his brave associates; succeeded in penetrating before morning to the outposts of their countrymen.

One of the severest actions in the war was fought in the ravines of Mount Isel, on the 29th May. The ground here was singularly adapted for the peculiar warfare in which the Tyrolese excelled, and had been selected with much judgment by their leader, to awaken and animate the courage of the peasantry. It consists of a variety of wooded knolls, intersected with ravines, and surmounted by shapeless piles of bare rock. The great road which traverses these mountains, winds up these little valleys, and sweeps round the base of the wooded hills that surround them, through villages and detached cottages of the most perfect beauty. In one of the most secluded spots of this romantic district is situated the abbey of Wilten, to which a superstitious veneration has long been paid by the people. It had long ago been prophesied, that the neighbourhood of this abbey was to be the scene of the greatest triumphs to the Tyrolese; and the imaginations of the people, already warmed by the events of the war, looked forward with confidence to the accomplishment of the prophecy, in the events of the war which had assumed so interesting a character. Here, accordingly, Hofer collected all his forces, and exerted all his efforts to animate their spirits. The whole male population of the southern and eastern valleys were, by his exertions, assembled; a motley group, led on by leaders of various kinds, and bound together only by the sense of their common danger, and their common enthusiasm against the enemy.

During the night which preceded the battle, the friars traversed the different positions of the peasantry, and assisted in their devotions, and animated them to the courageous discharge of their duty. Many of these brave men actually joined the combatants, and were seen the next day, in their cowl and sandals, exposed to the hottest of the fire, sustaining the courage of the soldiers, and administering the consolations of religion to those that fell in battle. Nor let it be imagined that these efforts, on the part of the clergy, were either unnecessary or unattended with important consequences on the issue of the contest. The

Tyrolese were at this period entirely abandoned by the Austrians; they were pressed on all sides by the victorious arms of the French, and had retired to their central fastnesses as the last asylum of liberty and religion. To veteran troops, trained to war, led on by chiefs of consummate ability, and provided with every thing necessary for its prosecution, they could oppose only hasty levies, destitute of artillery and of equipments, and ignorant even of the rudiments of the military art. What is still more, to troops who had been tried in innumerable combats, and who had stood side by side during a long and eventful war, they had to oppose men entirely ignorant of each other, and distrustful, like all inexperienced troops, of the courage and fidelity of their comrades in arms. It was the clergy who supplied the link that bound this unconnected mass together-it was their exhortations that gave them a common feeling and animated them by common hopes-and it was the spirit which they kindled that communicated to the shepherds of the Alps, in their first essay in arms, that heroic and generous confidence in each other which constitutes at once the strength and the pride of veteran soldiers.

The

To such a pitch, accordingly, was the enthusiasm of the people wound up, that not only the little children, but even the women, were engaged in the great battle which ensued. French observed, that the prisoners taken from them by the enemy were for the most part guarded by women only; and they at first imagined that this was done in derision; but the fact was, that the whole male population of the country had taken up arms, and were actually engaged in the front of the combat. The little children whose age would not permit them to bear arms, still lingered about the ranks of their fathers, and sought, by any little offices, to render themselves useful in the common cause. One of these, a son of Speckbacher, a boy of ten years, followed his father into the battle, and continued by his side in the hottest of the fire. was several times desired by his father to retire, and at length, when he was obliged to obey, he ascended a little rising ground, where the balls from the French army struck, and gathering them in his hat, carried them to

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such of his countrymen as he understood were in want of ammunition.

The action was long and severely contested from morning till night. The French and Bavarians advanced to the attack with the greatest resolution; while the Tyrolese were stationed on a succession of knolls, covered with fir, with their line extending across the little valleys that lay between them. In these valleys they had hastily constructed field-works, consisting of fir trees, felled and laid one above another, on which they stationed the bravest of their combatants. It was impossible not to admire the firmness with which the French grenadiers advanced to the attack of these entrenchments, and the ardent and enthusiastic valour with which they were defended-columns after columns pressed on in admirable order and with an unfaltering step; and column after column were swept off by the unceasing rolling fire which the peasantry kept up. Some of these brave men even reached the foot of the barriers which had been constructed, and were beat down by the musquets of the Tyrolese, while struggling to penetrate through them. Nor was the valour displayed in the defence less eminently conspicuous. As the foremost of the peasants were swept off by the tirailleurs or the grape-shot of the Bavarians, their place was supplied by new combatants, eager to prolong the contest. The sons mounted the breach which their fathers had lately held, and, while weeping for the death of those most dear to them, resolutely and manfully continued the fight.

