Portal:Military history of France/Selected article/10

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The Battle of Austerlitz (also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors), fought on December 2, 1805 about four miles (6.4 km) east of the modern Czech town of Brno, then part of the Austrian Empire, was a major engagement in the Napoleonic Wars during the War of the Third Coalition. The conflict involved forces of the recently formed First French Empire against the armies of the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire. After nearly nine hours of fighting, the French troops, commanded by Emperor Napoleon I, managed to score a decisive victory over the Russo-Austrian army, commanded by Czar Alexander I. Despite difficult fighting in many sectors, the battle is often regarded as a tactical masterpiece.

Austerlitz effectively brought the Third Coalition to an end. On December 26, 1805, Austria and France signed the Treaty of Pressburg, which took the former out of the war, reinforced the earlier treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville, made Austria cede land to Napoleon's German allies, and imposed an indemnity of 40 million francs on the defeated Habsburgs. Russian troops were allowed to head back to home soil. Victory at Austerlitz also permitted the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, a collection of German states intended as a buffer zone between France and the rest of Europe. In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist when Holy Roman Emperor Francis II kept Francis I of Austria as his only official title. These achievements, however, did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. After Austerlitz, Prussian worries about growing French influence in Central Europe sparked the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. (More...)