Napoleon's Victory At Austerlitz

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To what factors do you attribute Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz?

Napoleon has said that ‘the whole art of war consist in a well-reasoned and ex-tremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious [counter] attack’ (Bowden, 1997, p. 321). Given quotation is appropriate to describe the general idea that Napoleon applied successfully in the battle of Austerlitz resulting outstanding victory. Napoleon created a delusion of the weak French force witch appeared easy to defeat. Consequently, the Third Coalition rushed to battle without realizing that they are drawn to battle under conditions created and shaped by Napoleon. Fallow-ing battle fought by experienced, professional, well lead Grande Armēe of Napoleon against the opposing army …show more content…

Therefore, Napole-ons approach to battle was unexpected and surprising to adversary. John R. Elting writes in his book that Napoleon’s favourite strategy was ‘to envelop one of the en-emy army’s flanks and threaten its rear and communications, forcing it either to retire hurriedly or turn and fight at disadvantage’ (1997, pp. 529 - 530). This might not be the precise practice Napoleon applied specifically fighting the Battle of Austerlitz; however, it illustrates Napoleon’s intention and military genius to exploit enemy weakness at the emergence of such opportunity. That was enabled by preposition-ing- and manoeuvrability of the French forces, and holding sufficient reserves, which were ordered to battle at the right moment. Napoleons situation awareness was presumably better and decision making process (i.e. OODA cycle) was suppos-edly faster than the adversary’s. The emperor seemed to understand the dynamics in battlefield to anticipate adversary’s attentions and respond adequately and in great speed. What is more, Napoleon succeeded to surprize the adversaries in Aus-terlitz by applying other principles dedicated to the manoeuvres approach as well; to be precise, avoiding patterns and not doing the same thing again. For example, J.R. Elting claims that in Austerlitz did Napoleon stand on the defensive and lure his en-emy into a trap; when usually Napoleon depended on speed, mass and aggressive manoeuvre (1997, p.