to Bavaria by the Peace of Presburg in 1805. The Bavarians
made many innovations, in the French style, some good and some
bad; but the mountaineers, clinging to their ancient ways,
resisted them all alike. They hated the Bavarians as foreign
masters forced upon them; and especially detested the military
conscription, to which Austria had never subjected them. The
priests had an almost unlimited influence over these faithful
Catholics, and the Bavarians, who treated them rudely, were
regarded as innovators and allies of revolutionary France.
Thus the country submitted restlessly to the yoke of the Rhine
League until the spring of 1809. A secret understanding was
maintained with Austria and the Archduke John, and the people
never abandoned the hope of returning to their Austrian
allegiance. When the great war of 1809 began, the Emperor
Francis summoned all his people to arms. The Tyrolese answered
the call. ... They are a people trained in early life to the
use of arms, and to activity, courage, and ready devices in
hunting, and in traveling on their mountain paths. Austria
could be sure of the faithfulness of the Tyrol, and made haste
to occupy the country. When the first troops were seen entering
the passes, the people arose and drove away the Bavarian
garrisons. The alarm was soon sounded through the deepest
ravines of the land. Never was there a more united people, and
each troop or company chose its own officers, in the ancient
German style, from among their strongest and best men. Their
commanders were hunters, shepherds, priests: the former
gamekeeper, Speckbacher; the innkeeper, Martin Teimer; the
fiery Capuchin monk, Haspinger, whose sole weapon in the field
was a huge ebony crucifix, and many more of like peaceful
occupations. At the head of the whole army was a man who, like
Saul, towered by a head above all others, while his handsome
black beard fell to his girdle--Andrew Hofer, formerly an
innkeeper at Passeyr--a man of humble piety and simple
faithfulness, who fairly represented the people he led. He
regarded the war as dutiful service to his religion, his
emperor, and his country. The whole land soon swarmed with
little bands of men, making their way to Innsprück (April,
1809), whence the Bavarian garrison fled. Meanwhile a small
French corps came from Italy to relieve them. Though fired
upon by the peasants from every ravine and hill, they passed
the Brenner, and reached the Iselberg, near Innsprück. But
here they were surrounded on every side, and forced to
surrender. The first Austrian soldiers, under General
Chasteler, then reached the capital, and their welcome was a
popular festival. The liberators, as the Tyrolese soldiers
regarded themselves, committed no cruelties, but carried on
their enterprise in the spirit of a national jubilee. The
tidings of the disasters at Regensburg [Ratisbon] now came
upon them like a thunderbolt. The withdrawal of the Austrian
army then left the Tyrol without protection. Napoleon treated
the war as a mutiny, and set a price upon Chasteler's head.
Neither Chasteler nor any of the Austrian officers with him
understood the warfare of the peasantry. The Tyrolese were
left almost wholly to themselves, but they resolved to defend
their mountains. On May 11 the Bavarians under Wrede again set
out, from Salzburg, captured the pass of the Strub after a
bloody fight, and then climbed into the valley of the Inn.
They practiced frightful cruelties in their way. A fierce
struggle took place at the little village of Schwatz; the
Bavarians burned the place, and marched to Innsprück.
Chasteler withdrew, and the Bavarians and French, under Wrede
and Lefevre, entered the capital. The country again appeared
to be subdued. But cruelty had embittered the people. Wrede
was recalled, with his corps, by Napoleon; and now Hofer, with
his South Tyrolese, recrossed the Brenner Pass. Again the
general alarm was given, the leaders called to arms, and again
every pass, every wall of rock, every narrow road was seized.
The struggle took place at the Iselberg.
{1521}
The Bavarians, 7,000 in number, were defeated with heavy loss.
The Tyrol now remained for several months undisturbed, during
the campaign around Vienna. After the battle of Aspern, an
imperial proclamation formally assured the Tyrolese that they
should never be severed from the Austrian Empire; and that no
peace should be signed unless their indissoluble union with
the monarchy were recognized. The Tyrolese quietly trusted the
emperor's promise, until the armistice of Znaim. But in this
the Tyrol was not mentioned, and the French and their allies
prepared to chastise the loyal and abandoned country."
