1805, France, Napoleon I.  Bronze "Battle of the Three Emperors" Medal. NGC MS-62!

Mint Year: 1805
Mint Place: Paris
Medallists: Droz & Andrieu
Reference: Julius 1449, Bramsen 446, Diakov 301.1. 
Condition: Certified and graded by NGC as MS-62!
Denomination: Medal - Victory of Napoleon I at the Battle Austerlitz, which is also known ans the Battle of the Three Emeprors (Nepoleon I, Alexander I of Russia, Francis II of Austria).
Weight: 36.25gm
Diameter: 40mm
Material: Bronze

Obverse: Wreathed bust of Napoleon I right. Medallist´s signature (ANDRIEAU F.) on the inner side of bust truncation. Date of the Battle of Austerlitz (2nd December, 1805) below.
Legend: BATAILLE D'AUSTERLITZ

Reverse: Vis-a-vis busts of Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Francis II of Austria.
Legend: ALEXANDRE I. FRANCOIS II. / ANDRIEAU F. DENON D.

 

The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire (now Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. The battle is often cited by military historians as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela. The military victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to an end, with the Peace of Pressburg signed by the French and Austrians later in the month. These achievements did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. Austerlitz had driven neither Russia nor Britain, whose armies protected Sicily from a French invasion, to settle. Prussian resistance to the growing power of French military invasions in Central Europe led to the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806.

After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm campaign, French forces seized Vienna in November 1805. The Austrians avoided further conflict until the arrival of the Russians, who helped increase the allied numbers. Napoleon sent his army north in pursuit of the Allies but then ordered his forces to retreat so he could feign a grave weakness to lure the Allies into thinking that they were facing a weak army, while it was in fact formidable. Napoleon gave every indication in the days preceding the engagement that the French army was in a pitiful state, even abandoning the dominant Pratzen Heights near Austerlitz. He deployed the French army below the Pratzen Heights and weakened his right flank, enticing the Allies to launch an assault there to rolling up the French line. A forced march from Vienna by Marshal Davout and his III Corps plugged the gap left by Napoleon just in time. The Allied deployment against the French right weakened the Allied center on the Pratzen Heights, which was attacked by the IV Corps of Marshal Soult. With the Allied center demolished, the French swept through both flanks and routed the Allies, which enabled the French to capture thousands of prisoners.

The Allied disaster significantly shook the faith of Emperor Francis in the British-led war effort. France and Austria agreed to an armistice immediately, and the Treaty of Pressburg followed shortly after, on 26 December. Pressburg took Austria out of both the war and the Coalition while reinforcing the earlier treaties of Campo Formio and of Lunéville between the two powers. The treaty confirmed the Austrian loss of lands in Italy and Bavaria to France, and in Germany to Napoleon's German allies. It also imposed an indemnity of 40 million francs on the Habsburgs and allowed the fleeing Russian troops free passage through hostile territories and back to their home soil. Critically, victory at Austerlitz permitted the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, a collection of German states intended as a buffer zone between France and the eastern powers, Austria, Prussia and Russia. The Confederation rendered the Holy Roman Empire virtually useless, so Francis dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, but remained as emperor of Austria. These achievements failed to establish a lasting peace on the continent. Prussian worries about the growing French influence in Central Europe led to the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806.

Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the history of Europe. He was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic and Emperor of the First French Empire.

Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, he rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later he crowned himself Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against every major European power and dominated continental Europe through a series of military victories - epitomised in battles such as Austerlitz and Friedland. He maintained France's sphere of influence by the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French client states.

The French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes. His Grande Armée was wrecked in the campaign and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig, invaded France and exiled him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he returned and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life under British supervision on the island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists in the 1960s conjectured that he had been poisoned with arsenic.

Napoleon developed few military innovations, drew his tactics from different sources and scored major victories with a modernised French army. His campaigns are studied at military academies the world over and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative foundations for much of Western Europe.