The Austrians were first in the field.  The Russians, under Kutusoff, came on into Pomerania from the east.  Out of Sweden, with a large army, came down Gustavus, the Don Quixote of the north, to crush Bernadotte, who held Hanover.  Napoleon for his part sprang forth for the campaign of Austerlitz, perhaps the most brilliant military episode in the history of mankind.  With incredible facility he threw forward to the Rhine an army of 180,000 men.  His policy was—­as always—­to overcome the allies in detail.

On the twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris.  The Empress and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg.  On the second of October, hostilities began at Guntzburg.  Four days afterward the French army crossed the Danube.  On the eighth of the month, Murat won the battle of Wertingen, capturing Count Auffenberg, with 2000 prisoners.  On the tenth the French had Augsburg, and on the twelfth, Munich.  On the fourteenth Soult triumphed at Memingen, capturing a corps of 6000 Austrians; and on the same day Ney literally overran the territory which was soon to become his Duchy of Elchingen.  Napoleon out-generaled the main division of the enemy at Ulm.  The Austrians, under General Mack, 33,000 strong, were cooped up in the town and, on the seventeenth of October, forced to capitulate.  Eight field-marshals and generals, including the Prince Lichtenstein and Generals Klenau and Fresnel, were made prisoners.  “Soldiers of the Grand Army,” said Napoleon, “we have finished the campaign in a fortnight!”

On the day of the capitulation of Ulm, Massena in Italy drove back the army of the Archduke Charles.  The Austrians to this date, in a period of twenty days, had lost by battle and capture fully fifty thousand men!  On the twenty-seventh of October, the French army crossed the Inn.  Saltzburg and Braunau were taken.  In Italy, Massena, on the thirtieth, won the battle of Caldiero, and took 5000 prisoners.  The French closed toward the Austrian capital.  On the thirteenth of November, Napoleon, having obtained possession of the bridges of the Danube, entered Vienna.  He established himself in the imperial palace of Schonbrunn.  The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire—­which was its shadowy penumbra—­seemed to vanish like ghosts before him.

Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring.  There they were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor Francis.  The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last fortunes on a battle in the field.  The allied army was 80,000 strong.  Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as Brunn, and there awaited the onset.

Just beyond this town, at Austerlitz, the French were arranged in a semicircle, with the convex front toward the allies, who occupied the outer arc on a range of heights.  Such was the situation on the night of December 1, 1805.  The morrow will be the first anniversary of our coronation in Notre Dame—­a glorious day for battle!