The Battle of Bettlern was fought in April 1805 between the armies of the French Empire and the Austrian Empire during the War of the Third Coalition. Marshal Michel Ney defeated Austria's Bohemian army, clearing the way for the capture of Prague.
At the start of 1805, Emperor Napoleon I mobilized his armies along France's eastern frontier. Marshal Ney's small army in Alsace-Lorraine was reinforced by militia and regular battalions from Paris, Brussels, and Strasbourg, after which he was dispatched to Central Europe to participate in Napoleon's invasion of the Habsburg lands. While Napoleon battled the Russians at the Battle of Wasserburg, Ney advanced in the direction of Prague, which was garrisoned by General Karl Mack von Leiberich's army. Mack gambled on an attack on Ney's army while it was unsupported by Napoleon's main force, intercepting the French near the village of Bettlern (Žebrák).
The French army deployed its cannon on a small hill and their army on the plain below; a rock formation secured their right flank against an Austrian attack. Ney deployed well-trained fusiliers to hold his center as raw National Guard battalions manned his army's flanks, supported on the left by cavalry and on the right by an obstructed flank. The Austrian army consisted primarily of German Fusiliers, screened by Jaeger and Uhlans, bolstered by Landesschützen and Landwehr reservists, and backed up by contingents of Hungarian fusiliers and Grenadiers.
The Austrians attacked the French across the battlefront, but French cannon pummeled their advancing infantry and prevaricating uhlans, whose charge of the French right flank was cancelled. The French left flank, deployed at an angle, pressed the Austrian right, whose regular soldiers stood firm in the face of fire from two directions. The Austrian center was mauled by French grapeshot and massed musketry, but their right achieved the most success, inflicting heavy losses on the poor-quality French militia. The French left-flank cavalry neutralized the Austrian cannon after swinging around the Austrian army, only to be routed by the Austrian uhlans. Ultimately, the Austrian army cracked under the weight of a sustained assault by the French left. The last Austrian units to crack were the ones engaging the French right, only fleeing once the rest of the French army turned to face them. The Austrian army was smashed, and Ney was able to storm and capture Prague.
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