P.S. It was my original intention to have annexed a good map to this work, on which the reader might be enabled satisfactorily to follow the operations with his eye;--but having in vain ransacked the shops of London, without being able to procure a map of Moravia on a scale sufficiently large to make it of any use; and, in fact, without finding any that was better than Chauchards, which is woefully deficient, both in the names of villages, and in geographical accuracy; I have been induced to publish the Battle of Austerlitz without this advantage. My principal motive for so doing has been the persuasion, that a bad map could be of very little use; and that it would enhance the expense to such a degree, as to place the work beyond the reach of many military men; while others may be already in possession of as good, or better information than I could furnish them with. To those, however, who do not already possess a map of Moravia, I would recommend that published by Covens and Mortier, at Amsterdam; not as the best possible map, but as the least defective I have seen. But, I have great doubts whether this is to be procured in England. TO THE AUSTRIAN ARMY. _This account of what passed under my own observation at the Battle of Austerlitz, and of the result of my researches on that memorable event, I here dedicate to my brethren in arms. The desire of being read by all the military men in Europe has induced me to write in a language more generally known than that of Germany, and which there are few among you who do not understand. Those who, like myself, have borne a part in this disastrous day of the 2d December, will be enabled to bear testimony to the truth of this narration. I have prided myself on using the greatest impartiality; on having stifled all prepossession, all passion, and every feeling, that could tend to lead my judgment astray. It is to your approbation, my brother soldiers, that I look forward, as the most delightful recompense of all my labours._ INTRODUCTION. The imperfect accounts which have reached the public, as to the details of the Battle of Austerlitz, are so contradictory to each other, and so little satisfactory to military men, that it has been thought proper to lay the following relation before them, in order to fix their ideas as to this memorable epoch. In all ages, as in all countries, nations and armies have been the slaves of opinion. Hence it has ever been the policy of governments to heighten, by those means best calculated to excite national enthusiasm, the splendour of even the greatest victories; as well as to give a specious colouring to those reverses of fortune, which are too public to be passed over in silence.