There, on 20
October, 1805, the Austrian commander, with some 50,000 men,
surrendered, and the road to Vienna was open to the French.
[Sidenote: Trafalgar (1805) and the Continued Sea Power of Great
Britain]
This startling military success was followed on the very next day by a
naval defeat quite as sensational and even more decisive. On 21
October, the allied French and Spanish fleets, issuing from the harbor
of Cadiz, encountered the British fleet under Lord Nelson, and in a
terrific battle off Cape Trafalgar were completely worsted. Lord Nelson
lost his life in the conflict, but from that day to the close of the
Napoleonic Era British supremacy on the high seas was not seriously
challenged.
[Sidenote: Austerlitz, 1805]
Wasting no tears or time on the decisive loss of sea-power, Napoleon
hastened to follow up his land advantages. Occupying Vienna, he turned
northward into Moravia where 1805 Francis II and Alexander I had
gathered a large army of Austrians and Russians. On 2 December, 1805,
the anniversary of his coronation as emperor,--his "lucky" day, as he
termed it,--Napoleon overwhelmed the allies at Austerlitz in one of the
greatest battles in history.
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