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. When, therefore,--so runs the official report of these events,--General von Arentschildt arrived on the spot at about eight o'clock in the evening, expecting to find Eisenach taken, he was opposed to circumstances that completely defeated his plans, and contradicted all his majesty's views, but which both the armistice just concluded and the approaching night prevented him from grappling with. Major von Jacobi was brought before a court-martial, the course of which was rendered impossible by succeeding events. The reception of the envoy, the negotiations commenced with him and with the Duke of Coburg in the midst of military action, combined with the withdrawal of the troops from Eisenach, caused the idea to gain ground in Berlin that the king wished to negotiate; and King William of Prussia, animated by the desire of avoiding a bloody encounter with the Hanoverians, sent General von Alvensleben to the Hanoverian head-quarters, situated on the 25th June at Gross-Behringen, on the road to Eisenach. During the previous negotiations with the Duke of Coburg, and the withdrawal of the Hanoverian troops, the Prussians had seized the opportunity of reinforcing Eisenach so strongly that it was now very difficult to take it.