Austria preparing for war--The war to be one on behalf of the German Nation--Patriotic Movement in Prussia--Expected Insurrection in North Germany--Plans of Campaign--Austrian Manifesto to the Germans--Rising of the Tyrolese--Defeats of the Archduke Charles in Bavaria--French in Vienna--Attempts of Dörnberg and Schill--Battle of Aspern--Second Passage of the Danube--Battle of Wagram--Armistice of Znaim--Austria waiting for events--Wellesley in Spain--He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats--Expedition against Antwerp fails--Austria makes Peace--Treaty of Vienna--Real Effects of the War of 1809--Austria after 1809--Metternich-- Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise--Severance of Napoleon and Alexander--Napoleon annexes the Papal States, Holland, La Valais, and the North German Coast--The Napoleonic Empire: Its Benefits and Wrongs--The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial System--War with Russia imminent--Wellington in Portugal: Lines of Torres Vedras; Massena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat--Soult in Andalusia--Wellington's Campaign of 1810--Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz--Salamanca. [Austria preparing for war, 1808-9.] Napoleon, quitting Spain in the third week of January, 1809, travelled to Paris with the utmost haste. He believed Austria to be on the point of declaring war; and on the very day of his arrival at the capital he called out the contingents of the Rhenish Federation. In the course of the next few weeks, however, he formed the opinion that Austria would either decline hostilities altogether, or at least find it impossible to declare war before the middle of May. For once the efforts of Austria outstripped the calculations of her enemy. Count Stadion, the earnest and enlightened statesman who had held power in Austria since the Peace of Presburg, had steadily prepared for a renewal of the struggle with France. He was convinced that Napoleon would soon enter upon new enterprises of conquest, and still farther extend his empire at the expense of Austria, unless attacked before Spain had fallen under his dominion. Metternich, now Austrian Ambassador at Paris, reported that Napoleon was intending to divide Turkey as soon as he had conquered Spain; and, although he advised delay, he agreed with the Cabinet at Vienna that Austria must sooner or later strike in self-defence. [154] Stadion, more sanguine, was only prevented from declaring war in 1808 by the counsels of the Archduke Charles and of other generals who were engaged in bringing the immense mass of new levies into military formation. Charles himself attached little value to the patriotic enthusiasm which, since the outbreak of the Spanish insurrection, had sprung up in the German provinces of Austria. He saw the approach of war with more apprehension than pleasure; but, however faint his own hopes, he laboured earnestly in creating for Austria a force far superior to anything that she had possessed before, and infused into the