Part 498

_Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 42-48._

GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (April-July). Risings against the French in the North.

"A general revolt against the French had nearly taken place in Saxony and Westphalia, where the enormous burdens imposed on the people, and the insolence of the French troops, had kindled a deadly spirit of hostility against the oppressors. Everywhere the Tugendbund were in activity; and the advance of the Austrians towards Franconia and Saxony, at the beginning of the war, blew up the flame. The two first attempts at insurrection, headed respectively by Katt, a Prussian officer (April 3), and Dornberg, a Westphalian colonel (April 23), proved abortive; but the enterprise of the celebrated Schill was of a more formidable character. {1519} This enthusiastic patriot, then a colonel in the Prussian army, had been compromised in the revolt of Dornberg; and finding himself discovered, he boldly raised the standard (April 29) at the head of 600 soldiers. His force speedily received accessions, but failing in his attempts on Wittenberg and Magdeburg, he moved towards the Baltic, in hope of succour from the British cruisers, and at last threw himself into Stralsund. Here he was speedily invested; the place was stormed (May 31), and the gallant Schill slain in the assault, a few hours only before the appearance of the British vessels —the timely arrival of which might have secured the place, and spread the rising over all Northern Germany. The Duke of Brunswick-Oels, with his 'black band' of volunteers, had at the same time invaded Saxony from Bohemia; and though then obliged to retreat, he made a second incursion in June, occupied Dresden and Leipsic, and drove the King of Westphalia into France. After the battle of Wagram he made his way across all Northern Germany, and was eventually conveyed, with his gallant followers, still 2,000 strong, to England."

_Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 525-526._

GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (July-September). Napoleon's victory at Wagram. The Peace of Schonbrunn. Immense surrender of Austrian territory.

"The operation of establishing the bridges between the French camp and the left bank of the Danube commenced on the night of the 30th of June; and during the night of the 4th of July the whole French army, passing between the villages of Enzersdorf and Muhlleuten, debouched on the Marchfeld, wheeling to their left. Napoleon was on horseback in the midst of them by daylight; all the Austrian fortifications erected to defend the former bridge were turned, the villages occupied by their army taken, and the Archduke Charles was menaced both in flank and rear, the French line of battle appuyed on Enzersdorf being at a right angle to his left wing. Under these circumstances the Archduke, retiring his left, attempted to outflank the French right, while Napoleon bore down upon his centre at Wagram. This village became the scene of a sanguinary struggle, and one house only remained standing when night closed in. The Archduke sent courier after courier to hasten the advance of his brother, between whom and himself was Napoleon, whose line on the night of the 5th extended from Loibersdorf on the right to some two miles beyond Wagram on the left. Napoleon passed the night in massing his centre, still determining to manœuvre by his left in order to throw back the Archduke Charles on that side before the Archduke John could come up on the other. At six o'clock on the morning of the 6th of July he commanded the attack in person. Disregarding all risk, he appeared throughout the day in the hottest of the fire, mounted on a snow-white charger, Euphrates, a present from the Shah of Persia. The Archduke Charles as usual committed the error which Napoleon's enemies had not even yet learned was invariably fatal to them: extending his line too greatly he weakened his centre, at the same time opening tremendous assaults on the French wings, which suffered dreadfully. Napoleon ordered Lauriston to advance upon the Austrian centre with a hundred guns, supported by two whole divisions of infantry in column. The artillery, when within half cannon-shot, opened a terrific fire: nothing could withstand such a shock. The infantry, led by Macdonald, charged; the Austrian line was broken and the centre driven back in confusion. The right, in a panic, retrograded; the French cavalry then bore down upon them and decided the battle, the Archduke still fighting to secure his retreat, which he at length effected in tolerably good order. By noon the whole Austrian army was abandoning the contest. Their defeat so demoralized them that the Archduke John, who came up on Napoleon's right before the battle was over, was glad to retire with the rest, unnoticed by the enemy. That evening the Marchfeld and Wagram were in possession of the French. The population of Vienna had watched the battle from the roofs and ramparts of the city, and saw the retreat of their army with fear and gloom. Between 300,000 and 400,000 men were engaged, and the loss on both sides was nearly equal. About 20,000 dead and 30,000 wounded strewed the ground; the latter were conveyed to the hospitals of Vienna. … Twenty thousand Austrians were taken prisoners, but the number would have been greater had the French cavalry acted with their usual spirit. Bernadotte, issuing a bulletin, almost assuming to himself the sole merit of the victory, was removed from his command. Macdonald was created a marshal of the empire on the morning after the battle. … The battle of Wagram was won more by good fortune than skill. Napoleon's strategy was at fault, and had the Austrians fought as stoutly as they did at Aspern, Napoleon would have been signally defeated. Had the Archduke John acted promptly and vigorously, he might have united with his brother's left—which was intact—and overwhelmed the French. … The defeated army retired to Znaim, followed by the French; but further resistance was abandoned by the Emperor of Austria. The Archduke Charles solicited an armistice on the 9th; hostilities ceased, and Napoleon returned to the palace of Schonbrunn while the plenipotentiaries settled the terms of peace. … English Ministers displayed another instance of their customary spirit of procrastination. Exactly eight days after the armistice of Znaim, which assured them that Austria was no longer in a position to profit by or co-operate with their proceedings, they sent more than 80,000 fighting men, under the command of Lord Chatham, to besiege Antwerp. …

