Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XXXII

Between eleven and twelve Soult had cleared the Pratzen heights, and pushing ever toward the right, had finally, just as the sun burst in splendor through the clouds, separated the enemy's left wing from its center. The latter had been sadly weakened both by detachments to strengthen the left and by its losses in conflict. At noon it began to retreat, and Napoleon, having satisfied himself that all was well on his left to the north, rode south to join Soult, and in passing despatched Drouot's division against the fugitive Kutusoff, whose column was thus overpowered and thrown into utter confusion. Since nine in the morning Davout had stood on the west shore of the Goldbach, flinging back the successive charges of the enemy's overgrown left. The continuous struggles had been terrific; the stream literally flowed blood as the soldiers of both sides crashed through the ice, and, unable to disengage themselves from the muddy bottom, stood fighting until they died. By two o'clock, however, his labors were over: the great move of the day, Soult's echelon march, right shoulder forward, was complete; Saint-Hilaire and Vandamme had recaptured the villages of Sokolnitz and Aujezd; the three southernmost Austro-Russian columns were entirely surrounded, and only a few from each escaped to join the remnants of their right, center, and reserve, running for life across frozen ponds and ditches, by dikes, and over rough-plowed fields toward Austerlitz. About five thousand of the fugitives, mostly Russians under Doctoroff and Langeron, had risked themselves on the ice of the Satschan lake and were hurrying across when Napoleon arrived. He ordered the field-pieces to be turned on the ice so that the balls weakened and cracked it.[35] In a few moments it gave way; with shrieks and groans many sank into the slowly rising waters and disappeared under the tossing icefloes. According to the account of the bulletins, frequently doubted but never refuted, nearly two thousand of them were drowned: when the ponds were drained after the battle forty Russian guns and many corpses were found. The fighting strength of the coalition was destroyed; so likewise was their moral courage. Shortly after Kutusoff's retreat, General Toll found Alexander seated weeping by the wayside, and accompanied by only a single adjutant.