This is a puzzling incident given the contrast between the numerous memoirs supporting the exaggerated claim in Napoleon's Bulletin and the Austrian reports of finding little relevant physical evidence of drowning victims when the ponds were drained.
One possibly more objective assessment comes from Joseph Baron de Comeau, a French nobleman who had served with Royalist forces during the Revolution, was present at Austerlitz as a Bavarian artillery officer attached to French headquarters and commented as an eyewitness to the incident in his memoirs (p. 231, Souvenirs des Guerres, published in 1900 but written in the 1830s). He concluded that at most 200 casualties could be attributed to the incident and he also observed that the ponds protected the retreating force from a more rigorous pursuit:
You see the typical stroy, Thiers just invents a number and then it is like that, I wonder why the number of bodies found at the bottom of the lake don't corresspond with al those numbers, despite recording dead horses and guns. Also we don't know how far away de Comeau was from this incident, at least the bottom line is that Boney lied as usual and created a propaganda story which must be true because it is legendary.
I have read accounts of Austerlitz that range from saying the victims at the end of the battle fled or were driven into the lake and drowned; to other accounts which said they they fled through the shallow, but ice covered lake and died from freezing to death or frostbite as a later result. Personally I tend to believe the latter.
Do you have any sources claimind death by freezing and frostbite, though Austerlitz was fought in winter, I was under the impression that is was not that extremely cold, maybe there is a source about the degrees of the temperature at the battle.
'La Grande Armee'. by Georges Blond. 1997 Paperback edition from Arms and Armour Press. Pages 77-78
". . , the cornered Austro-Russian troops tried to escape across the frozen lakes. The Russians were accustomer to thick ice on which they would walk without hesitation. They advanced with their artillery train and 2,000 men.
...Needless to say that the artillery train, which must have numbered 65 cannon, had sunk in the lake. The Emperor gave the order to cease fire and we managed to save the men on the banks.' (Gen. Thiard)
Finally, here is the truth: the 'lake' was in fact a pond whose depth was never more than chest high. Less that one hundred Russians perished, not from drowining, but from cold."
Blond goes on to cite the Bulletin on the subject and in general as 'propaganda'.
This is a puzzling incident given the contrast between the numerous memoirs supporting the exaggerated claim in Napoleon's Bulletin and the Austrian reports of finding little relevant physical evidence of drowning victims when the ponds were drained.
One possibly more objective assessment comes from Joseph Baron de Comeau, a French nobleman who had served with Royalist forces during the Revolution, was present at Austerlitz as a Bavarian artillery officer attached to French headquarters and commented as an eyewitness to the incident in his memoirs (p. 231, Souvenirs des Guerres, published in 1900 but written in the 1830s). He concluded that at most 200 casualties could be attributed to the incident and he also observed that the ponds protected the retreating force from a more rigorous pursuit:
I have read accounts of Austerlitz that range from saying the victims at the end of the battle fled or were driven into the lake and drowned; to other accounts which said they they fled through the shallow, but ice covered lake and died from freezing to death or frostbite as a later result. Personally I tend to believe the latter.
It was peculiar that the tsar purportedly confimed the deaths.