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Great Daring Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan September 28, 2020 31 min

Josip Broz Tito - World War II — Yugoslav partisans wading across a river. Wikimedia

5. A Daring Duo

Murat and Lannes bluffing their way to capturing the Tabor Bridge. Quora

As the French army advanced upon Vienna, there was a mood of uncertainty in the air. The war was still on, but the hostilities might end at any moment with an armistice and peace treaty. It was against that backdrop that the French vanguard neared the Tabor Bridge on November 13^th, 1805, and halted.

Two of Napoleon’s more daring generals, Joachim Murat and Jean Lannes, then casually ambled to the bridge, behaving in a carefree manner. As confused Austrian guards aimed their muskets at their breasts, the French commanders were laughing and expressing their pleasure at the “just concluded” armistice and peace treaty. Once they reached the other side, still seemingly without a care in the world, they asked to see Count Auersperg, wondering if he had already gone to attend the peace signing ceremony.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.