Austerlitz - the famous battlefield of a Napoleonic battle

The Austerlitz Battlefield spreads out only a few kilometres from Brno.

Explore the place from where the French emperor commanded his armies, set out for the Peace Mound or the Historical Museum in the Chateau in Austerlitz, where you can also experience a virtual Battle of Austerlitz in person.

The dominant feature and also the natural centre of the protected monument zone of the Austerlitz Battlefield is the Peace Mound. This monument was built in honour of the victims of the Napoleonic battle, which was fought in the surrounding area on 2 December 1805. The mound was created on the suggestion of the priest, Alois Slovák, whose aim was to make the centre of the former battlefield a commemorative “place of light” and memento of all wars. The Peace Mound thus represents a unique peace monument, one of the oldest in Central Europe.

Since June 2010, precisely one hundred years from the date when construction of the monument was commenced in 1910, a new museum pavilion has been opened and a new part of the permanent exhibition called the Austerlitz Phenomenon. Visitors can take a new view of the event in the renovated museum building neighbouring with monument - “The Battle of the Three Emperors. Slavkov/Austerlitz 1805” multimedia exhibition. The exhibition relates to the “other life” of the battle, providing information about the battle in Austerlitz from various angles – contemporaries, chroniclers, soldiers and diplomats, historians, writers, painters and even film makers. The unique story of the Peace Mound itself also has a place in the exhibition, two hundred years of tradition of the battle and the tradition of memorial events including the traditional reconstructions of battlefield scenes.

What you have to see…
Austerlitz Chateau – located in a town, which the whole world knows as Austerlitz. Armistice was concluded between France and Austria in the Baroque chateau with extensive park on 6.12.1805. Apart from the historical interiors, you can also visit the extensive underground and Historical museum devoted to the Battle of Austerlitz here.

Peace Mound – a stone Art Nouveau chapel on the site of the decisive engagements of the Battle of Austerlitz over the village of Prace, a timeless memento to all victims of the battle. The remains of the fallen are buried underground. An exhibition of Brno Museum is to be found nearby, documenting the course of the battle, what preceded it and what followed.

Žuráň – a hill between Šlapanice and Podolí, one of the most famous locations of the Austerlitz Battlefield, from where Emperor Napoleon saw his notorious Austerlitz sun, “le soleil d´Austerlitz”. A raised-relief map is located here with positions of the individual armies before the decisive battle.

Santon Hill – a hill by the village of Tvarožná with a chapel and replica of a French cannon, the location of reconstruction skirmishes on the anniversary of the battle.