Third Coalition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| War of the Third Coalition | |||||||
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| Part of Napoleonic Wars | |||||||
 Napoléon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard. |
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| Combatants | |||||||
 Austria Russia United Kingdom Sweden |
 France Spain Bavaria Kingdom of Italy |
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| Commanders | |||||||
 Karl Mack von Leiberich Archduke Charles Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov Horatio Nelson |
 Napoleon I of France André Masséna Pierre-Charles Villeneuve |
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In the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Coalition against the French Empire emerged in 1805 and consisted of an alliance of the United Kingdom, Austria, Russia, Naples, and Sweden. This was the first of five coalitions against Napoleon and his empire. The preceding two had been against the French revolutionary governments.
Napoleon had been planning an invasion of Britain since the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1802 signed by Lord Cornwallis for Britain and Joseph Bonaparte for France, and had massed 150,000 troops at Boulogne. However, he needed to achieve naval superiority to mount his invasion, or at least to pull the Royal Navy away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an inconclusive action off Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve was blockaded in Cádiz until he left for Naples on October 19, but was caught and defeated at the battle of Trafalgar on October 21 by Lord Nelson. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all but abandoned plans to invade Britain and turned his attention to enemies on the Continent once again.
The coalition, seeking to take advantage of the concentration of Napoléon's forces at Boulogne, made plans to attack Italy and Bavaria. The allied armies organized in Germany and Italy, with Karl Mack von Leiberich mounting an invasion of Bavaria while waiting for the Russian army under Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov to reinforce him. The Bavarian army, allied to Napoléon, was forced to retreat northward, abandoning Munich.
Napoléon left Boulogne in August, marching his army rapidly to the Rhine. Crossing the Rhine in late September, he marched around Mack's right, surrounding the Austrian army at Ulm. Pushing back Austrian attempts to regroup, he cut off Ulm from Austria, forcing Mack to capitulate in October. Kutuzov, on the Austrian-Bavarian border, was forced to retreat into Vienna, and then north into Moravia to meet reinforcements, abandoning Vienna on November 13. Napoleon marched north to meet the allied armies, finding them at a defensive position at Austerlitz. In the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon lured the Allies into an assault by feigning weakness on his right flank. The Allies attempted an envelopment but were too slow, allowing the French to strike at their center and disperse them from the battlefield; it was a decisive French victory.
The Austrian army in Italy under Archduke Charles was forced to retreat without a battle by the French victories in Germany, and allied landings in northern Germany and Naples were abortive. Austria was eliminated from the coalition and evicted from Italy by the Treaty of Pressburg.
