in 1805, in stripping the country of re- | it emerges at Verona into the Italian gular troops, at the very time when the plains. From Trent branch two lateadvance of the French to Vienna ren- ral roads: the first, after surmounting dered it of the last importance that an inconsiderable_ridge, descends by this great natural fortress should be the waters of the Brenta, through the strengthened on their flank, the cabi- romantic defiles of the Val Sugano, to net of Vienna resolved not to fall a Primolano, and loses itself in the Italsecond time into the same mistake, ian plains at Bassano; the second, after and make every preparation for turn- crossing the river Sarco, winds down ing to the best account the martial qua- by Chiesa and the lake of Idro, to the lities and excited feelings of the people. Brescian fields. From Botzen, or BolThe Archduke John, who commanded sano, a great road ascends the whole the army destined for the Italian cam- course of the Adige, called, in its upper paign, then stationed at Villach and or German parts, the Etch, and peneKlagenfurth, had made frequent excur- trates into the cold and cheerless passions in former years through the Ty- tures of the Engadine, in Switzerland, rol; and in the course of his rambles at Nauders. From Brixen branches off had become as much attached to these the great road to Carinthia and Klagspirited mountaineers as they had ac- enfurth, through the Pusterthal and quired confidence in his patriotism and down the valley of the Drave; and ardour. An active correspondence was this route communicates with Salzcarried on between the Archduke and burg by a cross-road which surmounts the Tyrolese leaders, from the moment the great central ridge by St Michel that war had been resolved on by the and Tauern, till it reaches Rastadt and cabinet of Vienna, till it actually broke the waters of the Salza. Another great out. But although that accomplished road crosses the Tyrol in its whole prince was thus in a great degree in- breadth, along the valley of the Inn strumental in producing the general in- communicating on the west with Switzsurrection in the province which after-erland by Feldkirch and Bregentz; on wards took place, yet he was fated never to return to it till the contest was over, nor to take part in a struggle in which he would willingly have risked his fortune and his life. 23. The Tyrol, notwithstanding its rugged aspect, is, in a military or strategetical point of view, a very simple country. There are very few practicable roads. The great chain of mountains which forms the southern barrier of the valley of the Inn, and which, beginning with the snowy peaks of the Ortler-Spitz, stretches through the Gefrorn to the huge mass of the Gross Glockner, is traversed only by one road, which from time immemorial has formed the chief means of communication between Germany and Italy. Setting out from Munich, it surmounts the northern barrier of the Innthal by the gorge of Scharnitz; descends to Innspruck, and after crossing the southern bulwarks of the valley by the pass of the Brenner, follows the course of the Eisach to Sterzing, Brixen, Botzen, Trent, and Roveredo, below which the east passing by Rattenberg to Salzburg, Enns, and Vienna. The Brenner is thus by far the most important position in Tyrol, because whoever has the command of it, is the master of the only communication from Germany and the northern, to Italy and the southern Tyrol, and of the bridge of Laditch, at the junction of roads leading to Innspruck, Carinthia, and Verona. Rude fortifications were erected on the principal passes leading into the province on all sides from the adjoining states; but they were of no great strength, and incapable of holding out against a numerous and enterprising enemy. The true defence of the Tyrol consisted in its rugged and inaccessible surface, which rendered it for the most part wholly impassable for cavalry; in the number of woods and defensible positions which it contains; and, above all, in the indomitable spirit and skill in arms of its inhabitants. 24. When the peasantry of the Tyrol, at the summons of Austria, took up 25. His talents and acquirements were of a superior order, as was sufficiently evinced by his having been se arms, they had no fixed or authorised | with the Archduke John, with whom leaders; but several persons had ac- he had formed an acquaintance in the quired such consideration among them course of that prince's scientific rambles as naturally placed them at the head in the Tyrol. This acquaintance led to of affairs. The first of these was AN- his being chosen as a deputy from his DREW HOFER, a native of St Leonard, native valley to confer with him at in the valley of Passeyr; a name, like Brunecken, in November 1805, and that of Tell and Wallace, now become Vienna in January 1809. immortal in the history of the world. Like his ancestors for many generations, he had hitherto carried on the business of an innkeeper on his pater-lected by that discerning prince on nal property on the banks of the Adige -a profession which is one of the most respectable among that simple people, from the intercourse with strangers and the wealth with which it is commonly attended. He was born on the 22d November 1767, so that he was in the forty-second year of his age when the insurrection broke out. His frame was herculean, his shoulders broad, his strength surpassing; but, like most persons long accustomed to climbing mountains, his