Tyrolean popular uprising
The Tyrolean people's uprising was an uprising of the Tyrolean population against the Bavarian occupying power against the backdrop of the Fifth Coalition War in 1809. Under the leadership of Andreas Hofer , the country was liberated from the Bavarian- French occupation in spring 1809 and defended until autumn. It was not until November and December 1809 that the Napoleonic troops were able to occupy the country again and consolidate their rule again. In the historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries, this event was later glorified nationally .
prehistory
While Austria and Bavaria were still allies in the war of 1800 against France, this loose alliance disintegrated as early as 1805. Elector Max IV. Joseph of Bavaria concluded a "protection and defensive alliance" with Napoléon Bonaparte . For the county of Tyrol , this was dangerous at first, later fatal. When the fortifications at Scharnitz and Leutasch were attacked by French troops and finally fell, Tyrol was open to the French. Regular Austrian troops left the country and the rifle associations were disbanded. Marshal Michel Ney marched into Innsbruck on November 5, 1805 . Austria, badly beaten by Napoleon and his allies, had to cede its Prince County of Tyrol to Napoleon's allied Bavaria in the Peace of Pressburg . The Bavarian occupation patent was dated January 22, 1806, on February 11, Tyrol was officially handed over by French officers to the Bavarian court commissioner.
After the Bavarian occupation of the land, a Tyrolean delegation soon appeared in Munich and paid homage to Max I Joseph, who had meanwhile been raised to the rank of King, in a submissive and flattering manner. This homage did not, however, reflect the majority opinion of the Tyroleans, as they were rather skeptical about their new country affiliation due to the sometimes quite conflict-laden common past. Max I Joseph was also aware of this, who took a series of confidence-building measures to gain the sympathy of the Tyroleans, to whom he, on the other hand, was initially very benevolent. A particularly important concession by the king was that he confirmed in writing the inviolability of the state constitution and the previous special status of the state. This also meant the recognition of the Landlibell , which was so important for Tyrol , in which it had been determined in 1511 that no Tyrolean could be obliged to serve in the war outside their own national borders. Another concession of the king was that he appointed Count Karl Arco as court commissioner. In this function, the count, who came from an old noble family from Welschtiroler, was supposed to lead the administration of the newly acquired part of the country from Innsbruck.
However, all of these measures - actually actually meant honestly - could not hide the fact that the previous special role of Tyrol stood in the way of the plans to reorganize the newly established Kingdom of Bavaria . In particular, the leading minister of the Bavarian ministerial bureaucracy, Count Montgelas , showed practically no willingness to respond in any way to the sensitivities in the newly acquired parts of the country. In addition, the subordinate officials employed in the administration of Tyrol often implemented the ministerial requirements in a rigid and very insensitive manner.
In addition, right at the beginning of Bavarian rule, the tax burden for Tyroleans increased many times over. At the same time, an economic slump began, which was due on the one hand to Napoléon's continental blockade , and on the other hand to the fact that the provincial tariffs were retained and the export of cattle to old Bavaria was even banned. Otherwise there were no subsidies for trade, production or transport. Only a small part of the population was positive about the new government. Many citizens, especially the larger cities, thought more enlightened and hoped for advantages and better development due to the new border conditions and the proximity to the capital Munich.
When state organs began to interfere in church affairs, no consideration was given to the traditions of the conservative, deeply religious mountain people. For example, when midnight mass was banned for Christmas in 1806, people were even surprised at the level of indignation among the people. But interference in church affairs continued: rural holidays were abolished, ringing bells at the end of the day made a punishable offense, and petitions and processions were prohibited. Most clergymen endured all restrictions for the time being, because these were purely practical and hardly attacked the substance of the faith itself. But at some point demands were made against the clergy, whereupon a real church fight broke out. The Bishop of Chur , Karl Rudolf von Buol-Schauenstein , were banished, thirty priests had to leave their monasteries and the seven large monasteries in the country were completely abolished and the monasteries were confiscated.
