Nor were the allied generals neglectful during this interval; they were equally upon the alert in making their dispositions for the ensuing day. It is said, however, that the imperfect knowledge which they possessed of the positions of Napoleon's army, though little more than a musket shot distant, rendered the suppositions upon which the plan of attack was arranged, extremely indefinite. It was believed that Buonaparte had weakened his centre considerably for the reinforcement of the left; whilst, under the idea that the Russian left had far outflanked his right wing, they imagined that by passing the defiles of Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz, they should turn his positions in that quarter, so as to be enabled afterwards to prosecute the attack in the plain between the wood of Turus and the village of Schlapanitz. They also considered that Napoleon's real front was covered by the defiles of Schlapanitz and Bellowitz; but by the proposed plan, these defiles would be avoided; and it was also intended that the attack should commence on the right, in order to execute which with the utmost vigour, the valley between Sokolnitz and Zellnitz was to be promptly passed over, under cover of the Prince John of Lichtenstein's cavalry, and the advanced corps of Prince Bragation, which formed the extreme of the allied right.

At length the morning of the 2d December dawned on many thousand eyes, on which the film of death was to descend before the evening, and the battle of Austerlitz commenced. The position of the French army was strong and very compact. The different corps composing it were drawn up in massive columns, ready to deploy or advance when the critical moment arrived. The Russian army was arranged in six columns, of which that forming the centre was the weakest. This error, so fatal to that gallant, but misguided, army, originated in an ignorance of the extent of the position really occupied by the French, and in a presumptuous confidence as to the issue of the battle. From the difficult nature of the debouchés, the Russian columns, in proportion as they advanced from their original position, diverged from each other like radii from a common centre. The effect of this derangement

3*

was, that the left of the allies was separated from the centre extremity of the French right wing, where the defile of Tellnitz was vigorously attacked, and obstinately defended. After a long and various struggle; it remained in possession of the allies, who were thus enabled to realize a part of their plan; but in proportion as the allied left wing advanced, a wider interval was interposed between it and the centre of the army. Napoleon saw, and profited by the mistake: a strong column of the army, under Soult, advanced to attack the village and heights of Pratzen; a position which the Russians had occupied before the battle, and which, if gained by the French, enabled them to turn the allies, and render the junction of the left wing and centre an impossibility. At this moment the greater part of the French army advanced in compact bodies, in connection with and deriving aid from each other. A strong contest now took place for the possession of the heights of Blassowitz. The Archduke Constantine ordered a charge by the Uhlans, which Kellerman, who commanded a part of the French cavalry, declining, the troops rushed impetuously, in pursuit of Kellerman, through the internal of the French infantry. They were thus exposed to a cross-fire from two divisions, which discomfited them with great loss. The infantry of the Archduke were completely routed. The movements above described had taken place on the wings of the two armies. We must now attend to the operation of their centres.

We left Soult in advance to the heights of Pratzen, on the possession of which depended the fortune of the day. Prince Kutusoff, the Russian general, who commanded the whole army, and was then stationed in the centre, on his way to attack that of the French, was astonished to find himself opposed by a superior force, when he imagined himself to be the assailant. He immediately determined to recover the heights of Pratzen, and sent for fresh troops: but it was too late; the corps of Soult advanced steadily towards the heights. The Russians then determined upon a general attack, but their fire was opened at too great a distance to do much execution, while, on the contrary, the French fire, re

