1809.] THE FRENCH REAR-GUARD SURPRISED.

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under General Deroy, apparently placed to dispute the passage. He found the bridge had been destroyed, and he was received with a heavy fire from the woody heights of Altdorf. The Archduke, however, soon cleared the ground, by opening fire from his guns on the suburb called Seligenthal, and ordered the bridge to be restored, by which his troops at once crossed the river. Other portions of the army crossed at Moorburg and Dingolfing. The Bavarian troops, with the loss of 100 men, retired in perfect order into the forest of Durnbach. The Archduke was now approaching the French outposts, but he thought that by marching on Abensberg he should interpose between the corps-d'armée at Ratisbon and Augsburg. At the same time, the 1st and 2nd Austrian corps, having crossed the Bohemian frontier at Tischenreit and Rosshaupt, had united at Wernberg, and were therefore threatening Ratisbon from that side. The Archduke accordingly continued his march on the 17th from Landshut on Abensberg, and directed General Hiller to move from Moorburg on Mainburg and that Jellalich should march on Freising. The Archduke Louis, who was farther to the left, was ordered to keep watch upon the Bavarians at Diernbach; and the corps of Hohenzollern was to make a reconnoissance on Ratisbon. Bellegarde, with the other corps out of Bohemia, was to march at the same time through the Upper Palatinate. The object of these movements being to tighten the noose round the isolated corps of Davoust, which was thought to be compromised by his position in that city. The Austrians, as usual, moved slowly, and, in addition to this incurable habit of theirs in every war, the weather was execrable, and the new system of supplies which had been introduced, did not work well, at first, for instead of regularly meeting the wants of the troops, it only retarded their march.

15. THE ARCHDUKE JOHN DESCENDS UPON ITALY—

BATTLE OF SACILE.

On the same day that the Archduke Charles crossed the Inn, the Archduke John sent a flag of truce to General Broussier at Ponteba, to announce his intention to advance his army in the same terms as his brother had done; and early in the morning of the 10th, he set his troops in motion to descend the valley of the Fella. He was resisted for a moment at the outpost, but he succeeded in making them prisoners and moved on. Giving a wide berth to the posts of Osopo and La Chiusa, he directed his steps by way of Cividale and Gradisca, and debouched upon Udine, where the headquarters of the Prince Eugène were established. Surprised by this sudden apparition, and having only two divisions at hand, the Viceroy withdrew them at once across the Tagliamento, to unite his troops with those of Grenier, Barbou, and Grouchy upon the Livenza, where His Highness placed his head-quarters at Sacile on the 14th. The bridges were broken, and the advance was checked by such impediments as were at hand: but, as usual, the Austrians

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[A.D.

were slow in their movements, so that they occupied four days in driving back the enemy across the Tagliamento, and it was the 15th, in the morning, before they came up with them near Pordenone, with two battalions of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, under General Sahuc. As soon as the Archduke perceived that the French were disposed to make a stand, the chief of the staff, Nugent, was sent back to hasten up reinforcements, and the French rear-guard was completely surprised and surrounded. An endeavour was also made to push forward by the only road that was thus open to them to Sacile; but a powerful force of French cavalry appeared to encounter them, who made a stout resistance, but in the end were most of them taken prisoners or slain, leaving an eagle and 4 pieces of cannon a prize to the Austrians. The fight, however, was well contested by the French, and lasted five hours. Colonel Breissaud, who was one of the prisoners, was brought before the Archduke John, who remarked that the Colonel had no sword, and said to him: "So brave a man as you have shown yourself should not remain disarmed; I will go and seek your sword on the field of battle, and, if I do not find it there, I will give you mine."

