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A toast to celebrate a great Napoleonic victory, Austerlitz, December 2, 1805.
What better way to remember the victory than to recall the words of l'Empereur:
Austerlitz, 12 Frimaire, an XIV.
"Soldiers, I am pleased with you! You have, on this day of Auserlitz, justified all that I had expected from your courage, and you have honoured your eagles with immortal glory. In less than four hours an army of 100,000 men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, has been cut down or scattered. Such enemy as escaped your bayonets have drowned in the lakes.
"Forty colours, the standards of the Russian Imperial Guard, 120 pieces of artillery, twenty generals and over 30,000 prisoners are the result of this day- to be forever celebrated. That such vaunted infantry, so superior in numbers, could not resist your charge, proves that henceforth you have no longer any rivals to fear. Thus in two months this Third Coalition has been overthrown and dissolved. Peace cannot now be far away, but, as I promised my people before crossing the Rhine, I will only make a peace that both gives us guarantees and also assures rewards for our allies. . . May all the blood shed here, may all these misfortunes, fall upon the heads of the perfidious islanders who have caused them. May the cowardly oligarchs of London pay the consequences of so many woes.
"Soldiers, when the French people placed the Imperial Crown upon my head, I trusted in you to sustain it is that high state of glory that alone gives it value in my eyes. But at the very moment our foes were planning to destroy and debase it, together with the Iron Crown of the kingdom of Italy, won by the blood of so many Frenchmen; they wished to compel me to place it upon the head of ur greatest foes- bold, senseless plots, which, on the very day of the coronation anniversary, you have confounded and destroyed. You have taught them that it is easier to boast before us and to threaten us that it is to conquer us.
"Soldiers, when everything necessary for the happiness and prosperity of our Motherland has been accomplished, I will lead you back to France: there you will be the object of my tenderest solicitude. My people will greet you with joy, and it will suffice for you to say: 'I was at the Battle of Austerlitz,' for them to reply: 'There is one of the brave."
"NAPOLEON"
Austerlitz, a battle that even gained the respect of his enemies:
As the Russian Army withdrew from the battlefield, the following message was sent to the French Army from the Tsar:
"Tell your master that I am going away. Tell him that he has performed miracles. . . That the battle has increased my admiration for him; that he is a man predestined by Heaven; that it will require a hundred years for my army to equal his."
Tsar Alexander
Officers of La Grande Armee, 207 years later, you are ordered by l'Empereur to celebrate, as quoted above.
Vive l'Empereur!
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Marechal C. Jensen
Prince de Trevise
Comte de Suchet
3ème Régiment de Cuirassiers
3ème Brigade
1ère Division de Grosse Cavalerie
Réserve de Cavalerie
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