What if, in a game of chess, a single player decides the moves for both sides? While in the process of learning the game, many people practise this technique. It is another matter that this doesn't happen in a real game.
However, when you examine certain battles, you might wonder if that's what had happened—where the commander of Army X unknowingly made moves as per the wishes of the commander of Army Y. What actually happens is that the commander of Army Y would have lured the commander of Army X into making those moves. It shows the battle genius of Commander Y.
Napoleon of France was one such genius. He proved so in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, where he achieved a crushing victory over the combined armies of Austria and Russia. Of the many wars Napoleon won, this is considered his most brilliant victory.
After driving the Austrian army from the town of Ulm in a small skirmish, Napoleon captured Austria's capital, Vienna. With that, the Austrian army moved to where their ally, the Russian army, was encamped. The French army, which had followed them, stopped the pursuit after a while. Although victorious in the skirmish at Ulm, they began to retreat, feigning that they were incapable of another engagement—especially against a combined army that now included Russia’s.
Even an examination of military strength would make a battle seem foolish. Napoleon had 73,000 soldiers and 139 cannons. The combined army, on the other hand, had 85,400 soldiers and 278 cannons.
The French army abandoned a nearby hilltop they had captured. An army voluntarily abandoning a hilltop, which gives them a vantage point, is a sign that they are either withdrawing from battle or are not prepared to fight. As expected, the enemy sent a small unit and captured the hilltop. The retreating French troops took up a position on the shore of a lake near the town of Austerlitz. Although it was a lake, in the bone-chilling cold of December, the water was frozen solid, and horses and men could walk across it.
Napoleon deliberately kept the right flank of his army, positioned on the lake shore, weak. It was through this flank that ammunition and other supplies for his army were arriving from Vienna. Therefore, he calculated that the enemy unit on the hilltop would strike this very flank. In reality, his intention was to lure them there.
That is exactly what happened. As the enemy descended the hill to strike Napoleon's weak flank, the main French army, which had been hiding on the side of the hill, surged to the top and attacked the rear of the enemy's assault formation.
Beginning to crumble from the unexpected attack from the rear and flanks, the Russo-Austrian army tried to cross the lake. Seizing that opportunity, the French cannons began shelling the ice on the lake. As the heat from the cannon shells melted the ice into water, the enemy soldiers, weighed down by heavy weapons and horses, sank into the deep water.
There are two versions of what happened next: one says the French army rescued most of them and took them prisoners, while the other version claims they were abandoned to frozen deaths.