This episode is pretty special – David and I recorded it sitting together, in the same hotel room, same city, same country and, as David likes to point out, on the same day (usually we’re in completely different timezones). As we were both in a strange city (San Francisco) and didn’t have access to our usual reference materials, we did a short show (for us that’s under an hour!) looking at the Third Coalition and the build up to Austerlitz. We cut the show before we covered Austerlitz though because we want to spend some time on it and have all of our books around us! It was Napoleon’s favourite victory and possibly the peak of his military achievments.

In the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Coalition against the French Empire emerged in 1805 and consisted of an alliance of the United Kingdom, Austria, Russia, Naples, and Sweden.

In this episode we discuss:

  • the motivation for the creation of the Third Coalition
  • the creation of La Grande Armee and Marshals Of The Empire
  • “the unfortunate General Mack and the taking of Ulm
  • the capture of Vienna

(photo of Arc de Triomphe detail by zakw845)