Ned Zuparko has produced an excellent series with his Winter Quarters, and especially on his treatment of Austerlitz. I would, however, like to add a little to what Ned has said. The point I would like to deal with is the question of encounter and attacker:defender battles. Unfortunately (and I know he would not have meant to) Ned gives the impression that encounter battles are 'one form' and attacker:defender battles are 'another form'. This is not the case. All battles are attacker:defender battles. An 'encounter' battle precedes an attacker:defender battle if (a) the natural defender doesn't know where the natural attacker is, or (b) the natural defender knows where the natural attacker is but has been 'conned' into thinking the latter is on the defensive. The terms 'natural' defender and attacker I would explain this way. A battle is part of a campaign. In that campaign one side is actively trying to take something from the other - and is therefore the natural attacker - while the other is trying (at least initially) to retain whatever it is the attacker is after (and is therefore the natural defender). In the Austerlitz campaign Napoleon was the natural attacker, because he had moved into his enemy's territory. Faced with the advancing enemy, he could easily have occupied the ground in the area of the Pratzen as a defensive position and allowed his opponents to attack him thereabouts. However, although he did occupy the Pratzen initially, Napoleon knew that sitting still letting the enemy attack him would not give him the victory he wanted. He might be certain of winning the battle, but not as thoroughly as he wanted to. For this, he drew back from the Pratzen. Napoleon's withdrawal from a perfectly sound defensive position like the Pratzen, his deliberate policy of making his army look as if it was on its last legs when 'visitors' from the enemy camp were around and his 'political' con of stating that 'a man such as I does not care about the lives of a million men' when the enemy's ambassador pointed out that he would be thrashed in a battle -- were all designed to convince the enemy to attack him beyond the Pratzen. It was, in fact, in the days preceding the fighting that Austerlitz was won for the French. In Richard Burnett's succinct comment, Austerlitz was indeed a 'Strategic ambush' of the first order. Austerlitz was an encounter battle in that the Allies, thinking they were on the march to meet a stationary French enemy in position well beyond the Pratzen, found themselves coming up against French forces who were 'where they shouldn't be'. The point of arranging this, from Napoleon's viewpoint, was that it did not give the side which would become the defender (the Allies) time to take up a defensive position. Thus, the 'attackers' were caught on the march from the very start of the engagement. Initially, of course, the Allied high command wouldn't have realised they had run into the French Army. Subordinate commanders 'always exaggerate', and 1 man looks like 10 when you have to fight him. Gradually, however, it would have dawned on them that their leading elements were not fighting strong skirmish parties but 'real troops'. It is at this point that the 'encounter' battle becomes an attacker: defender battle. The side which thought it was attacking (or at least advancing) against the enemy finds its leading elements held up, even having to defend themselves against the attacks of the enemy's forces. The senior generals, instead of conducting movements and marches, find themselves having tio,shore-up their leading elements by committing reserves simply to help them hold their present positions. The battle quickly becomes one in which -- as Ned points out occurred at Austerlitz -- the side which had thought it was attacking (or marching to a place where it would attack) found itself defending positions it had had no intention of occupying, while the other side -- which was supposed to be sitting defensively waiting to be attacked -- is busy throwing troops into the fighting and gaining ground. I would not agree with Christopher Duffy's opinion that the Allied army was not up to 'the tactical outflanking move' demanded of it. I agree however with his sentiments, but would suggest than an outflanking move which took place (or was supposed to) several miles from the other wing of the army was more in the order of a strategic maneouvre (an attempt at the maneouvre sur les derrieres perhaps?). I am glad to see that Ned makes the point when dealing with Stutterheim's conclusions, that morale, training, national characteristics and having the enemy off the Pratzen have no place in that General's reasoning for the defeat. As I said earlier, Austerlitz was won days before the battle took place, because Napoleon lured the enemy into a false sense of security that allowed him to catch them on the march and force them to fight defensively on ground not of their own choosing. The Pratzen was important - but only because it was not occupied as a defensive position by the Allies. It would not have mattered if the heights were non-existant in fact, so long as that area of ground was 'empty' of enemy (relatively speaking that is), allowing the French to split the enemy in two. I would disagree with Ned's conclusions on how this would all be represented in a wargame. It should start as an encounter battle preferably on maps (drawn for the purpose if necessary) so that the Allied commanders would think they were attacking and would find out to their surprise that they had to form a hasty defence. At that point the thing could be transferred to the table as a game, with one side defending and the other attacking. However, Ned is perfectly correct in highlighting the fact that Austerlitz was not a typical wargamer's idea of an encounter battle - I doubt if such a thing exists. 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