1805: Ulm and Austerlitz

Abstract

The 1805 Ulm–Austerlitz campaign ranks among the greatest of Napoleon’s victories. The newly organized, highly trained, and superbly led Grande Armée destroyed two ancien régime armies and shook the European political order in a period of less than three months. It was the display of a new system of warfare, created during the French Revolution and then perfected and systematized at the training camps around Boulogne. The differences between the ancien régime militaries and the new French system would be decisive. The Treaty of Amiens of 25 March 1802 proved to be nothing more than a trial peace between the French and British governments. Waves of British tourists descended on the continent, able to visit for the first time in a decade. The changes in the balance of power in Europe still needed to be resolved, and the failure to continue further negotiations on outstanding issues such as trade deepened the mistrust over the course of the following year. Great Britain refused to evacuate Malta as stipulated in the treaty, furthering the suspicion between the two countries. To compel British compliance, Napoleon created an army under Général de division Adolphe Édouard Casimir Joseph Mortier at Nijmegen to threaten the Electorate of Hanover, a hereditary territory of the British crown. With Mortier’s “Army of Hanover” threatening the electorate, the British Parliament declared an embargo of France on 16 May 1803. Two days later, a British warship fired on and seized a French vessel. With the peace effectively broken, Napoleon ordered the arrest of British citizens found in