On May 1, 1808, the new constitution of the Kingdom of Bavaria was proclaimed. Tyrol now ceased to exist as a cohesive state and was instead divided into three districts named after their main rivers, the Adige , Eisack and Inn , following the French model . At the same time, the old Tyrolean constitution was suspended. With the introduction of this new state constitution, the Bavarian authorities were able to call up Tyroleans for military service, which contradicted the state freedoms. When the authorities actually wanted to recruit recruits in Axams on March 12 and 13, 1809 , the young men affected fled, while armed farmers captured the Bavarian soldiers, disarmed them and sent them back to Innsbruck.
Course of the war
From Vienna, Josef Freiherr von Hormayr , the confidante of Archduke Johann , organized the preparation for the uprising and invited representatives of the Tyrolean resistance. On April 9, 1809, Austria declared war on France and her allies. General Johann Gabriel von Chasteler crossed the Drau and took Lienz , while Archduke Karl crossed the Inn with an Austrian army and marched on Munich. Archduke Johann, who was standing with an army in Villach, signed a document issued by Hormayr in which he explicitly declared Tyrol to be Austrian property again and described every fighting Tyrolean as a member of a military contingent, not a rebel. When the news of the outbreak of war, armed peasants rose up all over Tyrol, dismissed the unpopular officials and overpowered or expelled the defeated Bavarian military units.
The moral and legal justification for the uprising movement was the fact that, with the repeal of the Tyrolean state constitution in 1808, the Bavarian state broke the provisions laid down in the Pressburg peace treaty and thus forfeited ownership of Tyrol. Above all, the promises made by the Bavarian king in 1806, which in retrospect were perceived as false, now had a fatal effect, because according to the Tyrolean view one is no longer obliged to be loyal and obedient to a ruler who breaks his word.
Most of the military operations during the uprising were carried out without a commander in chief. The only exceptions were the battles for Sterzing with Andreas Hofer as leader and the liberation of Hall and Volders , in which Josef Speckbacher played a major role. The heaviest fighting took place around Innsbruck on April 11th and 12th, 1809, where the Bavarians fought doggedly. A day later a 4,600-strong enemy detachment came down from the Brenner and marched on Innsbruck, but was forced to surrender.
Josef Freiherr von Hormayr was appointed as a representative of the civil order in the regained land; General von Chasteler took over the military leadership . Napoléon, who had already expelled Archduke Karl with his army from Bavaria and was now marching towards Vienna, did not want to leave a source of fire in his back and sent Marshal François-Joseph Lefebvre with two Bavarian divisions (a total of 10,000 men) over the Strub Pass near Lofer to Tyrol to subjugate the country again. The pass was taken. Then there were riots against the civilian population. The Austrian Army Division suffered a devastating defeat on the plain in front of Wörgl . At the entrance to the Zillertal there was another fighting. Schwaz was set on fire, later also Vomp and other villages in the area. While Innsbruck was being captured, Andreas Hofer called for resistance in southern Tyrol. With a peasant army, supported by Austrian forces, he moved to the mountain slopes south of Innsbruck, which were then generally known as Bergisel. On the morning of May 25, 1809, the second battle of the Bergisel took place there . Although this ended in a draw, Bayern vacated the city the following day. This resulted in pogrom-like riots by the Tyroleans against the Jewish population of Innsbruck.
On May 29, 1809, Emperor Franz I had promised not to sign a treaty other than one that would bind Tyrol to the Empire forever. But after the battle of Wagram he agreed to the Znojmo armistice on July 12th . Then again 20,000 men moved into Tyrol under Marshal Lefebvre and occupied most of it. Only in South Tyrol there was still a resistance movement under Andreas Hofer, which the Marshal's aim was to smash. From Innsbruck he sent a strong division through the Upper Inn Valley and the Vinschgau and another over the Brenner Pass to Brixen . They were supposed to unite with the French approaching from the south and the Puster Valley . In many places the rural population rose up against these troops. The soldiers suffered heavy defeats in battles at the Lienzer Klause , the Ehrenberger Klause ( Reutte ), the Pontlatzer Bridge (near Landeck ) and in the Eisack Gorge (between Brixen and Sterzing). The advance of 7,000 men under Lefebvre's personal command also failed briefly beyond the Brenner. In pursuit of the French there was another battle at Bergisel (August 12/13, 1809), which in turn resulted in a French retreat.
