The great statesman thereupon fled into Austria, where all the hopes of German nationalists now centred.[207] On April the 6th the Archduke Charles issued a proclamation in which the new hopes of reformed Austria found eloquent expression: "The freedom of Europe has sought refuge beneath your banners.

Soldiers, your victories will break her chains: your German brothers who are now in the ranks of the enemy wait for their deliverance." These hopes were premature.

Austria was too late or too soon: she was too late to overpower the Bavarians, or to catch the French forces leaderless, and too soon to gain the full benefit from her recent army reforms and from the diversion promised by England on the North Sea.[208] But our limits of space render it impossible adequately to describe the course of the struggle on the Danube or of the Tyrolese rising.
Napoleon, hurrying from Paris, found his forces spread out over a front of sixty miles from Ratisbon to positions south of Augsburg, and it needed all his skill to mass them before the Archduke's blows fell.
Thanks to Austrian slowness the danger was averted, and a difficult retrograde movement was speedily changed into a triumphant offensive.
Five successive days saw as many French victories, the chief of which, at Eckmuehl (April 22nd), forced the Archduke with the Austrian right wing northwards towards Ratisbon, which was stormed on the following day, Charles now made for the Boehmer Wald, while his left wing on the south of the Danube fell back towards the Inn.

Pushing his advantage to the utmost, the victor invaded Austria and forced Vienna to surrender (May 13th).
At that city Napoleon issued (May 17th) a decree which reveals the excess of his confidence.

It struck down the temporal power of the Pope, and annexed to the French Empire the part of the Papal States which he had spared the year before.