While Napoleon was engaged in the Peninsula, Austria levied almost the whole of her able-bodied men and equipped an army, four hundred thousand strong, at the head of which no longer foreign generals, but the princes of the house of Habsburg, were placed. The Archduke Charles[5] set off, in 1809, for the Rhine, John for Italy, Ferdinand for Poland. The first proclamation, signed by Prince Rosenberg and addressed to the Bavarians, was as follows: "You are now beginning to perceive that we are Germans like yourselves, that the general interest of Germany touches you more nearly than that of a nation of robbers, and that the German nation can alone be restored to its former glory by acting in unison. Become once more what you once were, brave Germans! Or have you, Bavarian peasants and citizens, gained aught by your prince being made into a king? by the extension of his authority over a few additional square miles? Have your taxes been thereby decreased? Do you enjoy greater security in your persons and property?" The proclamation of the Archduke Charles "to the German nation," declared: "We have taken up arms to restore independence and national honor to Germany. Our cause is the cause of Germany. Show yourselves deserving of our esteem! The German, forgetful of what is due to himself and to his country, is our only foe." An anonymous but well-known proclamation also declared: "Austria beheld--a sight that drew tears of blood from the heart of every true-born German--you, O nations of Germany! so deeply debased as to be compelled to submit to the legislation of the foreigner and to allow your sons, the youth of Germany, to be led to war against their still unsubdued brethren. The shameful subjection of millions of once free-born Germans will ere long be completed. Austria exhorts you to raise your humbled necks, to burst your slavish chains!" And in another address was said: "How long shall Hermann mourn over his degenerate children? Was it for this that the Cherusci fought in the Teutoburg forest? Is every spark of German courage extinct? Does the sound of your clanking chains strike like music on your ears? Germans, awake! shake off your death-like slumber in the arms of infamy! Germans! shall your name become the derision of after ages?"