On the 16th of June the war broke out in Bavaria. Austria had undertaken, in an agreement with this country, not to conclude peace on her own account. On the 25th of June Ludwig went for a day to the headquarters of the army, at Bamberg. He issued a proclamation to his troops, in which he said, "I do not bid you farewell; my thoughts will be with you," He left the command of the army to his father's uncle, Field Marshal Prince Karl, then seventy-one years of age, who, together with Prince Alexander of Hesse, led the troops of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden-Baden, and Hesse--the so-called reichs-armée, which consisted of nearly a hundred thousand men. In spite of his bravery and his military experience from the wars of Napoleon the Great, in which he had taken part, Prince Karl could do nothing against the dissensions of the allied troops, which hastened the enemy's victory. The Prussians conquered the reichs-armée in a number of small battles. Inactive, powerless, Ludwig was witness from his capital of the defeat of his faithful soldiers. His people were a vanquished people, and himself a vanquished King. Austria concluded peace with Prussia in Nikolsburg without paying any regard to the fate of her ally. Bavaria now also concluded peace. She did not lose any province, had only to renounce a strip of country hardly worth mentioning; but she was compelled to pay thirty millions of guldens for the expenses of the war. The Bavarian troops went each in their own direction. The war had lasted a month, but this month had been long enough to lay fields and woods bare, and to fill thousands of hearts with loss and sorrow. CHAPTER VIII The King makes the Tour of his Kingdom A couple of months after peace had been concluded Ludwig made the tour of his kingdom--the first and the last of his reign. He appeared with great brilliance, his suite consisting of no less than a hundred and nineteen persons. Although the war had brought Bavaria neither honour nor advantage, and although the King had taken no active part in it, he was everywhere received with the greatest rejoicings. The enthusiasm he aroused was so great, that his journey literally resembled a triumphal progress, and this conquered and peaceful monarch might have taken to himself Cæsar's celebrated words: Veni, vidi, vici.