But Napoleon had not awaited the deliberations of British statesmen. Hurrying back from Spain, he remained in Paris only long enough to organise a campaign in South Germany, and left the capital to join his armies on April 13. A week earlier, the Archduke Charles, having remodelled the Austrian army, issued a proclamation affirming Austria to be the champion of European liberty. On the 9th Austria declared war against Bavaria, the ally of France, and her troops crossed the Inn. On the 17th, when Napoleon arrived at Donauwörth, he found the archduke in occupation of Ratisbon. His presence turned the tide, and, after three victories, he was once more on the road to Vienna. The most important of these victories was that of Eckmühl, and he regarded the manoeuvre by which it was won as the finest in his military career. On May 13 the French entered Vienna, but the Archduke Charles with an army of nearly 200,000 men was facing him on the left bank of the Danube. Napoleon's army crossed and encountered the Austrians on the great plain between Aspern and Essling. He was repulsed and fell back upon Lobau, between which and the Vienna side of the Danube the bridge of boats had been swept away by a rise of the river and by balks of timber floated down by the Austrians. In this dangerous position he remained shut up for several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides, must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, at least, of Austria for the next four years. Her army retreated into Bohemia, and on July 12 an armistice was signed at Znaim in Moravia, which formed the basis of a peace concluded at Vienna on October 14.