Reserve Cavalry Corps (Grande Armée)
The Reserve Cavalry Corps or Cavalry Reserve of the Grande Armée was a French military unit that existed during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1805, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte appointed Marshal Joachim Murat to command all the cavalry divisions that were not directly attached to the army corps. During the Ulm campaign, Murat led his horsemen in successfully hunting down many Austrian units that escaped the capitulation of Ulm, before fighting at Austerlitz in December 1805. Under Murat, the Cavalry Reserve played a prominent role in the destruction of the Prussian armies after the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806. In 1812, the Reserve Cavalry Corps was split up into the I, II, III, and IV Cavalry Corps for the French invasion of Russia.
French cuirassier in 1809
Joachim Murat
Louis Klein
Louis Sahuc
The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire. Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. The battle is often cited by military historians as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela. The military victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to an end, with the Peace of Pressburg signed by the French and Austrians later in the month. These achievements did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. Austerlitz had driven neither Russia nor Britain, whose armies protected Sicily from a French invasion, to settle. Prussian resistance to the growing power of French military invasions in Central Europe led to the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806.
Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805, romanticized painting by French artist François Gérard, c. 1810
Napoleon accepts the surrender of General Mack and the Austrian army at Ulm. Painting by Charles Thévenin
French cuirassiers taking position
Capture of a French regiment's eagle by the cavalry of the Russian guard, by Bogdan Willewalde (1884)