Austerlitz, << AW stuhr lihts, >> Battle of, was one of the greatest military victories of French Emperor Napoleon I (also known as Napoleon Bonaparte). It was fought during the Napoleonic Wars on Dec. 2, 1805, near the Moravian town of Austerlitz (now called Slavkov in the Czech Republic). Napoleon I and his Grande Armée (Great Army), in a brilliantly fought battle, defeated the larger, combined armies of Austria and Russia. In less than a day of combat, more than 30,000 soldiers—mostly Austrian and Russian—were killed, wounded, or captured.
Napoleon’s decisive victory at Austerlitz forced the Austrians to sign the Treaty of Pressburg, by which Austria lost Istria and Dalmatia to Italy, and the Tyrol to Bavaria. Francis II resigned as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and the empire itself was dissolved. Czar Alexander I and the remnants of his army were allowed to return to Russia.
Upon the Pratzen Heights—the center of the Austerlitz battlefield—stands a Peace Monument dedicated to the soldiers who fell in the battle. Within the monument, the bones of the dead have been collected and stored in an ossuary. The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, is described in Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, War and Peace.