Im

mediately in the rear were stationed the wives and daughters of those who were engaged, and, like their ancestors in the time of the Romans, relieved the sufferings of those who were wounded, and ceased not to animate the courage of those who survived, by their example and their

tears.

The war in this great battle accordingly assumed a character unknown in the warfare of modern times. Placed in the very centre of their country, and fighting for the defence of their homes, in the midst of their native villages, the pathetic incidents of individual distress were mingled with the cries, and tumult, and animation of the battle. The wounded were not

left, as in ordinary campaigns, to the cold and mercenary attendants of a field hospital. They were conveyed instantly to their relations and friends; and died in the midst of all who were dear to them, and in the sight" of their own hills which they had loved so well." Those who fell in the field were not cast, as in ordinary battles, into one undistinguished grave, but were conveyed to their native homes, and their remains preserved with religious care, and interred, with a mingled feeling of exultation and grief, in the sepulchres of their fathers. The Tyrolese felt all that sublime devotion to their country's welfare, which made the Spartan mothers rejoice over their sons who had fallen in battle; but the stern feelings of ancient virtue were tempered with the gentler spirit of christian devotion; and the graves of those who fell in the war, are still strewed with flowers, to mark the undecaying affection with which their memory is cherished by the little circle to whom their victory was known.

The victory, though long doubtful, at length declared for the righteous side. Before sunset the French and Bavarian ranks were entirely broken, and the shattered remnants of their forces fled in the utmost confusion to the valley of the Inn. Thither the Tyrolese pursued them; and the news of this great victory soon brought thousands of new levies to their standards. The patriotic force rolled onwards, increasing as it advanced, till they occupied all the heights that surrounded the town of Innspruck. Thirty thousand men, the flower of the whole population of the Tyrol, and animated to enthusiasm by their recent successes, hemmed in the united forces of the French and Bavarians, who still amounted to twenty-five thousand men. These troops, however, were completely dispirited by the defeat which they had experienced; and beheld, with anxious dread, on the evening of June 1st, the increasing bodies of the peasantry, who shewed themselves on all the rising grounds in the neighbourhood of the town. The spectacle, indeed, was such as might have struck terror into troops less acquainted than they were with the valour and animosity of their enemies. On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, they discerned large

numbers of men, whose activity and increasing columns indicated some great and immediate attack, and when night fell, a thousand fires on the surrounding mountains cast a red and fearful light on their own shattered and dispirited troops, and magnified to an incredible degree the numbers and formidable aspect of their opponents. The French remained under arms during the night, in hourly expectation of an attack; and, at length, drew off their forces, leaving Innspruck a second time, to the brave men who had fought so nobly for its relief.

The whole valley of the Inn, as far as the fortress of Kuffstein was now recovered by the Tyrolese, and they were on the point of bringing to a successful termination the siege of that fortress, when the fatal news of the battle of Wagram, and of the consequent armistice between the Austrians and French was received. Shortly after this mournful intelligence was made known, the Tyrolese found themselves attacked by a great and overwhelming force under the Duke of Dantzic, which successively drove them from the lower and upper Inn Thal, and compelled them to take refuge in the fastnesses between Sterzing and Innspruck, in the neighbourhood of Mount Brenner. The conduct of the Tyrolese leaders, on this occasion, afforded a striking example of that mixture of religious enthusiasm with fixed and intrepid conduct, which so strongly marks the character of that people. No sooner was Hofer informed of the armistice between France and Austria, and of the evacuation of Innspruck by the Austrian troops, than he retired to a hermitage in one of the farthest recesses of the great range of Alps which separates the valley of the Inn from that of the Adige. Here he spent some days in solitude and prayer, revolving, it may be imagined, in his mind the different plans which might be formed for the relief of his country; and preparing himself for the sufferings and insults and death, to which, in the prosecution of his heroic purposes, he might be exposed. Nor were these hours of solitary meditation without their influ⚫ ence upon the character of his future life. It was from them that he inhaled that holy spirit which rendered him superior to the temptations, and fitted him VOL. IV.

for the sufferings of the world; and it was here that that invincible resolution was formed which never deserted him during the subsequent hours of national or individual distress, and enabled him to die like a good Christian and a brave man, when his earthly career was terminated, within the walls of Mantua.