The Viceroy Eugène was as yet but little experienced in war, and, not knowing what he ought to do in this emergency, he assembled his superior officers to ask their advice; but the days of the Empire were not favourable for volunteering opinions, and accordingly, one and all held their peace. The brave young prince, therefore, driven back on his own judgment, resolved to stand and fight, instead of continuing his retreat before the Austrians to the banks of the Piave, where other reinforcements awaited him. He had now with him 36,000 men, but the Archduke had 45,000; nevertheless, he determined to take the offensive. The road from Pordenone passed through the centre of the position he assumed, which was between Vizonuova and Porzia, where was high ground; the right was intersected with stream and water courses, but his left rested on a perfect plain to the feet of the mountains, and was singularly favourable for the operations of cavalry, in which the Archduke John was strong. The 16th happened to be Sunday, and His Imperial Highness was gone to mass, when he was recalled hastily to the field, by the news that the French divisions were in march to attack the Austrian left, while other troops were debouching on the right flank across the plain. The attack indeed had been so sharp that both the villages of Palsi and Porzia were carried before the Archduke arrived, but he instantly sent forward General Colloredo, who, after a frightful carnage, retook them. The Viceroy, however, sent up the divison Barbou to the assistance of the divisions Seras and Severoli, who again recovered them; but the intersected ground rendered the contest extremely stubborn, and during its continuance both the divisions Grenier on the high road, and Broussier on the plain, remained totally inactive. The Archduke therefore ordered an advance on Fontana Fredda, and the action

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became continuous along the whole line. The Austrian cavalry came down in great force to the plain, on which Broussier formed his infantry in squares, and received the enemy gallantly. In this way the fight lasted several hours, but numbers at length prevailed, and the Austrians in the rear got possession of the principal bridge over the Livenza, which completely cut off the retreat of the French left wing, upon which the Viceroy ordered a retreat upon Sacile. In retiring, notwithstanding all the exertions of General Broussier, the left of the French fell into disorder in crossing the defile occasioned by the marshes as they approached the river, which was fearfully augmented when it transpired that 7,000 Austrians were already in possession of the town. Accordingly, horse, foot, and cannon got mingled together in frightful disorder; and all fled without attempt at resistance, and apparently without any fixed direction. 4,000 killed, 4,000 prisoners, and 15 pieces of cannon were the trophies of the day, which was a severe blot on the Viceroy's military reputation. His right wing alone was enabled to pass the stream by the bridge of Bruguera without disorder, the centre retiring by the high road; but night saved them from a total overthrow, and they continued their retreat till morning, the weather and the state of the many streams on their march augmenting the disorder. They were at length able to place the Piave between them and their pursuers, and there the Viceroy found the reinforcements he expected, but still fell back to the Adige, which he attained on the 22nd, and took possession of the celebrated position at Caldiero. A good anecdote is told of a Lieutenant Pellegrin in the battle of Sacile. His leg had been carried off by a cannon ball, and some voltigeurs came up to him on the field to carry him off, when he exclaimed: "Laissez moi, mes amis, dans cette place, et retournez à vos rangs, où votre presence est bien plus nécessaire: il ne faut que le régiment perd sept hommes au lieu qu'un seul. Si l'ennemi est généreux, il prendra soin de moi." Old campaigners know in what numbers skulkers are ever found ready to perform offices of charity which are not required, and will appreciate the veteran's recommendation.

16. THE TYROL BREAKS INTO INSURRECTION UNDER ANDREAS HOFER.

Coincident with the advance of the Archdukes Charles and John, the Marquis Chastelan gave the signal for revolt to the Tyrolese. The signal agreed upon was simple enough: sawdust was cast upon the waters, which floating down on the stream, announced to the peasants that the time was come on which the emancipation of their country depended; but, besides this and other such signals, the beacon fires blazed on every hill side and summit, on the eventful night of the 8th. The inhabitants were roused into immediate activity by a proclamation of the Archduke John, and were seen in the morning on every side descending the glens of the mountains with their rifles on their

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shoulders. General Chastelan advanced on the 9th from Klagenfurth upon Lientz down the Pusthenthal, and encountered the Bavarian General de Wrede at Brixen, when the Tyrolese, with loud shouts and an energetic charge, fell upon the enemy. A simultaneous enthusiasm now arose through the entire Tyrol against the Bavarian troops, of whom 2,000 or 3,000 men reached with difficulty the formidable pass of the famous bridge of Loditch, over the Brenner river. Here the force divided, and while one division was pursued towards Kerzing, General Lemoine and a great portion of the other descended Bolzavo, where they were made prisoners by Chastelan and the insurgent peasantry of Landsturm, who rallied around him.

