War of the Third Coalition

War with England had broken out again in May 1803. Napoleon thereupon intensified his preparations for the invasion of that country, and two years were spent in training an expeditionary force dubbed the Armée d’Angleterre (Army of England), building…

…the first engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon’s greatest victories. The battle took place at Austerlitz in Moravia (now Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic). Napoleon’s 68,000 troops defeated almost 90,000 Russians and Austrians nominally under Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov, forcing Austria to make peace with…

…Eylau, an engagement of the War of the Third Coalition, fought February 7–8, 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. The first major deadlock suffered by Napoleon, the battle was fought around the East Prussian town of Eylau (modern Bagrationovsk, Russia), 23 miles (37 km) south of Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The unrelenting winter…

…a series of disappointments: the War of the Third Coalition (1805–07) ended with the allied defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz and a rapprochement between Russia and France, and the Fourth Coalition ended with a Franco-Austrian alliance cemented by Napoleon’s marriage to a Habsburg archduchess. Gentz found himself in a…