Andreas Hofer then took over the administration of the country. In Hall he had his own Tyrolean coins minted, the so-called “ Hofer Twenties ”. Money was borrowed from wealthy businesses and merchant families. The most important task, however, was national defense and border fortifications. Strong units were posted on all passes in the north. Strong outposts should be created in the endangered east and northeast. The Tyroleans also succeeded in inciting parts of the Salzburg population against the Bavarian-French occupation and in this way conquered two important passes: the Steinpass and the Lueg pass (south of Hallein ). However, food was scarce, although Hofer received a sum from the emperor on October 4, 1809.
If the uprising is mostly understood as a struggle for freedom against Bavarian and French foreign rule and their church struggle and recruiting practice, it also showed unfashionable, non-educational features. For example, Haspinger , a Capuchin priest , opposed the smallpox vaccination introduced by the Bavarian occupation for Tyrol (on the grounds that it was intended to instill “Bavarian thinking” in Tyrolean souls); Hofer also banned all “balls and parties” after the first victory and ordered by decree that “women” were no longer allowed to “ cover their breasts and arms with too little transparent rags ”. Taverns should remain closed during services. Immediately after the first battle on the Bergisel there were also riots against the Jewish population of Innsbruck.
The final suppression of the uprising
Shortly after these repeated successes of the insurgents, however, the emperor concluded the Schönbrunn Peace Treaty on October 14, 1809 . In this agreement, which was more of a dictate, he renounced Tyrol after all, even though he had assured on May 29, 1809 that he would never sign a treaty that would separate the country from the Austrian Empire. On the same day Napoleon again ordered the submission of Tyrol, whereupon three Bavarian divisions under General Jean-Baptiste Drouet d'Erlon again penetrated the area of the uprising and defeated the Tyrolean defenders, commanded by Josef Speckbacher, at Melleck on October 17, 1809 . With this victory, the invaders were able to secure access to the Strub Pass , while at the same time two more columns moved into the country at Kufstein and Kössen . On October 24, 1809, the Bavarian-French troops reached Innsbruck, which Hofer had left three days earlier. In clear contrast to their first attempt at reconquest in May 1809, the Bavarians were much more restrained and tried to end the uprising with peace and amnesty offers rather than military force. The army that took over the land again deliberately advanced very slowly to make it easier for the Tyroleans to respond to the peace offers. A partial force of this army was commanded by the anti-Napoleonic-minded Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig , a declared friend of the Tyroleans. Due to the de-escalating Bavarian offers and in view of the oppressive superiority of the military, many influential leaders of the insurrection movement gave up because they had recognized the futility of further resistance measures. After their resignation and the withdrawal of the rebels under the command of these commanders, the remaining Tyrolean contingent was actually no longer able to offer effective resistance. Nevertheless, the remaining insurgents stood up again on November 1st for the fourth and final battle on the Bergisel . In contrast to the three previous battles, however, this conflict ended with a total fiasco for the Tyroleans. Although the peasant contingents were able to achieve a few smaller victories in the following weeks, for example at Küchelberg near Meran and at St. Leonhard in Passeier (November 22, 1809), these could not prevent the full occupation of the country.
consequences
After the final defeat of the insurrectionary movement, the invaders imposed a harsh criminal judgment on the defeated country. This was justified primarily with the fact that the peace and amnesty offers offered in the final phase of the uprising had been ignored by some of the rebels until the end. The hardest hit was the Pustertal , where the French general Jean-Baptiste Broussier had numerous executions carried out. Almost every major town in the valley was affected and often individual participation in the insurrection movement played no role at all in the imposition of the death sentence. In other parts of South Tyrol, although personal involvement in the uprising was given greater consideration in the sentencing, rebel Tyroleans were still executed here, for example in Bolzano and Brixen. Only in North Tyrol, which remained under Bavarian control, were no death sentences passed on insurgents.
