HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



213 



to abandon his capital. The Aus- 

 trians had not only obtained pos- 

 session of Dresden and Leipsick, 

 but even threatened the territories 

 bestowed on Jerome by his brotlier 

 Napoleon Buonaparte. A formi- 

 dable insurrection had started up 

 in Saxony, Westphalia, and Han- 

 over. At the head of the insur- 

 gents appeared two men well fitted 

 to unite and to animate them by 

 their characters, their talents, and 

 their influence, colonel Schill and 

 the duke of Brunswick Oels, the 

 only German prince (the Austri- 

 ans in the present case of course 

 excepted) who needed not to 

 blush in the present struggle for 

 his conduct. Colonel Schill had 

 been raised for his eminent ser- 

 vices to the rank of lieutenant-co- 

 lonel by the king of Prussia, who 

 gave him a regiment, with which 

 he was doing duty at Berlin, when 

 he formed the resolution of again 

 trying his fortune against the com- 

 mon enemy of German)'. He was 

 soon joined by a very considerable 

 number of partizans, calculated in 

 the German newspapers, not yet 

 under the entire control of Buona- 

 parte, at not less than 40,000 men: 

 an exaggeration undoubtedl)', but 

 which exaggeration plainly indi- 

 cated the wishes of the country. 

 That the insurrections headed by 

 colonel Schill and the duke of 

 Brunswick were considered to be 

 iormidable by Buonaparte, appears 

 from the circumstance that mar- 

 shal Kellerman was sent to the 

 Elbe with a force of from 30 to 

 40,000 men to watch and counter- 

 act their movements. Colonel 

 Schill, after traversing the whole 

 of the north of Germany indiffe- 

 rent directions, and after defeating 

 or perplexing the troops sent 



against him, by the boldness and 

 vigour of his attacks and the ra- 

 pidity of his movements was com- 

 pelled to take refuge in Stralsund, 

 where the town being forced he 

 was killed with 20 of his officers, 

 in the act of a brave and glorious 

 resistance to overwhelming num- 

 bers. Such of his officers as were 

 taken prisoners were tried, con- 

 demned and executed, as deser- 

 ters from the service of the king of 

 Prussia. — The duke of Brunswick 

 distracted for some time the atten- 

 tion of the French, and arrested 

 the progress of those troops which, 

 but for him, would have reinforced 

 the army of Buonaparte, but he 

 was compelled, with his little 

 corps, not exceeding 2,000 men, 

 to retreat to the shores of the Ger- 

 man ocean, where he, with his 

 troops, was received on board some 

 British ships of war, and conveyed 

 safely to England. The tide of 

 war had been turned against the 

 Austrians in Poland and Saxony ; 

 but it was stemmed and driven 

 back by the Austrian general, 

 Kinmaire, who defeated the French 

 general Junot, and defeated the 

 Saxons, Hollanders, and West- 

 phalians, under the authority and 

 orders of king Jerome. 



In a word, the state of affairs in 

 the north of Germany was such as 

 to invite the archduke to turn his 

 main force towards that quarter, 

 where hemight have gained as much 

 territory as Buonaparte did to the 

 south of Vienna, and where his 

 power might have been consolidat- 

 ed by an easy co-operation with 

 England. Ideas of this kind had been 

 entertainedby the emperor Francis, 

 who had issued proclamations for 

 rousing the exertionsof the wholeof 

 the German nations ; but after the 



P 3 successes 