carriage was somewhat impaired by a habitual stoop. In education, and the means of improvement, he had enjoyed advantages superior to those of most persons in his rank of life, from his frequent intercourse with travellers, as well as the traffic which he carried on in wine and horses, in the course of which he had visited most of the principal cities on the southern side of the mountains, and become a fluent master of the Italian language, though in the low Venetian dialect. His dress was the common habit of the country, with some trifling variations: a large black hat with a broad brim, black ribbons, and a dark curling feather, a green jacket, red waistcoat, green braces, black leathern girdle, short black breeches of the same material, and red or black stockings. About his neck was always to be seen a crucifix and a silver medal of St George, to which was afterwards added a gold medal and chain, sent him by the Emperor. He never, however, obtained any rank in the Austrian army, and was indebted for his influence among his countrymen to his well-known probity of character and disinterested disposition, and to the secret connection which he maintained occasions of such importance for the discharge of difficult duties; but his parts were solid rather than brilliant, and he evinced, in its merits equally as its defects, the true German character. Honest, sincere, and confiding, tenacious of custom, attached to antiquity, ignorant of present times, benevolent in disposition, he was at the same time pious and patriotic, and ready to lay down the last drop of his blood in defence of his religion and Emperor. It was easy to excite him to severe measures; but when their execution commenced, he was readily diverted from his purpose, and his native gentleness of disposition speedily caused the sterner mood to relent. His attachment to the Catholic faith, and patriotic ardour, were unbounded; and the bare recital of a victory gained by Austria in former times, or allusion to the classical days of the Tyrol, a word in favour of the sacred person of the Emperor or the Archduke John, were sufficient to fill his eyes with tears. Though slow and sometimes vacillating in decision, he was capable, when he applied to a subject, of just discrimi nation; and when invested, during a few months in autumn 1809, with the entire government of the province, his measures were judicious to a degree that could hardly have been expected from his limited means of information. Fond of conviviality, sometimes addicted to intemperance, he was often carousing with his friends when the troops were engaged in action; and, though repeatedly victorious, and fearless in danger, he was only once under a hot fire during the war, though then he acted with the utmost gallantry. But his energy in conduct, and well-known patriotic ardour, obtained for him the | from this dangerous course of life, by attachment of his countrymen, whom the impression produced by seeing one he constantly led to victory; and the of his companions shot in a rencontre intrepidity of his demeanour in his last with a band of chasseurs; and returnmoments has secured for him an en- ing at the age of twenty-eight to his during place in the hearts of his coun-native village, he married a young trymen. woman with some property, entered into a contract to supply the salt-works of Hall with wood, made himself master of the elements of education, and continued for twelve years to lead a laborious, inoffensive life, till the trumpet of war from Austria roused him to danger, and glory, and immortality. 27. JOSEPH HASPINGER was a Capuchin friar, and buried in the seclusion of a monastery, till the war broke out. Though reckoned with justice one of the most formidable of the Tyrolese leaders, he carried with him into the field of battle only the spiritual weapons which he brought from the cloister. Clothed in his brown garment and rope-girdle, he bore in his hand a large ebony crucifix, with which, it is said, in close combat, he sometimes exchanged blows with the enemy; and being endowed with prodigious strength, nearly as many wonders are recounted of his personal feats as of miracles won by his faith and devotion. When a student in the faculty of theology, he had borne arms against the French, and won a silver medal, which he consecrated, on entering the order of St Francis, to the miraculous crucifix at Eppen near Bolsano. He was distinguished by a flowing beard of a red colour, which gained him the surname of Rothbard: and often the massy crucifix and animated voice of the friar restored the combat, when his countrymen were sinking under numbers or fatigue. 