When Hofer and the other leaders of the insurrection issued from their retreat, they found the peasantry struggling to retard the enemy in their progress towards Sterzing. Already the French had gained the first ascents from Innspruck, and the outposts of the contending parties were stationed on the opposite sides of the torrent of Eisack. Steep rocks, fringed with brush-wood, rose above the bridge on the southern side, which the Tyrolese occupied. From these rocks they kept up an irregular fire on the French infantry, who were endeavouring to make their way through the defile. Notwithstanding the utmost courage on the part of the French, they found it impossible to make their way round a corner of the rock, where the road wound round the face of the precipice, full in view of the marksmen on the opposite bank. The grenadiers who advanced were instantly shot, and so great was the slaughter which this irregular fire occasioned, that, in a very short time, the road was literally blocked up with dead bodies. In this emergency, an officer of the Bavarian dragoons volunteered to gallop over the bridge with his squadron, and dispossess the peasantry who occupied the opposite cliffs. The Tyrolese, perceiving the cavalry winding up the ascent, set fire to the bridge, and, in a very short time, the flames spread rapidly along the fir beams on which it was supported. Not deterred, however, by this circumstance, nor by the dreadful fire which the peasantry directed towards this point, the brave horseman pressed forward, and spurring his horse with much difficulty over the dead bodies of his comrades, dashed into the midst of the flames. The eyes of both ar mies were anxiously turned upon this brave man, and the hoofs of his horse were just touching the rocks on the opposite side when the burning rafter broke, and he was precipitated from an immense height into the torrent beneath. A momentary pause, and a cessation from firing ensued, till the 4 F

heavy splash, in the deep ravine below, announced his fate; and instantly a loud shout from the whole Tyrolese army, re-echoed through the impending rocks, announced to the neighbouring vallies that the French army was stopt at this important defile. This success, trifling as it may appear, was of the utmost consequence to the Tyrolese, for it gave the peasants, from the remote vallies, time to assemble; and though the French succeeded at the end of two days in turning their position, and forcing them to retire into the higher parts of Mount Brenner, yet the time which was thus gained, contributed, in a great measure, to the glorious victory which soon followed.

Hofer and Speckbacher, finding their forces continually increasing, and that the drooping spirits of the peasantry were somewhat elated by their recent success, resolved to give battle to the enemy. For this purpose they took post near the foot of Mount Brenner, in the valley which leads towards that pass from the Innthal. The scene of this action was of a more solitary and gloomy character than any which had hitherto occurred during the war. On either side, steep and rugged hills arose, covered with scattered fir and larch, with their summits clothed with perpetual snow. Immediately in the rear of their position, towered the bare and inaccessible peak of Mount Brenner, bearing on their summits an immense glacier, presenting, to all appearance, an insurmountable obstacle to human approach. It was in this desolate and gloomy scene that the Tyrolese took their station, with their armies stretching up the mountains on either side, and their centre supported by a small tower which had been built in former times in the narrowest part of the valley, to guard the pass. The chiefs, being conscious that the fate of their country depended on the issue of that day, made every effort to animate their troops, and, in the night preceding the battle, went through the different ranks to ascertain the temper of the soldiers. They found them firm and resolute in their purpose, to defend themselves to the last extremity, and sell their lives as dearly as possible, if all hopes of ultimate success were lost. At two in the morning mass was said by the Friar Joachim, at which all the other leaders of the army as sisted, and they then separated and

took their station at their several posts. These brave men, at parting, took leave of each other as if their last hour was come; and, like the three hundred Spartans in the defile of Thermopyla, thought only of meeting again in another world.

The action commenced at day-break, by the French pushing forward a large column, supported by cavalry and artillery, on the high road, towards the old tower which formed the centre of the position of the enemy. They were received with a rolling fire from all parts of the valley, and lost an immense number of men in advancing over the small space of ground which separates the two armies. By pushing forward column after column, however, they gradually gained ground, and their artillery, before two o'clock, were brought up close to the tower in which the Tyrolese were placed. Sensible of the importance of retaining this important post, the patriots vigorously withstood the battalions who advanced; and so stubborn was the resistance which they presented, that the French were literally obliged to cut them down in the stations assigned to them, and to draw their cannon over the dead bodies of those who had fallen. Even in the last agonies of life this stern and desperate valour did not desert them, insomuch, that the wounded men, who were disabled from using their weapons, and lay weltering in their blood on the road, clung to the wheels of the artillery that was advancing, and loosed not their desperate grasp till death relaxed their hold. The French artillery, like the car of the god Jaga Naut, ploughed its way through the dead and the dying, and crushed beneath its wheels the multitudes who sacrificed themselves to arrest its progress.