served until the moment when its delivery would be most effective, thinned the ranks, and staggered the resolution of the Russians. Soult then rushed forward to the heights, of which he took and retained possession, forming his troops in several lines, and giving them an angular direction, so as to present a double front. The Emperor Alexander accompanied that column of the Russian army which was opposed to Soult, and led his own battalion to attack his right flank; other corps also harassed him; but the position of Soult was strong, and his arrangements masterly: he was enabled to keep the enemy in check, while the inequalities and elevation covered his own troops. Nothing now but a vigorous charge with the bayonet could retrieve the fortune of the day. The Russians, formed into close columns, attempted this desperate manœuvre; but the destructive fire of the French exterminated whole ranks of the assailants; still they persevered, and succeeded in compelling a part of the French line to give way. Soult now ordered a general charge, which repelled the enemy; and his artillery, now brought into line, converted their retreat into a disorderly flight, in which they lost the greater part of their artillery. The battle still raged in other quarters. The possession of the heights of Blassowitz was long and firmly contested; brilliant and effective charges were made with the Russian and French cavalry, in which the guards on each side particularly distinguished themselves; but the French, continually reinforced, gained possession of the heights, although the Archduke Constantine was enabled to retreat in tolerable order. Lannes corps had interposed itself between the columns of Prince Bragation and General Uwarrow, and had obtained possession of a commanding eminence on the road to Brunn. The fire under this officer was so considerable, and directed with such skill, that he was enabled to advance and expel both the Russian columns from the position they occupied, but not without a long and desperate opposition from Prince Bragation.

The heights of Austerlitz, in the rear of the position taken · up by the allies before the action, and which position was

now occupied, became the point of union for the scattered remains of the Russian and Austrian columns, but by this movement they exposed the baggage of their army, the greater part of which was seized by the French.

It has been already stated that the position of Soult on the heights of Pratzen enabled him to cut off the communication of those columns composing the allied left wing, which were entangled in defiles, where they could neither receive nor give aid to the rest of the army. It was at this moment, when the French troops had defeated their enemies in every other point, that Napoleon brought up his reserve, which had never yet been engaged, and consisted of 20 battalions, to attack these columns. The operation completely succeeded, and their feeble wrecks, which in the course of the day had lost 10,000 prisoners, with the greater part of their artillery, were obliged to defile along a narrow causeway, exposed to a murderous fire of chain-shot, and leaving behind them the greater part of their cannon. A heavy rain completed their misfortunes. Such is a brief. sketch of the famous battle of Austerlitz, which reduced the allied army to one-half of their original numbers. The aggregate of their loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, amounted to about 40,000 men, and almost the whole of their artillery, with many standards. The loss of the French must have been very considerable, at the least, 9 or 10,000

men.

Its consequences proved its importance. On the day after the action Napoleon directed different corps of the army to pursue the allies, who, in their retreat, had taken the route to Hungary. They were too much enfeebled to risk another action, and the French army was proceeding to surround them. At night Prince Lichtenstein arrived in the French camp, to treat for a suspension of arms; and the next day an interview took place between Napoleon and the Emperor Francis. Their colloquy was a long one, and in it was doubtless discussed not only the terms of the armistice, but of the treaty to which it tended. The armistice itself was

inscribed with the point of the sword. It secured the communications of Napoleon with the army under Massena, an object of the first importance; enabled the French army to retain all its conquests; prescribed the retreat of the Russians by forced marches; that Austria should engage to discontinue the Hungarian levies; promise not to admit any foreign army into her territories; and also that a diplomatic meeting should instantly take place at Nicholsburg, in order to prepare the definitive treaty: to all these conditions the Emperor was, of course, compelled to assent.

If the armistice was necessary to the allies, it was very convenient to Napoleon, whose rear and flanks were menaced by the forces under the Archduke Charles and Ferdinand. Having carried this important point, the French Emperor found time to listen to the mediation of Prussia, or more correctly speaking, to accept of the apology of her government, and permit her to betray her former friends.

A convention was entered into on the 6th of December for the neutrality of the north of Germany, according to which the British expedition, which late in the autumn had occupied Hanover, and was designed to make a diversion in support of the common cause, was permitted to embark safely.

The next event of consequence was the treaty of Presburg, by which great cessions were made to Bavaria of a considerable part of the Austrian dominions, including the Tyrol and the Venetian territories annexed to the kingdom of Italy. The Elector of Bavaria assumed the royal title with an important increase of territory and population, and the authority and influence of Francis in the German empire was destroyed. Napoleon exercised a signal vengeance on the King, or rather the Queen, of Naples. By a treaty concluded between France and the Neapolitan Government, at the beginning of the campaign, it was stipulated that the French troops, then in Naples, should withdraw, on condition that the ports of that country were closed against the enemies of France. This treaty was broken by the admission of the British fleet into the Bay of Naples, and the debarkation of