Whenever you find yourself on the back foot and in trouble, the tendency is to lose your bearings and overreact. Because of the heat of the moment, you overestimate the strengths of the enemy and underestimate your own.
An important principle of counterattacking is to never see a situation as hopeless. Rather, it is important to learn to discern opportunities when others might despair.
With a little cleverness here and a touch of ingenuity there, you can always turn things around; that was what Napoleon Bonaparte did at Austerlitz.
Snatching Victory At Austerlitz
It’s September 1805, and Napoleon is facing what is perhaps the greatest crisis of his career: Austria has joined into an alliance with Russia against him. To the south, the Austrians have sent an army to attack French soldiers occupying northern Italy.
To the east, another Austrian army under General Karl Mack is marching into Bavaria. Further east, moving in from Russia, General Mikhail Kutuzov is leading a sizable army with the hope of joining up with Mack to head for France.
To the east of Vienna, there are more Russian and Austrian troops ready and waiting to be deployed. It seemed Napoleon was outgunned and outnumbered.
Napoleon’s plan was to pick off the enemy one by one. First, he sent enough troops to northern Italy not to defeat the Austrians, but to hold a stalemate for the time being.
He then marched the rest of his army into Bavaria, surrounded Mack in Ulm, and forced his humiliating surrender with hardly a shot being fired. All that was now left of the enemy was Kutuzov’s Russian army who by now had began retreating after hearing the news.
Napoleon pursued – he needed to prevent the Russian from combining with the rest of the reinforcements. However, the wily Kutuzov, who seemed to be better in retreat than in attack, eluded the French and made it to the town of Olmütz, northeast of Vienna, where the remaining Austro-French forces remained.
The situation had again flipped. The strength of Napoleon’s army was its corps system: these were mini armies within the overall structure that had much independence which allowed them greater mobility.
Unfortunately, during Napoleon’s pursuit, they had become distanced from one another in a line stretching from Munich to Vienna. Hence, these corps, who worked best when they were close enough to come to one another’s support, were each isolated and extremely vulnerable.
The problems did not strop there. Not only were his men hungry and tired due to lack of supplies and rest, the Prussians were also now considering joining the alliance, and the Austrian army in northern Italy had given up and were now following a path of retreat which would soon put then into contact with Napoleon’s army.
If all these problems were effectively exploited by the enemy, Napoleon could only expect to be decimated.
His options were abysmal. If he continues the pursuit of Kutuzov, he would only weaken his position by overstretching his lines of supply and communications further. Even if he did manage to catch them, the Austro-Russian force was 90,000 strong and occupied an excellent position.
Should he stay, then he would end up being preyed upon from all sides by a stronger enemy. Retreat it seemed was the only option, indeed, that was what his generals advised.
Yet, even that was quite unacceptable. Were he to retreat, then that would mean the victory at Ulm would have been for nothing and that would ruin the morale of his troops.
Additionally, retreating would essentially signal his weakness to all his European rivals, especially the Prussians and the wretched English. No, this wouldn’t do. Napoleon locked himself up for days in his office and ignored his advisors so that he might think deeply and pore over his maps.
Meanwhile, in Olmütz, both the Russians and the Austrians watched Napoleon’s movements with growing excitement; after all, did they not have him where they wanted him?
Soon, on November 25, scouts reported that Napoleon had occupied with his army the town of Austerlitz situated halfway between Vienna and their current position. Additionally, he seemed to have moved his army to the Pratzen Heights, a position which indicated readiness for battle.
Despite outnumbering him two to one, the alliance decided to send an offer of armistice. At the end of the day, they understood that Napoleon was a formidable opponent – and even though they knew he was unlikely to accept it, they hoped at least to buy some time to fully envelop him.
Surprisingly, however, Napoleon immediately agreed to begin talks for an armistice. Suddenly, the alliance began to entertain a new thought – Napoleon must be in an extremely weak position.
Indeed this seemed very probable. Soon after taking the Pratzen Heights, he quickly abandoned it for a position to the west, and constantly moved around the position of his cavalry. He seemed at his wits end and could not disguise his fear and doubts.
When the emissary came, the terms presented were harsh. Despite Napoleon not agreeing to anything, the emissary returned and reported that Napoleon had seemed chastened and demoralized the whole time they were speaking.