The peace of Presburg, by which the Tyrol had passed from Austria to Bavaria, had broken a tie which had subsisted for many centuries. In addition to old attachments the Tyrolese had many grievous causes of complaints against their new masters, and they now resolved, impelled by the most sacred of motives, to rise with one consent against the intruders. One Andreas Hofer, a name which has since earned a rightful immortality, had obtained by his talents and acquirements a leading influence in these mountains. He was an innkeeper, like his ancestors before him for generations, residing on his paternal estate; a man of well-known probity and disinterestedness, and of such surpassing strength and stature as to be as much valued for his prowess as he was esteemed for his character He was a man of an ardent religious bias, and strongly attached to the Romish faith, as well as to the cause of the House of Austria. There were also other leaders, under whose guidance the Tyrolese now embarked in the contest with France and Bavaria. On the same day that the French General Lemoine was taken prisoner, a division of Bavarians came across Hofer with the landsturm at the Sterzeiger Moos. The troops advanced in good order and with an intrepid air, but rifles opened upon them from every rock and thicket, and after a struggle of only a few minutes' duration (during which they lost 240 killed and wounded), the remainder, numbering 390, laid down their arms. On the morning of the 11th, 1,500 Bavarians, under General Kinkel, with a few guns, were attacked near Innspruch by 20,000 mountaineers under Teimér, and driven into the town, whence they were expelled, after a frightful mêlée, in which the General and Colonel Dietfruth were killed, and the whole battalion and guns taken. On the 12th the Bavarians descending the Brenner were encountered near the Sterzing, when General Bisson laid down his arms and General Wrede was taken prisoner with nearly 3,000 men. The strong post of Hall in the lower Innthal yielded to the enterprise and skill of Speckbacher, when 400 Bavarians surrendered.

Thus did the Tyrolese, in one week after the insurrection broke out, deliver the entire province out of the hands of the Bavarians, and the Marquis de Chastellan, finding nothing left for him to do in the mountains, descended into the plains of Italy with his mountaineers to co operate with the Archduke John. Near Trento he came upon a French division commanded by General Baraguay

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d'Hilliers, who fell back before him to Roveredo, where he united his force with that of the Viceroy, who was reorganising his army near Verona.

17. NAPOLEON ASSUMES THE COMMAND OF THE FRENCH

ARMY ON THE DANUBE.

Napoleon had so disposed his couriers and his telegraphs that he heard at Paris on the 12th of the passage of the Inn by the Archduke on the 10th, and, as every arrangement was already made in anticipation, he started for the army within a few hours of receiving the intelligence, taking the road through Strasburg to have an interview with the King of Würtemberg at Stuttgart, and the King of Bavaria at Dillingen, and on the 17th, already he established his head-quarters at Donauwörth. He no sooner learned from Berthier the state of affairs than he flew into a most violent rage with his Major-General:-"Mais ce que vous avez fait là me parait si étrange que si vous n'étiez pas mon ami, je croirais que vous me trahissiez." The two divisions of the French army were, at the time of the Emperor's arrival, 35 leagues apart; Massena at Augsburg behind the Lech, and Davoust in advance isolated at Ratisbon; but there had not yet been a shot fired, and accordingly the great fault of the Prince of Neufchâtel was this, upon the advance of the Austrian army he had not called in Davoust's corps. On the contrary, he had ordered that Marshal, who had prudently begun to retire of his own accord from Ratisbon upon Ingoldstadt, to march back by the left bank of the Danube, and had directed Lefebvre, with the Bavarian division, to advance on Landshut to his support. Thanks to Austrian sluggishness, no advantage was taken of this fault, regarding which Napoleon remarked: "Voilà que Davoust se trouve en ce moment plus à la disposition de L'Archiduc Charles qu'à la mienne." In this critical state of affairs the Emperor forthwith despatched Savary to endeavour by any means to get into communication with Davoust at Ratisbon, while he himself advanced his head-quarters on the 18th to Ingoldstadt, for he expected every moment that the Archduke would throw his whole force between the two separate corps of the French army. Savary found the Austrian posts were in front of Abensberg and directly in his way, but the Prince Royal of Bavaria meeting him, threw out 50 cavalry as skirmishers, under cover of which, and with the assistance of a good guide, Savary passed on. Davoust, however, seeing the danger of his position at Ratisbon, had of his own accord quitted it, leaving a regiment to guard the bridge over the Danube, which being an old stone work of the Romans, was found indestructible. Savary therefore proceeded in search of the Marshal, and found him with his outposts on the early morning of the 19th, engaged with those of Hohenzollern, between Thann and Langwart, while his corps-d'armée was in his rear defiling along the banks of the Danube between Abbach and Port Saal. Of course he forthwith communicated the Emperor's orders to the Marshal, and then hastened back with all the information he had obtained. Napoleon,