The fighting on both sides at Austerlitz was in the main superb. "My people," said the Emperor to his soldiers--"my people will see you again with delight; and if one of you shall say, 'I was at Austerlitz,' every one will respond, 'Here stands a hero.'" The legions of the Empire had indeed fought with unsurpassed bravery, as had likewise the Austrians. The Russians were not so steadfast. In their first experience of the "furia Francesa" their old notions of courage were wiped out. "Those who saw the battle-field," said the "Moniteur," "will testify that it lay strewn with Austrians where the fight was thickest, while elsewhere it was strewn with Russian knapsacks." Such was the effect upon his men that not only did Alexander leave his ally in the lurch and march back into Poland, but he felt called on to publish a bulletin asserting the valor of his own, and the timidity of the Austrian troops. But the "Battle of Austerlitz," as it is called in French phrase, the "Fight of the Three Emperors," as the Germans designate the day, was epochal, not merely for the courage displayed, but for the tactical revolution it wrought. It was the first true Napoleonic battle. Thenceforward the greatest conflicts were arranged on its commanding principle--a principle which had long been used, but was then for the first time fully developed and accepted. Throughout the preceding period of warfare an army was set in motion as a whole, every portion being from first to last in the commander's hand ready for manoeuvering. If any division was hemmed in, or any portion of the line was broken, the result was defeat. From 1805 onward any single part, center or either wing, could be annihilated, and the victory still be won elsewhere by the other parts. For this two things are essential: first, fresh troops to throw into the proper place at the proper time; second, a line of retreat, with a new basis for operations, previously prepared. The highest military authorities go so far as to say that in a well-arranged battle one portion of the line should even be sacrificed to the enemy in order to secure victory with the others. The pursuit after Austerlitz was as fine as the attack, and so colossal and comprehensive was Napoleon's genius that he had made complete arrangements for withdrawing in case of defeat, not, as the enemy thought, toward Vienna, but through Bohemia to Passau. The total numbers engaged were, on the side of the allies, about ninety thousand; on that of the French, about eighty thousand. The Austrians and Russians lost fifteen thousand killed and wounded, with twenty thousand taken prisoners, while the French had seven thousand killed and wounded in the long and dreadful stand made at the Goldbach by their right, and about five thousand elsewhere. The Emperor thought it a small price to pay for the hegemony of Europe, and his favorite title was "Victor of Austerlitz." "Soldiers," he