_C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 28._
"In the mouth of July, an army of 40,000 French and Bavarians
attacked the Tyrol from the German side; while from Italy,
General Rusca, with 18,000 men, entered from Clagenfurth, on
the southern side of the Tyrolese Alps. Undismayed by this
double and formidable invasion, they assailed the invaders as
they penetrated into their fastnesses, defeated and destroyed
them. The fate of a division of 10,000 men, belonging to the
French and Bavarian army, which entered the Upper Innthal, or
Valley of the Inn, will explain in part the means by which
these victories were obtained. The invading troops advanced in
a long column up a road bordered on the one side by the river
Inn, there a deep and rapid torrent, where cliffs of immense
height overhang both road and river. The vanguard was
permitted to advance unopposed as far as Prutz, the object of
their expedition. The rest of the army were therefore induced
to trust themselves still deeper in this tremendous pass,
where the precipices, becoming more and more narrow as they
advanced, seemed about to close above their heads. No sound
but of the screaming of the eagles disturbed from, their
eyries, and the roar of the river, reached the ears of the
soldier, and on the precipices, partly enveloped in a hazy
mist, no human forms showed themselves. At length the voice of
a man was heard calling across the ravine, 'Shall we
begin?'--'No,' was returned in an authoritative tone of voice,
by one who, like the first speaker, seemed the inhabitant of
some upper region. The Bavarian detachment halted, and sent to
the general for orders;' when presently was heard the terrible
signal, 'In the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all loose!' Huge
rocks, and trunks of trees, long prepared and laid in heaps
for the purpose, began now to descend rapidly in every
direction, while the deadly fire of the Tyrolese, who never
throw away a shot, opened from every bush, crag, or corner of
rock, which would afford the shooter cover. As this dreadful
attack was made on the whole line at once, two-thirds of the
enemy were instantly destroyed; while the Tyrolese, rushing
from their shelter, with swords, spears, axes, scythes, clubs
and all other rustic instruments which could be converted into
weapons, beat down and routed the shattered remainder. As the
vanguard, which had reached Prutz, was obliged to surrender,
very few of the 10,000 invaders are computed to have
extricated themselves from the fatal pass. But not all the
courage of the Tyrolese, not all the strength of their
country, could possibly enable them to defend themselves, when
the peace with Austria had permitted Buonaparte to engage his
whole immense means for the acquisition of these mountains.
Austria too--Austria herself, in whose cause they had
incurred all the dangers of war, instead of securing their
indemnity by some stipulations in the treaty, sent them a cold
exhortation to lay down their arms. Resistance, therefore, was
abandoned as fruitless; Hofer, chief commander of the
Tyrolese, resigned his command, and the Bavarians regained the
possession of a country which they could never have won back
by their own efforts. Hofer, and about thirty chiefs of these
valiant defenders of their country, were put to death
[February, 1810], in poor revenge for the loss their bravery
had occasioned. But their fame, as their immortal spirit, was
beyond the power of the judge alike and executioner; and the
place where their blood was shed, becomes sacred to the
thoughts of freedom, as the precincts of a temple to those of
religion."
_Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 58 (volume 12)._
_History of Hofer
(Quarterly Review, July, 1817)._
_C. H. Hall,
Life of Andrew Hofer._
GERMANY: A. D. 1810.
Annexation of the Hanse Towns and territory on the North Sea
to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1810-1812.
Marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise
of Austria to Napoleon.
Alliance of German powers with Napoleon against Russia.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
GERMANY: A. D. 1812.
The Russian campaign of Napoleon and its disastrous ending.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER),
(SEPTEMBER), and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.
The Teutonic uprising against Napoleon.
Beginning of the War of Liberation.
Alliance of Prussia and Russia.
