Andreas Hofer

Andreas Hofer (22 November 1767 – 20 February 1810) was a Tyrolean innkeeper and drover, who in 1809 became the leader of the Tyrolean Rebellion against the Napoleonic and Bavarian invasion during the War of the Fifth Coalition. He was subsequently captured and executed.

Hofer is still today venerated as a folk hero, freedom fighter and Austrian patriot. His great-grandson Andreas Hofer was a member of the very important resistance group against Nazi Germany around the priest Heinrich Maier.

Life

Andreas Hofer was born 1767 in St. Leonhard in Passeier, in the Habsburg crown land of Tyrol. His father was an innkeeper of the ''Sandhof'' inn and Andreas followed in his footsteps when he inherited the establishment. He also traded wine and horses in adjacent Northern Italy and learned the Italian language. He married Anna Ladurner. In 1791 he was elected to the Tyrolean Landtag assembly. In German he was known as a ''Wirt'' (innkeeper) and thus ever after ''Sandwirt''.

In the War of the Third Coalition against the French he became a sharpshooter and later a militia captain in the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army. After the Austrian defeat, Tyrol was transferred to the Kingdom of Bavaria (France's ally) according to the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg. During the stern measures of Minister Maximilian von Montgelas and the forced recruitment into the Bavarian Army, Hofer became a leader of the anti-Bavarian movement. In January 1809, he was part of a delegation to Vienna to ask Emperor Francis I of Austria for support for a possible uprising. The Emperor gave his assurances and the delegation returned home.

Hofer begun to secretly organize insurrection, visiting villagers and holding councils of war in local inns. Reputedly he was so much on the move that he signed his messages "Andreas Hofer, from where I am" and letters to him were addressed to "wherever he may be". At the same time other leaders organized their own forces elsewhere in the Alps. Hofer became a leader of a militia contingent in the Passeier Valley.

Armed rebellion begins

The Tyrolean Rebellion began on 9 April 1809 in Innsbruck. The previous night, organizers dumped sacks of sawdust into the River Inn as a sign to start the rebellion; floating through the town and down the Inn Valley, it alerted the rebels. Church bells summoned men to fight with muskets and farmyard implements. They soon overran smaller Bavarian garrisons and surprised a column of French infantry that was passing through the area.

On 11 April Tyrolean militia defeated a Bavarian force in Sterzing which led to the occupation of Innsbruck before noon. Though French forces came across the Brenner Pass as a relief and a united French-Bavarian contingent counterattacked the next night, the Tyroleans fought them in the First Battle of Bergisel until Hofer and his allies won on the morning of the 13th. While Austrian forces under General Johann Gabriel Chasteler de Courcelles moved into the Tyrolean capital and installed a provisional government led by Joseph Hormayr, Hofer advanced south, taking Bozen and Trent.

Hopes of a successful rebellion waned when Napoleon defeated the Austrian forces of Archduke Charles of Austria in a series of battles of Teugen-Hausen, Abensberg, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon, whereafter the Austrian troops withdrew from Tyrol and Hofer had to pull back to the mountains. The French Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre took charge of the Tyrolean theatre, and Bavarian and Saxon forces under the command of Karl Philipp von Wrede on 13 May defeated the Austrians in a bloody skirmish at Wörgl. The Bavarians re-occupied Innsbruck on 19 May. However, when their French allies left, the rebellion flared up again.

Hofer takes command

Hofer became the effective commander-in-chief of the Tyrolean rebels, with the support of other leaders such as Josef Speckbacher

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