Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 31, 2007



The Ulm Campaign was a series of French and Bavarian military maneuvers and battles in 1805, during the War of the Third Coalition, designed to outflank an Austrian army. The French Grande Armée, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, comprised 210,000 troops organized into seven corps, and hoped to knock out the Austrian army in the Danube before Russian reinforcements could arrive. Through feverish marching, Napoleon conducted a large wheeling maneuver that captured an Austrian army of 23,000 under General Mack on October 20 at Ulm, bringing the total number of Austrian prisoners in the campaign to 60,000. The campaign is generally regarded as a strategic masterpiece and was influential in the development of the Schlieffen Plan in the late nineteenth century. The victory at Ulm was not decisive enough to end the war. A large Russian army under Kutuzov near Vienna ensured that another major confrontation would be required to settle affairs. On December 2, the French prevailed decisively at the Battle of Austerlitz, which effectively removed Austria from the war. The resulting Treaty of Pressburg in late December brought the Third Coalition to an end and left Napoleonic France as the major power in Central Europe, leading to the War of the Fourth Coalition with Prussia and Russia the following year. (more...)

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