"During Napoleon's march on Moscow and his fatal return,
Macdonald remained on the Lower Dwina, before Riga, with an
observation corps of Prussians and Poles, nor had he ever
received an order to retreat from Napoleon. Learning of the
misfortunes of the grand army, he went from the Dwina towards
the Niemen. As he passed through Courland, General York,
commander of the Prussian troops, allowed him to lead the way
with the Poles, and then signed an agreement of neutrality
with the Russians (December 30, 1812). The Prussian troops,
from a military spirit of honor, had fought the Russians
bravely; they retained some scruples relative to the worthy
marshal under whom they served, and forsook without betraying
him, that is, they left him time to escape. This was a most
important event and the beginning of the inevitable defection
of Germany. The attitude of Czar Alexander decided General
York; the former was completely dazzled by his triumphs, and
aspired to nothing less than to destroy Napoleon and liberate
Europe, even France! With mingled enthusiasm and calculation,
he promised all things to all men; on returning to Wilna, he
granted an amnesty for all acts committed in Poland against
Russian authority. On the one hand, he circulated a rumor that
he was about to make himself King of Poland, and, on the other
hand, he announced to the Prussians that he was ready to
restore the Polish provinces taken from them by Napoleon. He
authorized ex-Minister Stein to take possession, as we may
say, of Old Prussia, just evacuated by the French, and to
promise the speedy enfranchisement of Germany, protesting, at
the same time, that he would not dispute 'the legitimate
greatness' of France.
{1522}
The French army, on hearing of York's defection, left
Königsberg with ten or twelve thousand sick men and eight or
ten thousand armed troops, withdrawing to the Vistula and
thence to Warta and Posen. General Rapp had succeeded in
gathering at Dantzic, the great French depot of stores and
reserves, 25,000 men, few of whom had gone through the Russian
campaign, and a division of almost equal numbers occupied
Berlin. The French had in all barely 80,000 men, from Dantzic
to the Rhine, not including their Austrian and Saxon allies,
who had fallen back on Warsaw and seemed disposed to fight no
more. Murat, to whom Napoleon confided the remains of the
grand army, followed the Emperor's example and set out to
defend his Neapolitan kingdom, leaving the chief command to
Prince Eugene. Great agitation prevailed around the feeble
French forces still occupying Germany. The Russians
themselves, worn out, did not press the French very hotly; but
York and Stein, masters of Königsberg, organized and armed Old
Prussia without awaiting authorization from the king, who was
not considered as a free agent, being under foreign rule.
Pamphlets, proclamations, and popular songs were circulated
everywhere, provoking the people to rebellion. The idea of
German union ran like wildfire from the Niemen to the Rhine;
federal union, not unity in a single body or state, which was
not thought of then."
_H. Martin,
Popular History of France from 1789,
volume 2, chapter 16._
"The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin [January,
1813], which was still in the hands of the French, for
Breslau, whence he declared war against France. A conference
also took place between him and the emperor Alexander at
Calisch [Kalisch], and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an
offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between them.
The hour for vengeance had at length arrived. The whole
Prussian nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the
foreigner, to obliterate their disgrace in 1806, to regain
their ancient name, cheerfully hastened to place their lives
and property at the service of the impoverished government.
The whole of the able-bodied population was put under arms.
The standing army was increased: to each regiment were
appended troops of volunteers, Jaegers, composed of young' men
belonging to the higher classes, who furnished their own
equipments: a numerous Landwehr, a sort of militia, was, as in
Austria, raised besides the standing army, and measures were
even taken to call out, in case of necessity, the heads of
families and elderly men remaining at home, under the name of
the Landsturm. The enthusiastic people, besides furnishing the
customary supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to the
full extent of their means towards defraying the immense
expense of this general arming. Every heart throbbed high with
pride and hope. ... More loudly than even in 1809 in Austria
was the German cause now discussed, the great name of the
German empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone
could all the races of Germany be united against their
hereditary foe. The celebrated proclamation, promising
external and internal liberty to Germany, was, with this view,
published at Calisch by Prussia and Russia. Nor was the appeal
vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and such plain
demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling on this
side the Rhine were made, that Davoust sent serious warning to
Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, 'Pah! Germans never can
become Spaniards!' With his customary rapidity he levied in
France a fresh army 300,000 strong, with which he so
completely awed the Rhenish confederation as to compel it once
more to take the field with thousands of Germans against their
brother Germans. The troops, however, reluctantly obeyed, and
even the traitors were but lukewarm, for they doubted of
success. Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria
remained neutral. A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had
preceded the rest of the troops and reached the coasts of the
Baltic. As early as the 24th of March, 1813, it appeared in
Hamburg and expelled the French authorities from the city. The
heavily oppressed people of Hamburg, whose commerce had been
totally annihilated by the continental system, gave way to the
utmost demonstrations of delight, received their deliverers
with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and immediately
raised a Hanseatic corps destined to take the field against
Napoleon. Dörnberg, the ancient foe to France, with another
flying squadron took the French division under Morand
prisoner, and the Prussian, Major Hellwig (the same who, in
1806, liberated the garrison of Erfurt), dispersed, with
merely 120 hussars, a Bavarian regiment 1,300 strong and
captured five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry
of the upper country had already revolted against the
conscription, and, in February, patriotic proclamations had
been disseminated throughout Westphalia under the signature of
the Baron von Stein. In this month, also, Captain Maas and two
other patriots, who had attempted to raise a rebellion, were
executed. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated chief of
the provisional government of the still unconquered provinces
of Western Germany. The first Russian army, 17,000 strong,
under Wittgenstein, pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at
Mökern, repulsed 40,000 French who were advancing upon Berlin.
