preparations, in all silence, for the memorable campaign of 1805. Never were Napoleon's talents for command or his military genius displayed in a more brilliant light than in the plan of this campaign. Assured of the assistance of most of the princes of southern Germany, Bonaparte crossed the Rhine in the autumn with seven divisions, commanded by his most experienced marshals, Ney, Lannes, Marmont, Soult, Murat, etc, and marched into Swabia; whilst Bernadotte, disregarding Prussia's neutrality, pressed forward through the Brandenburg Margravate of Anspach-Bayreuth upon the Isar. This violation of his neutral position irritated the king, Frederick William III, to such a degree, that he entered into closer relationship with the allies, and assumed a threatening aspect, without, however, actually declaring war.
After Ney's successful engagement at Elchingen, the Austrian general, Mack, was shut up in Ulm, and cut off from the main army. Helpless, and despairing of deliverance, the incompetent commander commenced negotiations with the French, which terminated in the disgraceful capitulation of Ulm. By this arrangement, 33,000 Austrians, including thirteen generals, became prisoners of war. Covered with shame, the once-brave warriors marched before Napoleon, laid down their arms before the victor, placed forty banners at his feet, and delivered up sixty cannon with their horses. When too late, it was seen in Vienna that Mack was not equal to his lofty position, and he was deprived of his honor, his dignities, and the advantages of his office, by a court-martial. Napoleon's joy at this unexampled good fortune was, however, diminished by the cotemporaneous maritime victory of the English at Trafalgar, which annihilated the whole French fleet, but which also cost the life of the great naval hero, Nelson.
The war-party had gained the upper hand in Prussia since the violation of the neutral territory of Bernadotte. The king renewed the bond of perpetual friendship with the sensitive emperor Alexander, in the church of the garrison at Potsdam, over the coffin of Frederick the Great, at night, and then sent Haugwitz with threatening demands to Napoleon. The French emperor, in the meantime, proceeded along the Danube towards the Austrian states, not without many bloody engagements, of which the battles of Dirnstein and Stein against the Russians under Kutusoff and Bagration were of especial importance. If the French found brave and circumspect opponents in the Russians in these encounters, they had the easier game in Austria. Murat took possession of Vienna without the slightest trouble; and the prince of Auersburg, who had orders either to defend the bridge over the Danube, which was fortified and filled with gunpowder, or to blow it into the air, allowed himself to be so completely deceived by the bold cunning of the French general, and by pretended negotiations of peace, that he surrendered it to the enemy uninjured and undefended. The irresolution of the emperor Francis, and the divisions between the Austrians and Russians, facilitated the victory of the French, who, laden with enormous booty, pursued the Austro-Russian army, in the midst of perpetual engagements, into Moravia. In Moravia, the battle of Austerlitz, in which the three emperors were present, was fought on the day of the year in which the emperor was crowned, December 2d, 1805, and in which the winter sun shone upon the most splendid of Napoleon's victories. The emperor Francis, wishing for the termination of the war, suffered himself to be persuaded to pay a humble visit to Napoleon in the French
