THE BOER WAR AND THE BAUERNKRIEG.* No student of modern
history can help being struck by the many points of resemblance between the Bauernkrieg (as Germans generally call it) of 1809 and the Boer War of 1899-1900. The terms are identical, " Boer " being but another name for " Bauer." In both cases the contest was between ununiformed, indifferently trained peasants defending mountain fastnesses against regular troops. Moreover, the peasants of Tyrol are of the same Teutonic stock as the peasants of the Transvaal (the dialect spoken by the former has more affinity with Low Dutch than High German), and the Bauern were as brave in battle and as fervent in religion as the Boers. Then, too, most of the Tyrolers were hunters of big game and fine marksmen, and their tactics in war were essentially the same as those so successfully practised by the Transvaalers, and, like the latter, they had a leader whom they faithfully followed and religiously obeyed. On the other hand, there are differences equally striking. Andreas Hofer was a hero and a martyr ; and whatever else he may be, Paul Kruger is certainly no martyr. The Bauern are Catholics, the Boers Protestants. The former fought for faith and free- dom, the latter, who were threatened neither in their religion nor their liberty, for mastery and power. The Boer War has had some startling surprises and unexpected developments, yet in these respects it cannot compare with the Bauern- krieg, which from its inception to its end abounded in dramatic episodes and picturesque incidents, and was probably the most heroic and romantic contest of the century.
In 1809 Tyrol was in full possession of the Bavarians, to whose country it had been annexed by o rder of Napoleon after the campaign of Austerlitz. Innsbruck was garrisoned by a division under General Kinkel, and there were strong military posts all over the land. So confident were the Bavarians of their ability to maintain their position, that when shortly before the outbreak of hostilities between Austria and France in April, 1809, the possibility of a rising was suggested to Colonel Dittfurt, General Kinkel's second- in-command, he said that with one regiment and two squadrons he would undertake to keep the country to its obedience. Within a week the entire garrison had sur- rendered to the insurgents, and he was mortally wounded and their prisoner. No sooner was war declared than some fifteen thousand peasants gathered round Innsbruck, and attacked it from all sides, and Kinkel, instead of concentrating his force and breaking through the cordon, tried to def end every threatened point, with the result that after two days' fighting he was compelled to capitulate, and a French column coming too late to give him help shared his fate. In the mean- while Hofer bad fought a successful action on Sterzing Moss, and presently Marquis Chaatelar at the head of a strong Austrian division of all arms appeared on the scene and took matters in hand. Though very polite to the Tyrolers, he rather looked down on irregulars, as some of our authorities looked down on Colonials at the beginning of the Boer War, and though he made a show of consulting Hofer, Spechbacher, Straub, and the other leaders, declined to act on their advice. It is in the nature of things for " regulars " of all professions to despise "irregulars," and in most instances they are doubtless justified ; but there are exceptions, and as touching things military, one of them, as experience shows, is campaigning in countries where the roads run through defiles and every hillside is a potential for- tress. Though the peasants had cleared Tyrol of the enemy, General Ohastelar was not long in losing the fruits of their victories. After making an excursion southward and fight- ing one or two successful actions in the neighbourhood of Trent, he was recalled to Innsbruck to make head against a French army corps under Marshal Lefebvre which was advancing from the north. In a battle fought at Woergl the Austrians were badly beaten, on which they retreated over the Brenner, leaving only a brigade to hold the summit of the pass. But the Lower Innthalers offered a stout resistance to the invaders, and Lefebvre had to fight his way to Innsbruck, which he occupied on May 19th.
• (1.) Das Land Tyrol and der Tyrolerkrieg von 1809. Leipzig : F. A. Brock- haus. 1815.—(2.) Tirol irn Jahre 1809. Von Doctor Joseph Rapp. Innsbruck. 1852. Meanwhile another French army was marching up the valley of the Adige, and the Marshal, thinking he had accomplished his purpose, issued a fierce proclamation, hanged a few peasants, and then with his main body returned to reinforce Napoleon on the Danube, leaving at Innsbruck General Deroy with a mixed force of nine thousand men. His departure was immediately followed by another rising. Hofer, Spechbacher, Haspinger, the fighting friar, and other leaders called the peasants to arms. With great difficulty they prevailed on Chaatelar to lend them a battalion of infantry, a troop of horse, and five field-pieces, and on May 29th attacked Innsbruck once more,—in what strength it can only be conjectured. Alison says twenty thousand, but as there were only thirty thousand adult males in the country, and many of them were engaged elsewhere, this is obviously an overestimate. Moreover, though some of the Tyrolers were crack shots, a considerable proportion were indifferently armed, but all were beautiful fighters, the country round Innsbruck lent itself admirably to their tactics, Spechbacher made a turning movement which threatened the enemy's rear, and albeit Deroy held his own during the day, he deemed it prudent to retreat during the night, after losing in killed and wounded four thousand men. There was also fighting on the Vorarlberg side and in the valley of the Adige, the peasants being everywhere victorious, and within a few days "des Land Tyrol " was again " redeemed " with the exception of Kufstein, which neither then nor afterwards were they able to capture. The province was now formally reunited to Austria and administered in the Kaiser's name. But Tyrol's fate was decided by the fortune of the greater war on the Danube, and