The Prussians, under their veteran general, Blücher, entered
Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 1813,
after an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe [had] been
uselessly blown up by the French. Blücher, whose gallantry in
the former wars had gained for him the general esteem and
whose kind and generous disposition had won the affection of
the soldiery, was nominated generalissimo of the Prussian
forces, but subordinate in command to Wittgenstein, who
replaced Kutusow as generalissimo of the united forces of
Russia and Prussia. The Emperor of Russia and the King of
Prussia accompanied the army and were received with loud
acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig."
_W. Menzel,
History of Germany,
chapter 260 (volume 3)._
Bernadotte, the adopted Crown Prince and expectant King of
Sweden, had been finally thrown into the arms of the new
Coalition against Napoleon, by the refusal of the latter to
take Norway from Denmark and give it to Sweden. "The
disastrous retreat of the French from Moscow ... led to the
signature of the Treaty of Stockholm on the 2d of March, 1813,
by which England acceded to the union of Norway to Sweden, and a
Swedish force was sent to Pomerania under General Sandels. On
the 18th of May, 1813, Bernadotte landed at Stralsund."
_Lady Bloomfield,
Biographical Sketch of Bernadotte
(Memoir of Lord Bloomfield, volume 1, page 31)._
ALSO IN:
_J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 7 (volume 3)._
_A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 47 (volume 4)._
{1523}
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (April-May).
Battle of Lützen.
Humiliation of the King of Saxony.
"On the 14th April, Napoleon left Paris to assume the command
of the army. Previous to his departure, with a view, perhaps,
of paying a compliment to the Emperor of Austria, the Empress
Marie Louise was appointed regent in his absence; but Prince
Schwarzenberg, who had arrived on a special mission from
Vienna, was treated only as the commander of an auxiliary
corps, to which orders would immediately be transmitted. On
the 16th he reached Mayence, where, for the last time, vassal
princes assembled courtier-like around him; and on the 20th he
was already at Erfurt, in the midst of his newly-raised army.
The roads were everywhere crowded with troops and artillery,
closing in towards the banks of the Saale. From Italy, Marshal
Bertrand joined with 40,000 men, old trained soldiers; the
Viceroy brought an equal number from the vicinity of
Magdeburg; and Marshal Macdonald having, on the 29th, taken
Merseburg by assault, the whole army, which Bade, the ablest
and most accurate of the authors who have written on this
campaign, estimates at 140,000 men, was assembled for action.
With this mighty force Napoleon determined to seek out the
enemy, and bring them quickly to battle. The Russian and
Prussian armies were no sooner united, after the alliance
concluded between the sovereigns, than they crossed the Elbe,
occupied Dresden, which the King of Saxony had abandoned, and
advanced to the banks of the Saale. General Blücher commanded
the Prussians, and Count Wittgenstein the Russian corps; and,
death having closed the career of old Marshal Kutusoff, ...
