeded, and on the 1st of December, the two armies, both concentrated in their fullest strength (92,000 of the allies to 70,000 French) came face to face on the field of Austerlitz, where on the following day was to be fought one of the memorable battles in the history of the world.

      The Eve Before Austerlitz

      The Emperor Alexander had joined Francis of Austria, and the two monarchs, with their staff officers, occupied the castle and village of Austerlitz. Their troops hastened to occupy the plateau of Pratzen, which Napoleon had designedly left free. His plans of battle was already fully made. He had, with the intuition of genius, foreseen the probable manœuvers of the enemy, and had left open for them the position which he wished them to occupy. He even announced their movement in a proclamation to his troops.

      “The positions that we occupy are formidable,” he said, “and while the enemy march to turn my right they will present to me their flank.”

      This movement to the right was indeed the one that had been decided upon by the allies, with the purpose of cutting off the road to Vienna by isolating numerous corps dispersed in Austria and Styria. It had been shrewdly divined by Napoleon in choosing his ground.

      The fact that the 2d of December was the anniversary of the coronation of their emperor filled the French troops with ardor. They celebrated it by making great torches of the straw which formed their beds and illuminating their camp. Early the next morning the allies began their projected movement. To the joy of Napoleon his prediction was fulfilled, they were advancing towards his right. He felt sure that the victory was in his hands.

      The Greatest of Napoleon’s Victories

      He held his own men in readiness while the line of the enemy deployed. The sun was rising, its rays gleaming through a mist, which dispersed as it rose higher. It now poured its brilliant beams across the field, the afterward famous “sun of Austerlitz.” The movement of the allies had the effect of partly withdrawing their troops from the plateau of Pratzen. At a signal from the emperor the strongly concentrated centre of the French army moved forward in a dense mass, directing their march towards the plateau, which they made all haste to occupy. They had reached the foot of the hill before the rising mist revealed them to the enemy.

      The two emperors watched the movement without divining its intent. “See how the French climb the height without staying to reply to our fire,” said Prince Czartoryski, who stood near them.

      The emperors were soon to learn why their fire was disdained. Their marching columns, thrown out one after another on the slope, found themselves suddenly checked in their movement, and cut off from the two wings of the army. The allied force had been pierced in its centre, which was flung back in disorder, in spite of the efforts of Kutusoff to send it aid. At the same time Davout faced the Russians on the right, and Murat and Lannes attacked the Russian and Austrian squadrons on the left, while Kellermann’s light cavalry dispersed the squadrons of the Uhlans.

      The Russian guard, checked in its movement, turned towards Pratzen, in a desperate effort to retrieve the fortune of the day. It was incautiously pursued by a French battalion, which soon found itself isolated and in danger. Napoleon perceived its peril and hastily sent Rapp to its support, with the Mamelukes and the chasseurs of the guard. They rushed forward with energy and quickly drove back the enemy, Prince Repnin remaining a prisoner in their hands.

      The day was lost to the allies. Everywhere disorder prevailed and their troops were in retreat. An isolated Russian division threw down its arms and surrendered. Two columns were forced back beyond the marshes. The soldiers rushed in their flight upon the ice of the lake, which the intense cold had made thick enough to bear their weight.

      The Dreadful Lake Horror

      And now a terrible scene was witnessed. War is merciless; death is its aim; the slaughter of an enemy by any means is looked upon as admissible. By Napoleon’s order the French cannon were turned upon the lake. Their plunging balls rent and splintered the ice under the feet of the crowd of fugitives. Soon it broke with a crash, and the unhappy soldiers, with shrill cries of despair, sunk to death in the chilling waters beneath, thousands of them perishing. It was a frightful expedient—one that would be deemed a crime in any other code than the merciless one of war.

      A portion of the allied army made a perilous retreat along a narrow embankment which separated the two lakes of Melnitz and Falnitz, their exposed causeway swept by the fire of the French batteries. Of the whole army, the corps of Prince Bagration alone withdrew in order of battle.

      All that dreadful day the roar of battle had resounded. At its close the victorious French occupied the field; the allied army was pouring back in disordered flight, the dismayed emperors in its midst; thousands of dead covered the fatal field, the groans of thousands of wounded men filled the air. More than 30,000 prisoners, including twenty generals, remained in Napoleon’s hands, and with them a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon and forty flags, including the standards of the Imperial Guard of Russia.

      Treaty of Peace with Austria

      The defeat was a crushing one. Napoleon had won the most famous of his battles. The Emperor Francis, in deep depression, asked for an interview and an armistice. Two days afterward the emperors—the conqueror

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