Andreas Hofer: An Historical NovelMühlbach, L. (Luise)
History
Andreas Hofer: An Historical Novel
Mühlbach, L. (Luise)
Hofer, Andreas, 1767-1810 -- Fiction; Tyrol (Austria) -- History -- Uprising of 1809 -- Fiction
The Tyrolese fought for their rights, their liberty, their German
country; and the Duke of Dantsic, the proud marshal of France, was
defeated by the despised peasants; he had to flee from their wrath,
and arrived without his cloak and hat, trembling and deathly pale,
on his foaming horse at Sterzing, which he had left a few hours
previously with the firm conviction that he would inflict a crushing
defeat upon the "haughty peasant-rabble." Now this "haughty peasant-
rabble" had defeated him.
God is with those who fight for the rights and liberty of Germany.
God is with those who rise boldly against French tyranny and French
arrogance!
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST AT INNSPRUCK.
God is with those who fight for the rights and liberty of Germany.
He had granted another victory to the Tyrolese.
Animated by their brilliant successes, the patriots no longer stood
on the defensive, but, flocking from all quarters to the standard of
Hofer, assembled in great multitudes on Mount Isel, the scene of
their former triumphs, and destined to be immortalized by a still
more extraordinary victory. Lefebvre had collected his whole force,
consisting of twenty-six thousand men, of whom two thousand were
horse, with forty pieces of cannon, on the little plain which lies
between Innspruck and the foot of the mountains on the southern side
of the Inn. They were far from being animated, however, by their
wonted spirit; the repeated defeats they had experienced had
inspired them with that mysterious dread of the mountaineers with
which regular troops are so often seized, when, contrary to
expectation, they have been worsted by undisciplined bodies of men;
and a secret feeling of the injustice of their cause, and the
heroism with which they had been resisted, paralyzed many an arm
which had never trembled before a regular army.
The Tyrolese consisted of eighteen thousand men, three hundred of
whom were Austrian soldiers who had refused to follow their
officers, and remained to share the fate of the inhabitants. They
were tolerably supplied with ammunition, but had little provisions,
in consequence of which several hundred peasants had already gone
back to their homes.
Joseph Speckbacher commanded the right wing, whose line extended
from the heights of Passberg to the bridges of Hall and Volders;
Hofer was with the centre, and had his headquarters at the inn of
Spade, on the Schoenberg; Haspinger directed the left, and advanced
by Mutters.
At four in the morning, the brave Capuchin roused Hofer from sleep,
and, having first united with him in fervent prayer, hurried out to
communicate his orders to the outposts.
The battle commenced at six, and continued without intermission till
midnight, the Bavarians constantly endeavoring to drive the Tyrolese
from their position on Mount Isel, and they, in their turn, to force
the enemy back into the town of Innspruck.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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