Following the Battle of Austerlitz, Tyrol, including the secularized Bishopric of Trent, was transferred, as part of Napoleon’s geopolitical arrangements, from Austrian rule to Bavaria, newly elevated into a kingdom and a French vassal state (1806). Fiscal arrangements and the abolition of traditional liberties angered the peasant population. Their discontent was fanned in an anti-Napoleonic direction by Romantic Nationalists like Innsbruck-born Josef von Hormayr (1782–1848), historian with a specific interest in his native region. An open rebellion was triggered in 1809 by the prospect of compulsory military service in the Bavarian army. The Austrian government initially endorsed the legitimacy of the revolt, declared Bavarian claims to Tyrol void, and supported the insurgents militarily. However, while an irregular rebel army led by the innkeeper Andreas Hofer campaigned successfully, Austrian troops suffered defeats. Austria soon signed an armistice and by the end of the year formally renounced its claims on Tyrol, leaving the insurgents isolated. The rebellion died down, and Hofer, after an initial flight, was arrested and executed in early 1810.

Subsequently, Hofer’s insurrection was celebrated as the first nationally-German resistance against Napoleonic hegemony, and his tragic fate inspired a nationalistic commemorative cult in songs and other media; this started in 1817 with two publications by Hormayr: Geschichte Andreas Hofer’s, Sandwirths aus Passeyr, Oberanführers der Tyroler im Kriege von 1809 and Das Heer von Inneröstreich unter den Befehlen des Erzherzogs Johann im Kriege von 1809 in Italien, Tyrol und Ungarn. Hormayr at this time had just emerged from disfavour following the failure of 1809; he had attempted to stir up another Tyrolean insurrection in 1813 and been imprisoned on Metternich’s orders. Amends were made in 1816 by appointing him court historiographer, but in 1823 he accepted an invitation from the nationally-minded Ludwig of Bavaria to relocate to Munich, later moving to Hannover (1828) and Bremen (1837-47); he died in Munich in 1848.

The Tyrolean insurrection became the focus of an increasingly prominent remembrance cult in the closing decades of the 19th century. It fused regionalist sentiment (interest in the picturesque aspects of popular Tyrolean culture and amid the grandeur of its Alpine setting) and imperial loyalty or Reichspatriotismus. A statue to Hofer was placed in the Generals’ Hall of Fame (Feldherrenhalle) in Vienna in 1873; the 1908-09 centenary elicited statues to other insurgent leaders such as Josef Speckbacher and Joachim Haspinger. With the cession of the Southern Tyrol to Italy after 1918, this memory cult gained a sharper nationalist edge, as the works of the author and filmmaker Luis Trenker illustrate (Der Rebell, 1932; Der Feuerteufel, 1940).