Entering the Tyrol with two of his divisions, Ney attacked and by brilliant tactics overthrew the Tyrolese forces and Austrian regulars who barred his way in a position among the mountains deemed impregnable. The battalion Eagles of the 69th gave the signal for the frontal attack which stormed the enemy’s position. Guided by chamois-hunters the soldiers with the Eagles scaled the face of a precipitous line of crags which overhung in rear the Austrian centre, by inserting their bayonets into fissures in the rocks and clinging to shrubs and creepers, their havresacs tied round their heads as protection from the stones that the Tyrolese above showered down on them. At the top, driving in the defenders, they held up the gleaming Eagles in the sunlight on the brink of the precipice to the marshal below, firing down on the Austrians at the same time to demoralise their resistance and clear the way for Ney’s main effort: “Les Aigles du 69me plantées sur la cime des rochers servirent de signal à l’attacque de front que le Maréchal Ney avait preparé.” Innsbrück, the capital of the Tyrol, and the head-quarters of the Austrian army corps garrisoning the country, was the immediate prize of the victory. It was there that this incident took place. [Sidenote: TWO LOST FLAGS ARE FOUND] One of Ney’s regiments, the 76th, had fought in the Tyrol six years before; in Masséna’s campaign of 1799, in one of the battles of which--at Senft in the Grisons, on August 22--two of its battalions lost their colours. An officer of the regiment, while visiting the arsenal at Innsbrück after Ney’s capture of the city, came across the two flags there, in tatters from bullet-holes, hung up as trophies. He made known his discovery, and the place was quickly filled with the soldiers of the regiment, eager to see the old flags. “They crowded round them and kissed the fragments of their old colours, with tears in their eyes.” Ney had the flags removed at once. He restored them to the custody of the regiment with his own hand at a grand parade in the presence of the rest of his army, which the marshal attended with his staff, all in full uniform. The old colours were received with an elaborate display of military ceremonial. They were borne along the lines while the regimental band played a stately march, and the Eagles of both battalions were formally dipped in salute to them.