Ulm Campaign
Years: 1805 - 1805
The Ulm Campaign is a series of French and Bavarian military maneuvers and battles to outflank and capture an Austrian army in 1805 during the War of the Third Coalition.
It takes place in the vicinity of and inside the Swabian (at this time Bavarian) city of Ulm
The French Grande Armée, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, comprises two hundred and ten thousand troops organized into seven corps, and hopes to knock out the Austrian army in the Danube before Russian reinforcements can arrive.
Through rapid marching, Napoleon conducts a large wheeling maneuver that captures an Austrian army of twenty-three thousand under General Mack on October 20 at Ulm, bringing the total number of Austrian prisoners in the campaign to sixty thousand.
The campaign is generally regarded as a strategic masterpiece and is influential in the development of the Schlieffen Plan in the late nineteenth century.
The victory at Ulm does not end the war, since a large Russian army under Kutuzov is still near Vienna.
The Russians withdraw to the northeast to await reinforcements and to link up with surviving Austrian units.
The French follow and capture Vienna on November 12.
On December 2, the decisive French victory at Austerlitz removes Austria from the war.
The resulting Treaty of Pressburg in late December brings the Third Coalition to an end and leaves Napoleonic France as the major power in Central Europe, leading to the War of the Fourth Coalition with Prussia and Russia the following year.