As the leader of the insurrection movement, Andreas Hofer had resisted to the very end and had therefore also become an outlaw. However, he could not make up his mind to flee to Austria, so that after the final collapse of the military resistance he and his family first sought refuge on the "Kellerlahn" in Passeier , then on the "Pfandlerhof" and then on the "Pfandleralm" . His escape finally ended on January 28, 1810 on this alpine pasture and he was captured by occupation soldiers who had found out about his whereabouts from the treacherous Tyrolean Franz Raffl . After Hofer fell into the hands of his opponents, he was taken to Mantua , the headquarters of the French viceroy of Italy, Eugène Beauharnais . The latter initially wanted to pardon Hofer because he had always behaved humanely towards the enemy and had also avoided a lot of misfortune. The French Emperor Napoleon, however, showed no intention of mercy and personally ordered Hofer's immediate trial and execution. The French military tribunal that met as a result therefore had no more room for maneuver and, after a brief hearing on February 19, 1810, imposed the predicted death sentence on Andreas Hofer. This was carried out the following day. It was not until 1823 that his remains were buried in the Innsbruck court church. After Napoleon's defeat in 1814, Tyrol returned to Austria.
aftermath
The battle of the Tyroleans caused a sensation in Europe at that time. It acted like a beacon and, like the struggle of the Spaniards, strengthened the resistance against Napoleonic rule in many other European peoples. The decisive factor for this was not only the military successes of the insurrectionary movement, but above all its tragic failure.
The passage from Heinrich Heine's travel pictures from 1830 is characteristic of how liberals and democrats judged the uprising in Vormärz : “They (the Tyroleans) know nothing about politics except that they have an emperor who wears a white skirt and red trousers ; Old Ohm told them that, who heard it himself in Innsbruck from the black Sepperl who had been in Vienna. When the patriots climbed up to them and eloquently explained to them that they were getting a prince who wore a blue coat and white trousers, they took up their tins, kissed their wife and child, and went down from the mountains and left kill themselves for the white skirt and the lovely old red pants. "
In the historiography of the 19th century, the event was finally glorified in terms of German unification .
Movie
- The rebel 1932, b / w film with Luis Trenker (as Freedom rebel Severin Anderlan).
- Andreas Hofer - The Freedom of the Eagle , 2002, film about Andreas Hofer.
- Bavaria and Tyrol - Throw them down the mountain , BR 2009, a documentary by Bernhard Graf .
- Andreas Hofer - Rebel against Napoleon , ORF 2009, a documentary by Bernhard Graf.
- Marberger, a Tyrolean shooting major, Austria 2009, a film by Emanuel Bachnetzer.
- Bergblut , 2010, drama at the time of the Tyrolean uprising.
music
- The suite for wind orchestra Tirol composed in 1952 by Sepp Tanzer in 1809 contains the Tyrolean popular uprising.
- The suite for wind and string orchestra Fight for Liberty by Mario Bürki , composed in 2016 , contains the Tyrolean uprising.
See also
literature
- Margot Hamm: The Bavarian integration policy in Tyrol 1806-1814. (Series of publications on Bavarian national history 105), Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-10498-3 .
- Meinrad Pizzinini: Andreas Hofer - His time - His life - His myth. Kremayr and Schierau, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-218-00394-6 , pp. 88f.
- Michael Forcher: Tyrol's history - in words and pictures. 6th edition. Haymon-Verlag, Innsbruck 2000, ISBN 3-85218-339-1 , pp. 208, 223, 229.
- John Haywood: The New Atlas of World History - From Antiquity to the Present. Chronik Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 2002, ISBN 3-577-14605-2 , p. 190.
- Michael Forcher: A short history of Tyrol. Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85218-519-X .
- Martin P. Schennach: Revolt in the region. To the Tyrolean survey 1809. University publishing house Wagner, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7030-0462-9 .
- Andreas Oberhofer: The other Hofer. The person behind the myth. Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7030-0454-4 .
Web links
- Totetiroler - online database on the fallen Tyroleans
supporting documents
- ^ Cölestin Stampfer : History of Meran, the old capital of the state of Tyrol, Innsbruck 1889, p. 220 ff. ( Online ).
- ↑ ORF online , April 12, 2009.
- ↑ Steinlechner: Des Hofer's new clothes , pp. 30–32.
- ↑ a b Fear of a special role , in ORF online, on April 12, 2009.
- ↑ Laurence Cole, in: Datum 5/2008, pp. 56f.
- ^ Heinrich Heine: Travel Pictures , Third Part: Italy, Journey from Munich to Genoa, Chapter XII.