after the battle of Wagram and the armis- tice of Znaym the Kaiser was powerless to give the help he had promised, Napoleon ordered a fresh invasion, the Austrian after advising the peasants to renounce a struggle which had become hopeless withdrew, and soon afterwards Marshal Lefebvre appeared on the scene with thirty thousand troops, and it seemed as though the war were at an end. But even yet the Tyrolers had not abandoned hope of Austrian help and ultimate success ; and at a meeting held at Brixen, the Griitli of Tyrol, three men, who were presently joined by two more, decided on still another rising. These men were Haspinger, a Capuchin friar ; Martin Schenck and Peter Meyer, innkeepers ; and Peter Kenmater and Joseph Spechbacher, farmers. They were also men of war. All bad served in the local Militia. Haspinger was a soldier before he became a monk, and both Spechbacher and himself had fought in the wars of 1796 and 1805, and were born leaders and shrewd generals. They knew that the strategic centre of Tyrol is at the south end of the Eisack Pass, near the junction of several important roads, run- ning respectively north, south, east, and west ; that Marshal Lefebvre was going to despatch a column from Innsbruck to join hands with another column advancing from Verona or Mantua, and that unless this consummation were prevented he would be master of the land. So the summons to arms went forth; alarm bells were rung, beacon fires lit, and in a few hours a handful of armed peasants, whose numbers continually increased, had mustered at the mouth of the defile through which the invaders must pass to make their point. And they were already en route, some ten thousand men under General Rouyer, who, however, when he reached Sterzing received an order from Lefebvre to return to Innsbruck with his main body and send the Saxe-Meiningen regiment, which was about three thousand strong, to Brixen. But a little way south of Mittewald it was attacked by the Tyrolers, and, as a fighting force, destroyed. Nearly a thousand were killed and wounded, the re- mainder taken prisoners. On this Marshal Lefebvre, with twenty thousand men, tried to force the pass, only, however, to fail even more signally than his predecessors had done. The heights were lined with unseen sharpshooters, who rained death on his troops. Hofer, with a strong contingent of South Tyrolers, descending from the Jaufenberg, assailed his right flank ; he was forced to retreat, and before he regained Innsbruck his retreat had become a rout and his army a mob. There he made a stand, fighting a battle in which he lost six thousand men. Early next morning he made a further retrograde movement, hotly pursued by Spechbacher and Haspinger, and harassed by the peasants of the countryside, who rose in his rear. The Marshal's explanation of his reverses, as set forth in a despatch to the Emperor, is highly characteristic and uncon- sciously humorous. After describing his recent operations, and mentioning incidentally that there had been further fighting at Innsbruck, he adds :—" Seeing that they (the enemy) used many cartridges and wounded my officers and soldiers, and, being cut off from Salzbourg and unable to replace my munitions, I retreated to Schwaz, where I halted two days, to let ' ces monsienrs ' see that it was not they, but their mountains and defiles, which caused me to retreat." While these disasters were befalling the main army, a column which Lefebvre had sent on towards Meran was driven back with heavy loss from Landeck, and a division under General Rusca defeated in Pusterthal. There was not an action in which the French and their allies did not come off second best. In a campaign of fourteen days they lost the greater part of their artillery and twenty thousand men, half the force with which they had invaded the country, and it was not until the end of the year, four months later, that Napoleon succeeded in conquering Tyrol, the defeat of his generals being due to several reasons, in addition to its mountains and defiles: the spirit of its people, the fact that many of them were armed with rifles, the better shots being accom- panied by "loading lads" carrying additional weapons, which made one Tyroler in battle the equal of five or ten times as many men armed with the service muskets of the period. Like the Boers too, the mountaineers were adepts at hiding themselves. The French sol- diers complained that they had nothing to aim at but puffs of smoke, and as the peasants knew all the short-cute and by-paths, and needed neither military trains nor heavy kite, they were far more mobile than their foes. Also, like the Boers, they objected to cavalry, and would never, if they could help it, fight "in the plain." On the other band, they delighted in coming to "hand-grips," and with their double- edged scythes and clubbed muskets broke the French ranks again and again.
Critics, both home and foreign, who delight to dwell on the mistakes committed by our generals at the beginning of the Boer revolt, would do well to remember that Bonaparte at the height of his power found it a harder task to subdue Tyrol than to conquer Prussia. The little mountain land maintained the struggle nine months. The Prussian King- dom fell in a day. But the end was inevitable. Mere heroism is no match for big battalions. The mountaineers lacked everything but courage—ammunition, money, arsenals, mili- tary stores—and the country became so exhausted that towards the close even food failed them and famine threatened them. Moreover, the French and Bavarians adopted the Tyrolers' tactics, doffed their heavy packs, got them guides, and instead of marching in column of route through valleys and ravines and making frontal attacks, followed mountain tracks, surprised the enemies' outposts, turned their positions, and overwhelmed them with numbers.
The fullest and most trustworthy history of the Bauernkrieg is Dr. Rapp's Tirol im Jahre 1890, but it is very local and occasionally rather tedious. The anonymous Das Land Tyrol, though perhaps less accurate, is distinctly more lively and interesting.
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