the command of both armies devolved upon the last mentioned
officer. Informed of the rapid advance of the French, the
allied monarchs joined their forces, which were drawn together
in the plains between the Saale and the Elbe; their numerous
cavalry giving them perfect command of this wide and open
country. Napoleon, always anxious for battle, determined to
press on towards Leipzig, behind which he expected to find the
Allied army, who, as it proved, were much nearer than he
anticipated. At the passage of the Rippach, a small stream
that borders the wide plain of Lützen, he already encountered
a body of Russian cavalry and artillery under Count
Winzingerode; and as the French were weak in horse, they had
to bring the whole of Marshal Ney's corps into action before
they could oblige the Russians to retire. Marshal Bessieres,
the commander of the Imperial Guard, was killed. ... On the
evening of the 1st of May, Napoleon established his quarters
in the small town of Lützen. The Allies, conscious of the vast
numerical superiority of the French, did not intend to risk a
general action on the left bank of the Elbe; but the length of
the hostile column of march, which extended from beyond
Naumberg almost to the gates of Leipzig, induced Scharnhorst
to propose an advance from the direction of Borna and Pegau
against the right flank of the enemy, and a sudden attack on
the centre of their line in the plain of Lützen. It was
expected that a decisive blow might be struck against this
centre, and the hostile army broken before the distant wings
could close up and take an effective part in the battle. The
open nature of the country, well adapted to the action of
cavalry, which formed the principal strength of the Allies,
spoke in favour of the plan. ... The bold attempt was
immediately resolved upon, and the onset fixed for the
following morning. The annals of war can hardly offer a plan
of battle more skilfully conceived than the one of which we
have here spoken; but unfortunately the execution fell far
short of the admirable conception. Napoleon, with his Guards
and the corps of Lauriston, was already at the gates of
Leipzig, preparing for an attack on the city, when about one
o'clock [May 2] the roar of artillery burst suddenly on the
ear, and gathering thicker and thicker as it rolled along,
proclaimed that a general action was engaged in the plain of
Lützen,--proclaimed that the army was taken completely at
fault, and placed in the most imminent peril. ... The Allies,
who, by means of their numerous cavalry, could easily mask
their movement, had advanced unobserved into the plain of
Lützen," and the action was begun by a brigade of Blücher's
corps attacking the French in the village of Great-Görschen
(Gross-Görschen). "Reinforcements ... poured in from both
sides, and the narrow and intersected ground between the
villages became the scene of a most murderous and
closely-contested combat of infantry. ... But no attempt was
made to employ the numerous and splendid cavalry, that stood
idly exposed, on open plain, to the shot of the French
artillery. ... When night put an end to the combat,
Great-Görschen was the sole trophy of the murderous fight that
remained in the hands of the Allies. ... On the side of the
Allies, 2,000 Russians and 8,000 Prussians had been killed or
wounded: among the slain was Prince Leopold of Hessen-Homburg;
among the wounded was the admirable Scharnhorst, who died a
few weeks afterwards. ... The loss sustained by the French is
not exactly known; but ... Jomini tells us that the 3d corps,
to which he was attached as chief of the staff, had alone 500
officers and 12,000 men 'hors de combat.' Both parties laid
claim to the victory: the French, because the Allies retired
on the day after the action; the Allies, because they remained
masters of part of the captured battlefield, had taken two
pieces of artillery, and 800 prisoners. ... The Allies
alleged, or pretended perhaps, that it was their intention to
renew the action on the following morning: in the Prussian
army every man, from the king to the humblest soldier, was
anxious indeed to continue the fray; and the wrath of Blücher,
who deemed victory certain, was altogether boundless when he
found the retreat determined upon. But ... opinion has, by
degrees, justified Count Wittgenstein's resolution to recross
the Elbe and fall back on the reinforcements advancing to join
the army. ... On the 8th of May, Napoleon held his triumphal
entrance into Dresden. ... On the advance of the Allies, the
Saxon monarch had retired to Ratisbon, and from thence to
Prague, intending, as he informed Napoleon, to join his
efforts to the mediation of Austria. Orders had, at the same
time, been given to General Thielman, commanding the Saxon
troops at Torgau, to maintain the most perfect neutrality, and
to admit neither of the contending parties within the walls of
the fortress. Exasperated by this show of independence,
Napoleon caused the following demands to be submitted to the
King, allowing him only six hours to determine on their
acceptance or refusal;
{1524}
1. 'General Thielman and the Saxon troops instantly evacuate
Torgau, and form the 7th corps under General Réynier; and all
the resources of the country to be at the disposal of the
Emperor, in conformity with the principles of the
Confederation of the Rhine.'