The story of this place
On 2 December 1805 — the first anniversary of his coronation — Napoleon fought and won the Battle of Austerlitz on the frozen fields near the town of Slavkov, southeast of Brno. Deliberately weakening his right to lure the Russian and Austrian armies into overextending, he then split their line by storming the Pratzen Heights, shattering the forces of Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Francis II in what became known as the Battle of the Three Emperors. Fleeing soldiers drowned when French artillery cracked the ice of frozen ponds. The victory ended the Third Coalition and remade Europe. On the heights now stands the Cairn of Peace, a monument to the roughly 30,000 dead of both sides, with a museum below.