the anniversary of the coronation.  Long live the Emperor.”  Thus was the great day ushered in.  The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army’s heroworship:  the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised that, after all, the French would stand their ground and fight, whilst others saw in the flare a signal that Napoleon was once more about to retreat.

December the 2nd may well be the most famous day of the Napoleonic calendar:  it was the day of his coronation, it was the day of Austerlitz, and, a generation later, another Napoleon chose it for his coup d’etat.  The “sun of Austerlitz,” which the nephew then hailed, looked down on a spectacle far different from that which he wished to gild with borrowed splendour.  Struggling dimly through dense banks of mist, it shone on the faces of 73,000 Frenchmen resolved to conquer or to die:  it cast weird shadows before the gray columns of Russia and the white-coats of Austria as they pressed in serried ranks towards the frozen swamps of the Goldbach.  At first the allies found little opposition; and Kienmayer’s horse cleared the French from Tellnitz and the level ground beyond.  But Friant’s division, hurrying up from the west, restored the fight and drove the first assailants from the village.  Others, however, were pressing on, twenty-nine battalions strong, and not all the tenacious bravery of Davoust’s soldiery availed to hold that spot.  Nor was it necessary.  Napoleon’s plan was to let the allied left compromise itself on this side, while he rained the decisive blows at its joint with the centre on the southern spur of the Pratzenberg.

For this reason he reduced Davoust to defensive tactics, for which his stubborn methodical genius eminently fitted him, until the French centre had forced the Russians from the plateau.  Opposite or near that height he had posted the corps of Soult and Bernadotte, supporting them with the grenadiers of Oudinot and the Imperial Guard.  Confronting these imposing forces was the Russian centre, weakened by the heavy drafts sent towards Tellnitz, but strong in its position and in the experience of its leader Kutusoff.  Caution urged him to hold back his men to the last moment, until the need of giving cohesion to the turning movement led the Czar impatiently to order his advance.  Scarcely had the Russians descended beyond Pratzen when they were exposed to a furious attack.  Vandamme, noted even then as one of the hardest hitters in the army, was leading his division of Soult’s corps up the northern slopes of the plateau; by a sidelong slant his men cut off a detachment of Russians in the village, and, aided by the brigade of Thiebault, swarmed up the hill at a speed which surprised and unsteadied its defenders.  Oudinot’s grenadiers and the Imperial Guard were ready to sustain Soult:  but the men of his corps had the glory of seizing the plateau and driving back the Russians.  Yet