Central Europe - Ulm Campaign - The Invasion of Bavaria - French Assembly on the Rhine September 1805

1805-09-02/1805-09-25

The Ulm campaign was 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 took place in the vicinity of and inside the Swabiannl (then Bavarian) city of Ulm. The French Grande Armée, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, had 210,000 troops organized into seven corps and hoped to knock out the Austrian army in the Danube before Russian reinforcements could arrive. Rapid marching let Napoleon conduct a large wheeling maneuver, which captured an Austrian army of 23,000 under General Mack on 20 October at Ulm. That brought the total number of Austrian prisoners-of-war 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 19th century. The victory at Ulm did not end the war since a large Russian army under Kutuzov was still near Vienna. The Russians withdrew to the northeast to await reinforcements and to link up with surviving Austrian units. The French followed and captured Vienna on 12 November. On 2 December, the decisive French victory at Austerlitz 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, which led to the War of the Fourth Coalition against Prussia and Russia the following year.

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