War of the Third Coalition
Austerlitz Campaign
Monday 11 November 1805
The French Provisional "VIII" Corps under Marshal Edouard Mortier: 9.424 total, 11 guns
The Russians under Mikhail Kutuzov: ~17,000 total, 162 guns
Weather: Cold and snowing
First Light: 0627 Sunrise: 0700 Sunset: 1626 End of Twilight: 1659
(calculated from U.S. Naval Observatory from location and date)
Present Day Location: Dürnstein, Austria 48°23′44″N 15°31′13″E
An excellent view on Google Maps of the entire valley from Dürnstein Castle.
This battle was not supposed to happen. In one of the most dramatic strategic campaigns in history, La Grande Armee under Napoleon had within weeks utterly destroyed the main Austrian Field Army under FML Mack at Ulm just three weeks before. It had, in the 19th century version of blitzkrieg, knocked out one contingent after another in a series of small battles against what was left of the Austrian force (see my four posts about these prior battles). The bulk of Napoleon's army was now on the south bank of the Danube driving toward a defenseless Vienna. Napoleon had entrusted three small divisions in an ad hoc corps under his trusted Marshal Edouard Mortier to secure a bridge over the Danube at Krems. It was essentially supposed to be a housekeeping operation; the Russians were not yet present in force and the small expeditionary army under General of Infantry Mikhail Kutuzov was thought to be in retreat toward Moravia, much farther to the northeast. That was the belief, anyway.
Here is the situation in the morning. I have re-rendered the map to reflect the snow-bound landscape, even though it was early November. Also please note that the sunlight is coming from the lower right of the map, which means that the hills and mountains would show shadows on the upper left. We have been conditioned, when looking at conventional relief maps to think that the light comes from the upper left. As with all my other maps, the troop formations are rendered to scale, so their footprint is what each unit would have actually occupied.
