Napoleon Bonaparte’s account of his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, dictated and recorded during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, went on sale in Paris for € 1 million (£ 880,000).
The description of the battle, the strategy behind which it is still taught in military schools, is seen by historians as evidence of Napoleon’s desire to record his glory hour for posterity after his humiliation in 1815 at Waterloo and subsequent capture by the British.
It was dictated to his loyal field assistant, Gen Henri-Gatien Bertrand, who remained with him in exile on the volcanic island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean.
Densely written in 74 pages, the manuscript chronicles the December 1805 “day of the three emperors” confrontation with Russian-Austrian forces, considered Napoleon’s greatest military victory. It takes readers through the preparations for battle and the struggle itself and is completed by a battle plan designed on parchment paper by Bertrand.
The document contains several corrections made by Napoleon, who crossed out words and added comments in the margins in lower case. Napoleon does not refer to himself in the first person, but prefaces his remarks with “the emperor says”.
The sale on Wednesday comes at the beginning of a year that marks the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death. Jean-Emmanuel Raux, a gallery owner and collector of French imperial memorabilia, found the manuscript in a treasure trove of documents belonging to Bertrand’s heirs.
“It is the most fabulous document on the history of France that you can find in a private collection,” he said. Her daughter Alizee, who studied the manuscript, said it was an “embellished account of the battle”.
“This can be seen in the intonation of the sentences,” he added.
The Battle of Austerlitz took place on the first anniversary of Napoleon’s coronation as emperor. The day before the battle, he wrote: “I am sorry to think that I will lose many of these brave men. I feel bad, it makes me feel that they are really my children and, in fact, sometimes I blame myself for that feeling, because I fear it will end up making me incapable of war ”.
In about nine hours on December 2, 1805, some 75,000 soldiers from Napoleon’s Grande Armée maneuvered a major Russian-Austrian force at Austerlitz, in what was then the Austrian Empire. Part of the Russian force drowned in frozen lakes.
It helped to end the coalition between Francis I of Austria and Tsar Alexander I of Russia that had been financed by Great Britain. The battle is studied in military schools, including the prestigious Saint-Cyr in France, to this day.
Napoleon details all the tactics he employed to trick his opponents into believing that French forces were weak – including earlier withdrawals and negotiations that disguised the fact that he had already chosen the location of the battle. His exalted account extols the heroism of the French, from soldier to officer, and says that even wounded soldiers saluted the emperor.
The manuscript speaks volumes about heroism and enthusiasm for battle. “There was no officer, nor a general, nor a soldier who was not determined to win or die,” says Napoleon. When he walks through the battlefield filled with dead and wounded after the battle, he adds: “Nothing was more moving than seeing these brave people recognize him. They would forget their suffering and say: at least victory was guaranteed. “
The enemy is treated with pity and magnanimity. Telling how he addressed a wounded Russian soldier, Napoleon recalls: “Because he was defeated, he never fails to be among the brave.”
The manuscript will be displayed until the end of the month in the Arts et Autographes gallery in Paris, as well as online for potential foreign buyers.
The sale is part of the Brafa in the Galleries art fair that takes place in 126 galleries in 13 countries from 27 to 31 January.