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The first serious opposition was made at Smolensko, whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter in which General Deroy, formerly distinguished for his services in the Tyrol, was killed at Poloczk with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein.
The warlike excitement of Germany increased; the Tyroleans were again rising, and General Deroy found himself forced to evacuate Innspruck; a corps of German refuges, under the orders of the Duke of Brunswick-Oels, took the road to Dresden, the court immediately taking refuge in Leipzic; a second detachment threatened King Jerome in Westphalia.
Napoleon's defeat, about this time, at Aspern having however compelled Lefebvre to return hastily to the Danube, leaving merely a part of the Bavarians with General Deroy in Innsbruck, the Tyrolese instantly seized the opportunity, and Hofer, Eisenstecken, and the gallant Speckbacher boldly assembled the whole of the peasantry on the mountain of Isel.
The emperor, in full uniform, surrounded by all his generals, welcomed General Deroy and the Bavarian officers; accompanied by a wave of his sword, he said to them: "I have placed myself at the head of my army in order to deliver your country, for the house of Austria intends to annihilate your independence.
In this action of the 18th, four generals, four colonels, and many officers, were wounded. Among them the army remarked the Bavarian Generals Deroy and Liben. They expired on the 22d of August.
Deroy, repulsed from the mountain of Isel with a loss of almost three thousand men, simulated an intention to capitulate, and withdrew unheard during the night by muffling the horses' hoofs and the wheels of the artillery carriages and enjoining silence under pain of death. Speckbacher attempted to impede his retreat at Hall, but arrived too late.
Teimer was accused of having been remiss in his duty through jealousy of the common peasant leaders. Arco escaped by an artifice similar to that of Deroy and abandoned the Scharnitz. The Vorarlbergers again spread as far as Kempten.
The advanced guard of the French, composed of the Bavarians under Deroy, were defeated at the Strub pass, but, notwithstanding this disaster, Ney carried the Schaarnitz by storm and reached Innsbruck.
He sent his army, commanded by General Deroy, to meet the Emperor of the French; it was not to attack him as the enemy of Germany, but to hail him as an ally and to place itself under his direction. He then issued a proclamation.
Lefebvre was finally compelled to retreat with his thinned and weary troops. On the 11th, Deroy posted himself with the rearguard on the mountain of Isel. The Capuchin, after reading mass under the open sky to his followers, again attacked him on the 13th. A horrible slaughter ensued. Four hundred Bavarians, who had fallen beneath the clubs of their infuriated antagonists, lay in a confused heap.
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