Peter Lanshner, the parish priest of Weitendale, commanded at this critical point, and displayed the greatest valour in the defence of his station. He was acquainted with the plane of the action which Hofer had suggested, which was to throw a column of peasants in the rear of the mountains on the left hand of the Tyrolese army, which was destined to descend at twelve o'clock in the rear of the enemy. If he could keep his ground till that hour, the victory was secure. It was now half-past eleven, and no symptoms of the troops upon the ridge of the mountains had yet appeared,

while the French, notwithstanding the most heroic resistance, had penetrated to the very foot of the tower which he occupied. The first discharges of artillery brought down its tottering walls, and the Bavarians were on the very point of rushing in, when the shouts from higher parts of the line, announced the appearance of the columns which had been detached to the rear of the enemy. For an instant, the firing on both sides ceased, in expectation of some intelligence of the event which had occasioned this tumult, and as the smoke cleared away, the Tyrolese beheld their countrymen occupying in great force, at a vast height above them, the rocky ridge on the left hand, and the broad banner of Austria waving in the summit of the snowy cliffs that shut in the valley on the Western side. This joyful event was instantly communicated to all parts of the patriot army; and the French, perceiving the column in their rear decending to attack them, fell back on all sides, and rapidly retraced their steps down the course of the stream which they had recently ascended.

Their retreat for some time was conducted with considerable order and skill; but the numbers of the peasantry increased as they advanced, and the columns of the French inevitably fell into some confusion in the narrow ravines through which the road lay. The forests on either side of the road were filled with marksmen, who kept up an incessant fire on the retreating columns, insomuch so, that the Duke of Dantzic was obliged to march on foot in the dress of a common soldier, to avoid being singled out by the marksmen, who hung on their road. He collected his forces however, and took up a strong position in the neighbourhood of the abbey of Wilten, which had already been the scene of glorious success to the Tyrolese. His army occupied a cluster of wooded hills, which lay like the Trosacles at the foot of a vast ridge of rocky mountains that formed the eastern boundary of the valley. Here he was attacked at six o'clock in the morning of the 12th August by the Tyrolese, headed chiefly by the parish priests in the vicinity, and under the general command of Hofer, Speckbacher and Kemenater. The battle consisted chiefly of insulated struggles between the different bodies of the

contending armies, who occupied these wooded eminences; and after an obstinate and most bloody contest, it was decided at midnight in favour of the Tyrolese. In this action, even the wives and daughters of the peasants took an active share, and not only escorted the prisoners who were made during the action, but resolutely attacked the enemy's position, and in many instances fell by their husbands' side, while storming the intrenchments which they had thrown up for their defence.

The broken remains of the French army fell back in disorder to Innspruck, which they evacuated without resistance; and continuing their retreat, along the course of the Inn, abandoned the Tyrol territory. In the course of this retreat, they exercised the most horrid acts of cruelty upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the country. Every where the villages were burnt; and the peasants hunted like wild beasts into the woods. Such of them as were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands, of whatever age or sex, were massacred without mercy. The soldiers even seemed to take delight in acts of destruction, from which no advantage could arise to themselves; and burned the houses which were deserted by their inhabitants, and in which they could discover no articles of sufficient value to reward the trouble of plundering. The beautiful town of Schwatz on the Inn, was entirely burned by these merciless invaders; and to this day, the traveller can mark the progress of their armies by the ruined houses, and the shattered towns which, still attest the extent of their devastations. In many places, however, they have lately been repaired; and the English traveller learns with delight, that it is to the munificence of his countrymen that the greater part of the smiling cottages that adorn the Hills round Innspruck, have been owing; and that the inhabitants acknowledge with the deepest thankfulness the generosity of that nation, which is happily renowned in the Tyrol, only as healing the wounds which the ravages of war have occasioned.

The Tyrolese war, after the peasantry had thus a third time, without any foreign aid; delivered it from their enemies, presented many most interesting occurrences, though they are of a more melancholy description, as the