26. Inferior to Hofer in general government, and unversed in the practice of political negotiation, SPECHBACHER was greatly his superior in the energy and conduct of actual warfare. He was a substantial yeoman, having inherited from his father a farm of some value in the village of Gnadenwald, in the Lower Innthal. Born in the year 1768, he was left an orphan at the age of seven years; and though his relations bestowed all the care upon his education which circumstances would admit, he showed little disposition for study, or any sedentary pursuit. From an early age he was found from morning till night among the mountains, with his rifle over his shoulder, pursuing the roe or engaging the lammergeyer. As he advanced in years, these pursuits had such attractions for him, that, abandoning altogether his paternal estate, he associated with a band of hunters, who set the forest-laws at defiance, and ranged the mountains of the Upper and Lower Innthal, the Oezthal, and the rugged forests of the Bavarian Tyrol. By this wandering mode of life, as he afterwards himself admitted, he became acquainted with every pass and glen on the frontiers of the Tyrol and Bavaria, from Feldkirch to Kufstein — a species of knowledge which was of essential importance in the conduct of the partisan warfare with which he was afterwards intrusted. At the same time it nourished in his mind that inextinguishable hatred 28. MARTIN TEIMER, though a brave towards Bavaria, which is felt more or and active leader, was not so celebratless by every inhabitant of the north-ed as the other chiefs among the peaern Tyrol. His grandfather had dis- santry; but, from his military talents, tinguished himself in the war against skill in negotiation, and a certain dethe Bavarians, under Maximilian Em-gree of aristocratic favour which it inmanuel; "and when I was a child," duced, he received marks of distincsaid Spechbacher in after days, "and listened to him as he told us the story of those times, I longed to have an opportunity of fighting against them as he had done." He was diverted, however, tion from the Emperor which the others never enjoyed, and was made a baron, with the cross of Maria Theresa, a dignity to which Hofer never attained. Teimer, however, was Hofer's superior in conduct and understand-the south by Joubert, [ante, Chap. ing, though, from not being so great a XXIII. § 15], in 1805, invaded from the favourite with the people, he never pos- north by Marshal Ney, [ante, Chap. sessed the same influence or celebrity. XL. § 89]; and they were well aware He was born on the 14th August 1778, that the probabilities were, that if a at Schlanders, in the Vintschgau, and serious reverse happened to the Impehad a countenance in which the pro- rial arms, the forces of the empire minent forehead and sparkling eye would, as on former occasions, be conclearly indicated the ascendant of tal- centrated for the defence of the capient. He served in the militia in the tal, and they would be left without war of 1796, and raised himself by his external aid to make head against abilities from the ranks to the station their numerous and disciplined eneof major; having distinguished himself mies. Still they unanimously stood in several actions under Laudon in that forth in the contest. Every man took year, and Bellegarde in 1799. In 1805, leave of his family and his friends as he was again made captain in the mi- if they might never meet again. They litia, and subsequently kept a shop in prepared themselves, after the manner Klagenfurth. Like Hofer, his disposi- of their country, for what they deemed tion was phlegmatic, and he was fond a pious warfare, by the most solemn of conviviality; but, when roused by rites of their religion. The priest, in danger and placed at the head of his many parishes, assembled those who troops, he displayed equal courage and were to join the army, and animated capacity, and contributed with the them by his exhortations, and blessed peasants of the Upper Innthal, whom those who might die in defence of their he commanded, to some of the great- country. Every family assembled toest successes of the war. It was only gether, and prayed that the youths unfortunate that the favour of the who were to leave it, might support Emperor occasioned a certain jealousy their good name in the hour of danger, between him and Hofer, which in some and die rather than dishonour their degree dimmed the glory and impaired native land. In many instances even the usefulness of both. Baron Hor- the sacrament was administered as for mayer, one of the few native nobility the last time in life, and accompanied who appeared in arms for their coun- with the solemnities which the Romish try, was early appointed by the Aus- Church enjoins for the welfare of a trian cabinet governor of the pro- departing soul. It was with such holy vince; and he showed his judgment rites, and by such exercises of family by delegating his authority at a very devotion, that these brave men preearly period to Hofer, by whom the pared themselves for the fearful warmovements of the peasants were prac- fare on which they were entering; and tically directed till the close of the it was the spirit which they thus inhaled that supported them when they were left to their own resources, and enabled them, even amidst all the depression arising from the desertion of their allies, to present an undaunted front to the hostility of an overpowering foe. contest. 29. Such were the simple leaders under whose guidance the Tyrolese engaged in the formidable contest with the united power of France and Bavaria. It was from no ignorance of the perils which awaited them, but a brave determination to disregard them, that they stood forth with such unanimous gallantry for their country's deliverance. In former wars, they had both witnessed and felt the weight of the French arms: in 1796, they had seen it roll past them in the Italian, in 1805, on the Bavarian plains; in 1797, their valleys had been penetrated from 30. All things being in readiness, and the Austrian troops under the Archduke Charles having crossed the Inn, the signal of insurrection was given by the Archduke John, in a spirited proclamation, from his headquarters at Klagenfurth, from whence the Marquis Chastellar set out to take the command of the regular troops, which were to enter the province to | ieties of all who witnessed it. Baledirect and support the operations of fires at the same time were lighted on the peasants.