The Austrian army, instead of vigorously attacking and disarming Bavaria, but slowly advanced, and permitted the Bavarians to withdraw unharassed for the purpose of forming a junction with the other troops of the Rhenish confederation under Napoleon, who had hastened from Spain on the first news of the movements of Austria. The hopes of the German patriots could not have been more fearfully disappointed or the German name more deeply humiliated than by the scorn with which Napoleon, on this occasion, placed himself at the head of the nations of western Germany, by whose arms alone, for he had but a handful of French with him, he overcame their eastern brethren at a moment in which the German name and German honor were more loudly invoked. "I have not come among you," said Napoleon smilingly to the Bavarians, Wurtembergers, etc., by whom he was surrounded, "I am not come among you as the emperor of France, but as the protector of your country and of the German confederation. No Frenchman is among you; _you alone_ shall beat the Austrians."[6] The extent of the blindness of the Rhenish confederation[7] is visible in their proclamations. The king of Saxony even called Heaven to his aid, and said to his soldiers, "Draw your swords against Austria with full trust in the aid of Divine providence!"[8] In the April of 1809, Napoleon led the Rhenish confederated troops, among which the Bavarians under General Wrede chiefly distinguished themselves, against the Austrians, who had but slowly advanced, and defeated them in five battles, on five successive days, the most glorious triumph of his surpassing tactics, at Pfaffenhofen, Thann, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon. The Archduke Charles retired into Bohemia in order to collect reinforcements, but General Hiller was, on account of the delay in repairing the fortifications of Linz, unable to maintain that place, the possession of which was important on account of its forming a connecting point between Bohemia and the Austrian Oberland. Hiller, however, at least saved his honor by pushing forward to the Traun, and, in a fearfully bloody encounter at Ebelsberg, capturing three French eagles, one of his colors alone falling into the enemy's hands. He was, nevertheless, compelled to retire before the superior forces of the French, and Napoleon entered Vienna unopposed. A few balls from the walls of the inner city were directed against the faubourg in his possession, but he no sooner began to bombard the palace than the inner city yielded. The Archduke Charles arrived, when too late, from Bohemia. Both armies, separated by the Danube, stood opposed to one another in the vicinity of the imperial city. Napoleon, in order to bring the enemy to a decisive engagement, crossed the river close to the great island of Lobau. He was received on the opposite bank near Aspern and Esslingen by the Archduke Charles, and, after a dreadful battle, that was carried on