La Bataille de Prusse 1809

incident was the source of considerable resentment by the Prussians toward the French, and is considered one of the sources of war between the French and Hohenzollerns just a year later. That this well-educated and well-connected Englishman just happened to be in Austria, right before and after Austerlitz, and then later in Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg right before the 1806 campaign, proved to be good fortune for the English-speaking world. Reeve presents an open window to the French-Third Coalition War swirling around the Austerlitz campaign, and then the origins of the war with the French and the Fourth Coalition. As Napoleon and Murat are packing the unfortunate General Mack into a blood sausage in Black Forest, Dr. Reeves starts his Journal of a Residence in Vienna and Berlin in the Eventful Winter of 1805-1806, a memoir that covered everything from surly inn-keepers in Bavaria; to the dining habits of the Viennese; and to all the descriptions of the efficient French diplomats and soldiers as they governed Vienna and the rest of Austria till the Peace of Pressburg, which was signed on December 26, 1805 following the French overwhelming victory at Austerlitz earlier in the month. He then visits several cities in Germany including Dresden; Berlin and Hamburg before returning to England in the spring of 1806. His post-Pressburg travels out of the Austrian Empire and into Saxony and then Berlin itself reveals how dysfunctional the Prussian perspective on the Napoleonic juggernaut that were then changing Germany. His journal is a neutral though colorful vision of what was going on around him. He spoke truthfully of both the French and the Austrians, though his comments about the Russians tended to be harsh and critical. His comments on the Prussians and the rest of Germany’s attitude towards them explain much as to why the French were successful in turning much of Germany against Prussian state. As Dr. Reeve fine-tuned his French in Neuchatel and argued with inn-keepers in Vienna, Napoleon’s La Grande Armée of 210,000 French and 25,000 Bavarians had managed to confuse and befuddle General Karl Mack as his 72,000 man Austrian Army was seduced into advancing and into and invading Bavaria—how unwise! The ultimate result, after a series of small battles and clever moves by the French, was the Capitulation of Ulm. In a month of aggressive movement by the French, moving from its encampments along the English Channel and then scurrying over much of Germany with the then revolutionary corps d’armée, and kept invisible by Prince Joachim Murat’s reserve cavalry, the Austrians were soon surrounded in the area around Ulm and lost over 60,000 men—mostly from surrender. Just 12,000 men were able to slip away in small detachments to fight again later in the campaign. However, the reader should note, that with all of the French marching and maneuvering from Boulogne to Bavaria, and the various small battles in Germany, the French forces had fallen below Advancing Into and Invading Bavaria—How Unwise!

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