Pyramid of Austerlitz

The Pyramid of Austerlitz is a pyramid built by Napoleonic soldiers near the Dutch town of Austerlitz, on one of the highest points of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug.

In 1804, the French general Auguste de Marmont had set up an army camp (Kamp van Zeist) in this central location in the Netherlands, where he managed to forge several battalions in a few months into a large, well-trained army, which could defeat the British enemy if the invasion of 1799 were repeated. Satisfied with the military strength of the new army, he had the soldiers build a lasting monument in the autumn of 1804, a pyramid hill of sand and earth. The monument was inspired by the Pyramid of Cheops, which De Marmont had seen with his own eyes during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Even the stair-shaped surface exposed by erosion was imitated. Construction took 27 days. The pyramid hill was given a height of 36 meters, and a 13 meter high wooden obelisk was placed on the top. In 1805, De Marmont left for Germany with his army, and fought in the War of the Coalition that culminated in the Battle of Austerlitz (now Slavkov u Brna), the battle in which Napoleon decisively defeated the Russians and Austrians. The name Marmontberg was changed shortly afterwards by Louis Napoleon, the new King of Holland, to Pyramid of Austerlitz.

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