the plains of Bavaria and
were to have been reinforced by a large Prussian contingent. Unhappily,
they had not effected a junction when Napoleon crossed the Rhine near
Strassburg and the Danube near Donauwoerth, while he detached large
forces to check the advance of the Russians and the approach of
reinforcements expected from Italy. One of these movements involved an
open violation of Prussian territory, but he could rely on the
well-tried servility of Frederick William. The first decisive result of
his strategy was the surrender of Mack at Ulm, with 30,000 men and 60
pieces of ordnance. This event took place on October 20, the very day
before the battle of Trafalgar, and opened the road to Vienna, which the
French troops entered on November 13, occupying the great bridge by a
ruse more skilful than honourable, during the negotiation of an
armistice. Vienna was spared, while Napoleon pressed on to meet the
remainder of the Austrian army, which had now been joined by a larger
body of Russians near Bruenn. The allies numbered about 100,000 men;
Napoleon's army was numerically somewhat less, but possessed the same
kind of superiority as the British navy at Trafalgar. The result was the
crushing victory of Austerlitz on December 2, followed by the peace of
Pressburg, between France and Austria, signed on the 26th. The principal
articles of this treaty provided for the cession of Venetia, Istria, and
Dalmatia to the kingdom of Italy, and the aggrandisement of Bavaria and
Wuertemberg, whose electors received the royal title as the price of
their sympathetic alliance with France. Russia withdrew sullenly, having
learned the hollowness of her league with Prussia, which had basely
temporised while the fate of Germany was at stake, and whose minister,
Haugwitz, suppressing the _ultimatum_ which he was charged to deliver,
had openly congratulated the conqueror of Austerlitz.

Great Britain had had no direct share in the conflict in Southern
Germany and Moravia; she had, however, joined in two expeditions, the
one in Southern, the other in Northern Europe. In spite of a treaty of
neutrality between France and the Two Sicilies, ratified on October 8,
an Anglo-Russian squadron was permitted to land a force of 10,000
British troops under Sir James Craig, and 14,000 Russians on the shore
of the Bay of Naples. These troops effected nothing, and the violation
of neutrality was, as we shall see, destined to involve the Neapolitan
monarc