* So unanimous, how- a hundred hills; and many a ruined ever, was the feeling with which the castle blazed with a long-unwonted country was animated, that at the first glow. The peasantry of the Innthal intelligence of hostilities having com- were warned, besides, by women and menced, the insurrection burst forth children, who carried from house to at once with uncontrollable fury in all house little balls of paper, upon which quarters. The night of the 8th April were written the words "Es ist Zeit," was fixed for the event on which the-It is time. Roused by these various destinies of the Tyrol were to depend. The signal agreed on was throwing sawdust into the Inn, which floated down, and was soon discovered and understood by the peasants. In addition to this, a plank with a little pennon affixed to it was launched in the Upper Innthal, and safely borne down the stream, amidst the throbbing anx methods, the inhabitants everywhere rose on the 8th April as one man, and with their redoubted rifles on their shoulders descended every lateral glen and ravine, till their accumulated force, gaining strength at every step as it advanced, rolled in an impetuous torrent down the great valleys of the Inn, the Eisach, and the Adige. their lawful master, or Spain, or Russia. The Bavarians have refused the bank-bills of the Austrians in payment; and when this occasioned to every man the loss of half his property, they overburdened the remainder with such oppressive taxes that it has reduced many landholders to the rank of daylabourers. Even the name of your country is taken from you, and your valleys are called after the unmeaning names of rivers! To arms!-Rise, Tyrolese! to arms, for your God, your Emperor, your country! Why is the war a holy one?-why is it necessary and general? Because so great a power cannot be opposed alone, and therefore every one should assist in the cause: because the restoration of rights and liberties is to be gained, if attempted: because neither Germans nor Bohemians ought to be obliged to sell their blood as the blind instruments of an insatiable power-to be forced against their will to invade Russia or Spain, or oppress the less powerful kingdoms of the world. We have an enemy to oppose, whom hitherto nothing has been able to oppose: but, with unanimity, ardour, and firm perseverance, nothing is impossible. We possess this firmness and courage; this unanimity warms every heart. Austria has gone through many dangers, and emerged from them victorious. The present is the greatest of them all, but there never was the same unanimity. In a moment of such consequence to our faithful country, in the midst of such ardour for the holiest cause for which sword was ever drawn, I plant the Austrian eagle on the soil of the Tyrol. I know you-I recall you, as Duke Ferdinand did, nine hundred and thirty-three years ago *The following proclamation was issued by the Archduke John:-"Tyrolese! I am come to keep the promise which I made to you on 4th November 1805, that the time would certainly come when I should have the joy of again finding myself among you. The peace of Presburg was the cause of all your subsequent disasters; it broke the tie which had connected Austria with the Tyrol for five hundred years; but even then the father of your country recollected his beloved children. He stipulated that the Tyrol should remain undivided, retain all its rights and liberties; in a word, 'that, in the same manner, and with the same rights and titles with which the Emperor had possessed it, it should be made over to Bavaria, and not otherwise.' The King of Bavaria solemnly promised to your deputies, that not an iota of the constitution should be changed;' that he honoured the grief which the Tyrolese felt for their ancient masters; but that he hoped, by constant care and attention, to make himself equally regretted by them. By the royal proclamation, 14th January 1806, it was declared, that the Tyrolese should not only retain their ancient rights and liberties, but their welfare should be promoted in every possible manner.' Where has been the promised attention to your interests-where the regard to the constitution you have so bravely defended? The clergy were their first object of attack: this was their plan, because they were the intrepid defenders of the throne and the altar. With bitter feelings, the Tyrolese beheld their abbeys and monasteries destroyed, the property of the churches stolen and carried away, their bishops and priests exiled, their the prelates, the nobles, the citizens, the churches profaned, their chalices sold to the peasants-to the foot of the throne. Arms, Jews. Your knights and nobles, who, before and courage, to restore the rights you desire. the institution of the tributary law, were all Recollect the glorious days when you defeated your equals, and never a burden to the coun-Joubert at Spinger, Jenisir, and Botzen. I am try, are all destroyed-your cities and courts of justice are ruined-your sons or brothers burried away by a cruel conscription to fight the battles of the oppressor against Austria, no stranger to your mountains and valleys. I am confident you will fulfil the hopes of your fathers and our highest expectations.ARCHDUKE JOHN."-Gesch. A. Hofer, 64, 76 |