This bombastic effusion was followed by several others equally false and ridiculous. The Prussians had advanced as far as Ludwigshafen, opposite Mannheim, without encountering any serious resistance. The insurgent army in the Pfalz, numbering about twelve thousand men, under the command of the Polish General Sznayda, had abandoned their intrenchments almost without striking a blow, and, with the provisional government, fled to Knielingen, from whence they crossed the Rhine into Baden. The only serious impediment encountered by the Prussians was at Ludwigshafen, which suffered immense damage from the heavy and constant bombardment kept up from batteries erected at the opposite town of Mannheim. The railway station was burned to the ground, and the value of property destroyed in the store-houses alone has been calculated at two millions of florins, (£170,000.) On the 17th, Landau and Germersheim were relieved; and the Prince of Prussia, with his whole force concentrated before the latter fortress, prepared to cross the Rhine under the protection of its guns. Having thus fully accomplished the first part of his arduous undertaking, by re-establishing order in the Pfalz, the Prince of Prussia prepared to effect a junction with the second and third divisions of the army, under the command of General Von Gröben, and Peucker, the former of whom had again advanced to Ladenburg, on the right bank of the Neckar. Meiroslawski, in the mean time, remained totally inactive from the 15th to the 20th inst. Upwards of fifty thousand men had been reviewed by him in Heidelberg and its vicinity; besides this, the twelve thousand Bavarian insurgents, under the command of Sznayda, were in the neighbourhood of Bruchsal; and with such a force, anything like a determined resistance would have compelled the Prussians to purchase victory by a heavy loss. Whatever may be his reputation for talent, Meiroslawski showed but little skill as a general during his short command in Baden. Instead of opposing the crossing of the Rhine by the Prussians, which, with so large a force, and fifty-four pieces of well-served artillery, he might easily have done, the Prince of Prussia, with a division of fifteen thousand men, was allowed to obtain a secure footing in his rear, almost unopposed. From this moment the position of the insurgents became critical in the extreme. The line of the Neckar was occupied on the right bank by the second and third divisions of the army, comprising upwards of thirty thousand men. Although hitherto held in check by the strong intrenchments that had been thrown up, they might still advance in front; whilst the high road to Rastadt was effectually cut off by the Prince of Prussia, whose headquarters were now at Phillipsburg.