OF POSTAGE STAMPS BRNO 2005
THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF
THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ
COMMEMORATIVE POSTAGE STAMP
The battle of three emperors - this tends to be the name of one of the largest military conflicts which took place in the Czech territory. On 2 December 1805 the allied armies of the Russian emperor Alexander I and the Austrian emperor Franz I met the army of the French emperor Napoleon I on the hills and in the valleys between Brno and Austerlitz. The fight engaged 90,000 allied and 70,000 French troops. Napoleon followed the first hours of fighting from a tiny elevation called Žuráň. From this point he gave his command at 8.30 a.m. of attacking the Pratecký hill. His wonderful strategy successfully divided the armies of the enemy and put them to flight. In 1910-12, on the motion of the Brno priest Prof. A. Slovák and on the design by the architect J. Fanty (1856-1954), the Peace Monument, an Art Nouveau stone monument of the victims of the battle, was erected on the Pratecký hill where the decisive and heaviest fighting took place. The relics of those killed found on the battlefield are deposited in its oss
