Animated Napoleonic Battles

The Art of Battle Animated Maps of Gunpowder Era

The History Channel has come up with three excellent animated maps of key Napoleonic battles - Austerlitz, Waterloo and Trafalgar.

The maps move through up to 12 pages and show firstly the overall plans of the campaigns leading to the battles and are backed up by a concise text explanation.

Austerlitz shows a satellite view of Europe and where the armies for the Austerlitz campaign were positioned, their lines of advance and retreat.

At the site of Austerlitz the map takes a bird's-eye view of the main troop dispositions and follows the ebb and flow of the battle with clearly recognisable icons for infantry and cavalry.

Waterloo quickly moves from the satellite view, showing where all the Allied armies were stationed in Europe, down to those of the French, British and Prussian forces and then to the bird's-eye troop display.

From there the map follows the main actions of the battle that decided European history.

The battle of Trafalgar begins with position of the previous naval battles of the era and then explains Napoleon Bonaparte's plan to get his navy free from the Royal Navy and Admiral Villeneuve's attempt to escape Admiral Nelson.

As the battle is joined the map goes from satellite view to bird's eye view and shows how the British attacked the French and Spanish and then gets almost mast high for the close-in action.

You can access the animated maps by going to The History Channel and selecting a battle.

Enjoy.