When Napoleon's armies threatened Vienna in 1805, the Emperor called Schmitt out of retirement for the specific task of organizing the challenging Austro-Russian retreat. As Chief of the Quartermaster General Staff of the Army, of the Lower Rhine, the Rhine, and the Army of Germany, he had organized a variety of maneuvers and battle plans, frequently hampered by difficult terrain. After Schmitt's death, Weyrother, the architect of the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden, developed the general battle plan of the Allied action at Austerlitz. The military historian Digby Smith hypothesizes that Schmitt, an experienced officer and sound tactician, would have been more effective at the Battle of Austerlitz, at least more so than his replacement, Franz von Weyrother, as Chief of the Quartermaster General Staff of the Allied Army. In the long run, it was unlikely that Schmitt's plan would have changed the overall outcome—Austerlitz was arguably one of Napoleon's finest battles—but his battle plan would no doubt have been an improvement over the one the Allies used.