This was music to their ears, especially those of the young Russian czar Alexander I, who was tired of waiting and was burning for a battle.
By abandoning the Pratzen Heights, Napoleon had made himself exposed to attack. He was weak from the south, and his route of retreat was exposed. The alliance could easily take the Heights, pivot south, cut of his retreat and break through his weak points, then move back north and surround his army where they would destroy him.
What was the point of continued waiting? Alexander I and the younger generals carried their points and prevailed over the hesitant Austrian emperor. The attack was launched on the morning of December 2.
Two smaller divisions were sent to pin the French down in the north, and as planned, Austro-Russian soldiers occupied the Pratzen Heights, then streamed south with the aim of exploiting the enemy’s weak point.
They encountered a weak French force which they quickly broke through, and were soon able to reach the position from which they would turn northward to entrap Napoleon. Yet as the clock reached 9 AM, word reached the allied commanders that a large unseen French force beyond the Pratzen Heights was heading due east straight for the town of Pratzen itself and the centre of allied communications.
Immediately sensing the danger, Kutuzov saw that in their hurry to exploit the gap in French lines, they had forgotten to protect their own. He attempted to turn back the last of the troops heading south but it was too late: the enemy had reoccupied the heights.
Moreover, they had diverted some of their troops from the southwest to secure the south against Kutuzov. The situation had seemingly flipped over. Using the town of Pratzen, the French had poured into the allied centre, and had isolated every part – north, south, centre – of the allied forces from receiving any help or communications from one another.
The southernmost Russian soldiers attempted to retreat further south, but suffered terrible loses in the frozen lakes and marshes in their way. Soon the rout was complete: the Austro-Russian troops had only lost but suffered many more casualties than the French did.
So humiliating was this loss that the alliance collapsed. So astonishing was this victory that Austerlitz became the triumph of Napoleon’s career.
Analysis
Leading up to the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon’s marshals and advisors only considered retreat as an option. It made sense to them, for sometimes, they reasoned, going on the defensive is necessary in order to survive in the long run.
On the other side of the fence were the leaders and generals of Austria and Russia who believed that whether they attacked now or later, Napoleon was done for.
Above the rest of the pack, however, was Napoleon. As a strategist, his superiority lay in the fluidity of his thinking. To him, attack and defence are not two different stages in a battle but are very much intertwined.
He understood that a defensive position is the best way to disguise an upcoming attack, while an offensive posture is the best way to guard a weak point. At Austerlitz, Napoleon demonstrated the sheer creativity of his thinking by fusing defence with attack and orchestrating the most subtle of traps.
Having taken Vienna, Napoleon moved onwards to Austerlitz which somewhat startled his enemy despite their superiority. There he backed himself into a defensive position, then quickly into an offensive one, in order to advance the perception he was utterly confused.
Then he hammered the illusion of confusion home by staging a fine acting performance before the emissary. It was all a façade to make Napoleon look both personally and strategically befuddled; and it worked: the allies gave up all caution and rushed at him with total abandon and with little concern.
Their defensive position at Olmütz was so strong that the only way Napoleon had a chance was to get them to leave it. When they did, instead of defending against their attack, he launched his own counterattack.
When an attacking army is suddenly forced to go on the defensive, its morale plummets. They panicked and retreated to the frozen lakes which Napoleon had already pre-designated as their graveyard.
You see, most of us know how to play either defensively or offensively. Either we continuously attack and rashly create enemies in the process, or we learn to constantly avoid fights and when forced into one, are focused solely on minimizing damage.
Either way, this is a bad habit. We become too predictable and lose fluidity in our movements and in our thinking.
Consider, then, the third option. That is, the option Napoleon chose to take instead. Sometimes you may give the impression that you are vulnerable to lower the enemy’s guard. At which point you can launch your attack when the moment is ripe.
You temper your aggression and turn weakness into a weapon used to disguise your intentions. In dangerous situations, learn to suss out opportunities where others would fall into despair.
By doing so, you will always stay one step ahead of your opponent. You be able to attack your inflexible opponents from places they will never see coming.
Footnotes & Further Reading
Greene, Robert. The 33 Strategies of War. Millionaire, 2006
