Battle of Michelsberg

On the night of October 15, Napoleon gave the last orders to attack the enemy army near Ulm . The corps of Ney and Lanna were commissioned to seize the heights of Michelsberg and Gaisberg, towering over the fortress, and to drive the Austrians into their fortifications. Behind them, the Imperial Guard and reserve cavalry units were to advance. Marmon's corps was ordered to block the fortifications of the right bank. To the corps of Soult , by this time having captured Memmingen , the Emperor ordered to move on Bieberbach and Laupheim and block the last ways of the withdrawal of the Austrians to the south.

Napoleon, tired of sleepless nights, bad weather and slow deployment of troops, knee-deep in the mud, stopped at one of the farms in Haslach to have some rest. After some time, Marshal Lannes literally burst into the room and woke the emperor, loudly exclaiming: “Sire! What are you doing here? You are asleep, and Ney alone is fighting with the whole Austrian army! .. ”. “Why did he start the fight? - asked, waking up, Napoleon. “I told him to wait, but he is always like that, he attacks the enemy as soon as he sees him ...” Not a minute. The marshal took the emperor with him, and they galloped galloping toward the place where the cannonade could be heard. Here, where the guns rumbled and the bullets whistled, the Emperor and Lannes met with Marshal Neh. The latter answered categorically that he did not need Lann's troops and did not want to share his glory. His divisions really easily coped with the enemy. About three o'clock in the afternoon, Mahler decisively stormed the heights of the Michelsberg, and a little later, Luason knocked out the enemy from the heights of Gaisberg. At about five o'clock in the evening on the shoulders of the fleeing Austrians, the 50th Linear Regiment from the Mahler's Division attempted to break into the city through the Frau-Entor (Ladies Gate) gate. When part of the brave French infantry was already under the arches of the gate, the Austrians opened fire with their canister at close range. Several dozen Frenchmen were killed on the spot, the rest were surrounded and taken prisoner. The same fate befell the 17th light regiment, which, moving in the head of the Suchet division, arrived at the battlefield in the evening and immediately tried to attack the entrance to the fortress. The gates slammed behind a handful of daredevils, who, along with their colonel Wedel , burst into the fortress area. Those who did not give up, mowed down the canister. The regiment lost 33 killed, 128 wounded and 169 prisoners. Napoleon ordered these unprepared isolated attacks to be stopped and all the troops drawn up to surround the fortress. By evening, Ulm was completely blocked. On the left bank were parts of Ney, Lannes, and the Guard, on the right, Marmon's corps.

• Sokolov O.V. Austerlitz. Napoleon, Russia and Europe. 1799-1805 - T. 1-2. - M., 2006. p. 196-198.