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).

Operations against Naples proved equally abortive. … In Spain alone English arms were successful. Sir Arthur Wellesley won the battle of Talavera on the 28th of July. …

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

A treaty of peace, between France and Austria was signed on the 14th of October at Vienna [sometimes called the Treaty of Vienna, but more commonly the Peace of Schonbrunn]. The Emperor of Austria ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to the Confederation of the Rhine; part of Bohemia, Cracow, and Western Galicia to the King of Saxony as Grand Duke of Warsaw; part of Eastern Galicia to the Emperor of Russia; and Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia to France: thus connecting the kingdom of Italy with Napoleon's Illyrian possessions, making him master of the entire coast of the Adriatic, and depriving Austria of its last seaport. It was computed that the Emperor Francis gave up territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of nearly 4,000,000. He also paid a large contribution in money."

_R. H. Horne, Life of Napoleon, chapter 32._

{1520}

"The cessions made directly to Napoleon were the county of Görtz, or Goricia, and that of Montefalcone, forming the Austrian Friuli; the town and government of Trieste, Carniola, the circle of Villach in Carinthia, part of Croatia and Dalmatia, and the lordship of Räzuns in the Grison territory. All these provinces, with the exception of Räzuns, were incorporated by a decree of Napoleon, with Dalmatia and its islands, into a single state with the name of the Illyrian Provinces. They were never united with France, but always governed by Napoleon as an independent state. A few districts before possessed by Napoleon were also incorporated with them: as Venetian Istria and Dalmatia with the Bocca di Cattaro, Ragusa, and part of the Tyrol. … The only other articles of the treaty of much importance are the recognition by Austria of any changes made, or to be made, in Spain, Portugal, and Italy; the adherence of the Emperor to the prohibitive system adopted by France and Russia, and his engaging to cease all correspondence and relationship with Great Britain. By a decree made at Ratisbon, April 24th, 1809, Napoleon had suppressed the Teutonic Order in all the States belonging to the Rhenish Confederation, reannexed its possessions to the domains of the prince in which they were situated, and incorporated Mergentheim, with the rights, domains, and revenues attached to the Grand Mastership of the Order, with the Kingdom of Würtemberg. These dispositions were confirmed by the Treaty of Schönbrunn. The effect aimed at by the Treaty of Schönbrunn was to surround Austria with powerful states, and thus to paralyse all her military efforts. … The Emperor of Russia … was very ill satisfied with the small portion of the spoils assigned to him, and the augmentation awarded to the duchy of Warsaw. Hence the first occasion of coldness between him and Napoleon, whom he suspected of a design to reestablish the Kingdom of Poland."

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 14 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapters 59-60 (volume 13)._

_General Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 13 (volume 2)._

_E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3)._

_J. C. Ropes, The First Napoleon, lecture 4._

GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810. Humboldt's reform of Public Instruction in Prussia.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. PRUSSIA: A. D. 1809.

GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810 (April-February). The revolt in the Tyrol. Heroic struggle of Andrew Hofer and his countrymen.

"The Tyrol, for centuries a possession of Austria, was ceded 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._