But the new Hanoverian generals decided otherwise in the aula of Georgia Augusta. News had arrived partly from travellers, partly from messengers sent to ascertain, that 60,000, 80,000, yes 100,000 Prussian troops blocked the way to Fulda; so it was decided not to take that road, but to march into the midst of the Prussian territory between the Prussian armies, and to get to Eisenach by Heiligenstadt and Treffurt, there to cross the road and to fall in with the Bavarians, from whom they had received no information; but they remained persuaded that they must be there.
In vain old General von Brandis shook his head, and remarked in his curt fashion, that an army who wished to fight must learn to stand up to the enemy; that if Prussian troops were on the road to Fulda, it was one of Wellington's practical maxims for conducting war, "to go on;" that, at any rate, they had a better chance of overthrowing the enemy and reaching the south that way, than by jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire, as they seemed determined to do.
The general staff unanimously determined to march to Heiligenstadt, and the king consented.
At last the army was to move on the morning of the 21st of June, at four o'clock, and a general cry of joy throughout all the quarters and cantonments greeted the order to march.
In exemplary order, as on parade, the valiant brigades formed. The king left Göttingen about five o'clock, the senate of the university and the civic magistrates assembling to take leave of him.
It was a brilliant and dazzling procession which in the early morning light crossed into the Prussian territory.
A half squadron of the Cambridge dragoons formed the body-guard of their royal master.
Mounted on a large and beautiful white horse, which was guided by Major Schweppe of the Guard Cuirassiers, with an almost imperceptible leading rein, rode George V., with the proud knightly bearing which always gave him so imposing and regal an aspect when on horseback; by his side came the crown prince in his hussar uniform, on a small thorough-bred horse. They were surrounded by a numerous suite, both civil and military; old General von Brandis, notwithstanding his seventy-one years, had sent back his carriage, and Count Ingelheim rode beside the king in a grey dress and long stable boots. The brilliant cavalcade was followed by the king's travelling carriage, drawn by six horses, with outriders and piquers; and then a number of other carriages for the suite, led horses, the master of the stables, and servants.
Whenever the royal train passed the troops on the march, a loud, joyful hurrah burst forth, and every brave soldier's heart beat higher when he saw his king amongst them.
The courageous but strategically puzzling march of the Hanoverian army belongs to history, and is fully related in writings upon the war of 1866. It may perhaps be granted to future times to unriddle the extraordinary movements made by the army, and perhaps to explain why the march upon Treffurt was given up when they had reached Heiligenstadt, and their course turned by Mühlhausen to Langensalza; from thence right under the cannon of Erfurt they marched to Eisenach, and then suddenly, when this place was as good as taken, they halted, because an envoy from the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, without credentials, appeared at the Hanoverian headquarters. Major von Jacobi was sent by the Hanoverian general staff to Gotha to clear up this mission; and there, deceived as to the number of Prussian troops occupying Eisenach, he telegraphed such an account of the enemy to Colonel von Bülow, the Hanoverian officer in command, that, misled by the report, he withdrew his troops from Eisenach, and concluded a provisional armistice with the enemy.