On the 16th of July Von Falckenstein was relieved from the command of the Army of the Maine,öniggrä and appointed military governor of Bohemia. He was succeeded by Von Manteuffel, whose division was placed under command of Von Flies. Reinforcements now raised the Army of the Maine to a strength of 50,000 men and 121 guns.
The capture of Frankfort and the possession of the country north of the Maine had been obtained at the sacrifice of the great strategic advantage enjoyed by the Prussians. It was no longer possible to prevent the concentration of the VIIIth Corps and the Bavarians, and on the 22d of July this junction was completed; the former corps holding the line of the Tauber, and the latter occupying a position between that river and Würzburg.
Although the allied forces now numbered 80,000 men and 286 guns, Von Manteuffel decided to move against them from Frankfort. The advantage of the allies was in numbers alone; in _morale_, and in the strategic situation, the advantage was with the Prussians. Von Manteuffel now had a line of communication through Frankfort and Cassel. Though he could no longer keep the allies asunder, he could, by marching to the Tauber, compel them to “form front to a flank,” while his own front securely covered his communications. His communications could be intercepted only by a movement of the allies north of the Maine, which would reciprocally expose their own.
The allies had hardly effected their junction, when a want of harmony in the views of their commanders again became evident. An offensive movement against the Prussians was agreed upon; but Prince Charles wished to move by the left bank of the Maine on Frankfort, while Prince Alexander preferred a movement by the right bank on Aschaffenburg. The former was, doubtless, the better move--at all events it was the safer; for the allies would have covered their communications better, and a junction might, perhaps, have been effected with the large garrison of Mayence--but, after two days of discussion and deliberation, the latter movement was agreed upon. In the meantime, while the allies were deliberating, Von Manteuffel was acting; and he was now moving rapidly towards the Tauber.
On July 23d the Prussians touched the enemy. A slight and indecisive action was fought by a Prussian advanced-guard with the Baden division at Hundheim, and the advanced troops of the VIIIth Corps were pressed back along their whole line. While the Prussians were thus closing upon the Federal Corps, the Bavarians began the contemplated movement by the right bank of the Maine; one division being sent by rail to Gemünden, another to Lohr (on the right bank, farther down), and part of a third to Wertheim. Thus the junction of the allies, which had been effected with such difficulty, was voluntarily broken at the very moment of contact with the enemy. The line of the allied forces, on the evening of July 23d, was 36 miles in extent; while Von Manteuffel’s army was closely concentrated in their immediate front. Prince Alexander, finding himself beyond the immediate assistance of the Bavarians, withdrew all his detachments behind the Tauber, where his corps was spread over a space seven miles in breadth and nine in depth, in a country full of deep ravines, which rendered prompt movements, especially of cavalry and artillery, quite out of the question.