Battle of Austerlitz

The Battle of Austerlitz, fought on 2nd December 1805, is often called the Battle of the Three Emperors because Napoleon, Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Francis II of Austria were all present. After trapping an Austrian army at Ulm, Napoleon confronted a larger Russo-Austrian force in Moravia. He deliberately weakened his right wing to lure the allies into attacking it, then struck their weakened centre on the Pratzen Heights with Marshal Soult's corps, splitting the allied army in two. The allies were driven from the field with around fifteen thousand killed and wounded and twelve thousand captured, against roughly nine thousand French casualties. Napoleon called it the finest battle he ever fought. The disaster forced Austria to sue for peace in the Treaty of Pressburg, which dissolved the Third Coalition and reshaped central Europe. Austerlitz remains the textbook example of Napoleon's operational art. The victory also prompted the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the end of the Holy Roman Empire, as Napoleon reorganized Germany under French protection.