Widely regarded as Napoleon's greatest tactical triumph, Austerlitz was fought on the first anniversary of his coronation near the Moravian town of Brno. Feigning weakness on his right flank, Napoleon deliberately enticed the Allied commanders to strip troops from the Pratzen Heights to envelop what appeared to be a vulnerable French position. When the Allied center had been sufficiently weakened, Marshal Soult's corps stormed the Pratzen with devastating speed, splitting the Allied army in two. The flanking Allied force became trapped between French wings and was driven onto frozen ponds, where artillery fire broke the ice, drowning hundreds. The battle lasted barely nine hours.
Austerlitz effectively ended the War of the Third Coalition. Austria signed the humiliating Treaty of Pressburg, ceding vast territories. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved the following year. Napoleon's military reputation reached its zenith.
Full battle details →
To buy time for Aguinaldo's escape into the Cordillera, 24-year-old General Gregorio del Pilar held the 4,500-foot Tirad Pass with sixty riflemen against Major March's Texan battalion. The Americans, guided up a goat trail around the position, killed 52 of the 60 defenders. Del Pilar died in the saddle, shot through the neck; an American officer later returned his diary to his family.
The 'Philippine Thermopylae.' Militarily a small action, it became the Republic's great martyrdom story and made del Pilar the war's most romantic hero — the boy general who died to the last man so the president could escape.
Full battle details →