Third Coalition

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In the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Coalition against Napoléon emerged in 1805, and consisted of an alliance of the United Kingdom, Austria, Russia, Naples, and Sweden against France. This was the first of the coalitions against the French Empire; the preceding ones had been against the French revolutionary state.

Napoleon had been planning an invasion of Britain since the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, and had massed 150,000 troops at Boulogne. However, he needed to achieve naval superiority to mount his invasion, or at least to pull the British navy away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an inconclusive action off Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve was blockaded in Cádiz until he left for Naples on October 19, but was caught and defeated at the battle of Trafalgar on October 21 by Lord Nelson. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all but abandoned plans to invade Britain and turned his attention to enemies on the Continent once again.

The coalition, seeking to take advantage of the concentration of Napoléon's forces at Boulogne, made plans to attack Italy and Bavaria. The allied armies organized in Germany and Italy, with Karl Mack von Lieberich mounting an invasion of Bavaria while waiting for the Russian army under Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov to reinforce him. The Bavarian army, allied to Napoléon, was forced to retreat northward, abandoning Munich.

Napoléon left Boulogne in August, marching his army rapidly to the Rhine. Crossing the Rhine in late September, he marched around Mack's right, surrounding the Austrian army at Ulm. Pushing back Austrian attempts to regroup, he cut off Ulm from Austria, forcing Mack to capitulate in October. Kutuzov, on the Austrian-Bavarian border, was forced to retreat into Vienna, and then north into Moravia to meet reinforcements, abandoning Vienna on November 13. Napoleon marched north to meet the allied armies, finding them at a defensive position at Austerlitz. In the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon lured the Austrians into an assault by a feigned retreat, then stormed the heights they had left, surrounding and destroying all but the right wing under Pyotr Bagration.

The Austrian army in Italy under Archduke Charles was forced to retreat without a battle by the French victories in Germany, and allied landings in northern Germany and Naples were abortive. Austria was eliminated from the coalition and evicted from Italy by the Treaty of Pressburg.

Napoléon had defeated Russia in battle but it remained in the war, and Prussia entered the war in 1806, in protest at French violation of its territory in the 1805 campaign. This was the War of the Third Coalition. In 1806, Prussia joined the coalition fearing the rise in French power after the defeat of Austria. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign, and Prussian troops massed in Saxony.

Napoleon counterattacked, and defeated the Prussians decisively at Jena-Auerstedt in October 1806. French forces under Napoleon occupied Prussia, capturing Berlin on October 25 1806 and moving all the way to East Prussia and the Russian frontier, where they fought an inconclusive battle against the Russians at Eylau in February 1807; Napoleon's advance on the Russian frontier was briefly checked. Russian forces were crushed by Napoleon's army at Friedland on June 14, 1807, and three days later Russia asked for a truce. By the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, France made peace with Russia and forced Prussia to give up half of its territory to France, Jerome Bonaparte's Kingdom of Westphalia, and the new Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon was virtually in control of western and central Europe.

Third Coalition

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