On the evening of that day the peasants of the Passeyer and other valleys were called to arms by means of great fires which blazed out in the darkness of the clear April sky in long, ruddy banners of flame. Every hill crest in the vicinity of the Passeyer Valley had its signal fire, and these were answered by others on the mountains overshadowing the distant valleys. On the morrow Andreas Hofer found himself at daybreak at the head of nearly 5000 men who had one and all "confessed" and received the Sacrament ere taking up arms in their sacred cause of liberty.
The Bavarians were at once hotly attacked and routed; and on the 12th, soon after dawn, upwards of 15,000 peasants had rallied to Hofer's standard and appeared before Innsbruck. With indomitable bravery they captured the bridge over the Inn, carried the heights by assault, and entering the town engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict with the troops of General Bisson (who was in command of the joint French and Bavarian forces) and compelled him to surrender.
In the deadly conflict of the streets, which ran red with blood, and into whose mire peasants, French and Bavarian soldiers and officers alike were trampled by the on-press of the Tyrolese, the ruder weapons of the latter, consisting of heavily butted fire-locks, broad knives used in husbandry, scythe blades attached to staves, and bludgeons cut from the thickets of the mountain side, were as deadly and even perhaps more so than the weapons of their enemies.
Down the ancient streets, overshadowed by the everlasting snow-clad mountains; into the narrow byways and courtyards of the ancient town; along under the arcades of the old-time Herzog Freidrich Strasse, swept the Tyrolese, slaying as they went, until the invaders, driven from cranny to cranny, struck down in the open, compelled many of them to retreat along the Inn banks till they fell back into the swiftly flowing river, cried for quarter and surrendered.
At Wilten, on the outskirts of Innsbruck itself, the fiery Speckbacher surrounded a Bavarian force of nearly 5000 men and took them prisoners of war. Thus after less than four days' fighting the Tyrolese had defeated the Bavarians, captured Innsbruck, and compelled the French commander to sue for quarter. And in their hands they held two generals, 132 officers, nearly 6000 men, three standards, five pieces of cannon, and 800 horses.
By the end of April, Tyrol was again free of invaders with the sole exception that the Bavarians still held the castle of Kufstein.
It was now that the Government in Vienna made one of the many serious mistakes which throughout its dealings marked the policy pursued in relation to Tyrol's struggle for freedom. General Chasteler, of whom it was said that "he always came too late and went too soon," was given the supreme command. And from that moment the advantages gained by Hofer, his brave companions-in-arms Speckbacher and Haspinger, and the peasant troops, were lost. In an almost incredibly short space of time Chasteler succeeded in losing all that had been won. At length his failure to hold what had been committed to his charge became so obvious that he retreated beyond the Brenner, leaving Andreas Hofer to do the best he could in defence of the portion of Tyrol not then reconquered by the enemy. In little more than a month from the time the French and Bavarians had been driven from Innsbruck they entered it again in triumph; and thus, on the 20th of May, Tyrol was once more to all intents and purposes conquered.
The brave leader of the peasants, however, was determined to make one more supreme effort to free his country from the French and Bavarian yoke, and after summoning to his standard all who were capable of bearing arms, he had the satisfaction of once more driving the invaders from Innsbruck, and freeing for the second time the country he loved so well.
THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA
This triumph was not, however, destined to endure, for the Austrian forces under the Archduke Charles suffered a crushing defeat from Napoleon's troops at Wagram on July 5 and 6, 1809, and were forced to sue for peace or at least an armistice at Znaim, in which Tyrol was ignored. Amongst other things, by the subsequent Treaty, Austria ceded all her sea coast to France, as well as considerable territory to Saxony and Bavaria. But it was not until the French, Bavarian, and Saxon troops, straight from their victory at Wagram, to the number of some 50,000 men, entered Tyrol under the command of Marshal Lefèbre, and the Austrian army marched away out of Innsbruck in full retreat before the advancing enemy, that Hofer realized that he and his cause once more were abandoned by the Emperor and his advisers.
Again Hofer came to the rescue; and, though in a measure a fugitive, in one of the little-known gorges, he managed to send forth from valley to valley his summons to the people to gather once more round his standard. That none should certainly know from these summonses where he lay concealed it was his wont to sign them "Andreas Hofer, from where I am "; whilst in return those communicating with him addressed theirs "To Andreas Hofer wherever he may be."
He once more succeeded in inspiring his fellow-countrymen with his own undying, unyielding patriotism. Gathering his forces together in a gorge of the Mittewald he awaited the enemy's advance. We cannot do better than draw in part, for a description of what followed, from the stirring and vivid narrative of Albert Wolff. The vanguard of Marshal Lefèbre under the command of General Rouyer advanced to Sterzing; and then a column of Saxon troops to the number of about 4000 was thrown out beyond the village towards the gorge of Stilfes with orders to sweep away the insurgents. The idea that the untrained, ill-armed, and heterogeneous peasant forces could successfully resist the victors of Wagram appeared ridiculous to the Marshal and his officers, even if the Tyrolese were so foolhardy as to make the attempt. For some distance the Saxons advanced without either meeting with opposition or discovering an enemy; and then, when the whole column, had fully entered the defile from the mountain sides above them there resounded a sudden, terrifying cry of "To the attack, and no quarter."
The cry was followed by a starting up of thousands of peasants, men, women, and children, the aged and the young, from behind the boulders on the hillside, from out the hollows. Down the steep mountain gorge crashed rocks, tree trunks, baulks of timber, earth and stones loosed from the restraining ropes by the Tyrolese, sweeping every obstruction before them, and falling upon the penned-up Saxons like an avalanche. Then, as the latter were vainly and fiercely struggling to extricate themselves from the debris and entanglements, the peasants rushed down the mountain side and hurled themselves upon their bewildered foes, shouting Hofer's battlecry, "For God and our Country."
The enemy, utterly routed, turned and fled—what remained of them—towards Innsbruck, pursued by the Tyrolese led by Hofer, Speckbacher, and by the red-bearded Capuchin Haspinger, who held in one hand a crucifix, and in the other a bloodstained sword. Upon the Saxons the Tyrolese had no mercy, and hundreds were cut down as they fled along the road back to Innsbruck.
TRIUMPH OF HOFER
In little more than a week Hofer, by a vigorous following up of his victory in the Pass of Stilfes, had once more repulsed the invader, retaken the position on Berg Isel, and established his headquarters at Schönberg. These historic eight days of fighting and victory are known in Tyrolese history as "the great week."
Innsbruck still, however, remained in the occupation of the enemy. To take the town was a task that might have given pause to any less brave and venturous a commander than Hofer. But he was not the man to hold back from a complete freeing of his beloved land from those who had invaded it. The plans were laid, the day fixed, and the advance ordered. On the morning of the attack, at five o'clock, Haspinger the militant Capuchin, a commanding figure upon whom the light of early dawn threw an almost uncanny refulgence, celebrated Mass before the assembled peasant host, who knelt in serried ranks, ragged, unkempt, but inspired to great deeds by memories of their past victories. After this solemn observance Haspinger once more became a captain of troops rather than a priest; and springing into his saddle he drew his sword and led on the left wing. Andreas Hofer himself was in the centre, and led the attack there, marching right on to Innsbruck.
A contemporary account describes the hero as being "transfigured with a grandeur scarcely earthly, as, burning with patriotism, he urged his horse forward into battle." With his long beard, which had gained him the nickname of General Barbonne amongst the French, flowing in the wind, and his war cry of "Onward for your country and your Emperor! God will protect the right!" he led his forces so irresistibly that the troops of Marshal Lefèbre