the last breath of horse and man” seem to have been forgotten in the Army of the Maine; and we find Prince Charles, after the battle of Rossbrünn, quietly slipping back, without molestation, to an almost impregnable position, when a simple frontal attack by the Prussians would have completed the discomfiture and insured the destruction of the Bavarian army. As to the allies, every adverse criticism that can be made on their opponents, applies to them in a still higher degree. Their leaders rarely rose to the level of respectable mediocrity. The junction of the allied corps, which was imperative from the first, was made only when they were practically herded together by the movements of the Prussians. As soon as they had been forced into the long-desired junction, they voluntarily undertook an ill-advised movement which separated them again, at the very moment of their contact with the enemy. Incapacity and jealousy were characteristics of both the allied commanders; and to these defects Prince Alexander added the greater fault of insubordination. It would be hard to find among the improvised “political generals” who appeared on the stage of war in the earlier part of the American conflict, a single one who possessed in a greater degree than Prince Charles or Prince Alexander a genius for blundering--an eminent capacity for invariably doing the wrong thing. It may be said of the two generals of the allied armies, that their operations afford a fine demonstration of the principles of war by the method of _reductio ad absurdum_. FOOTNOTE: [25] Rossbrünn is not marked on the map. It is about 7 miles due west of Würzburg. APPENDIX III. THE OPERATIONS IN ITALY. Only a brief mention of the operations in Italy is here necessary. On the night of the 23d of June, 1866, the Italian army crossed the Mincio, and encountered the Austrians at Custozza on the next day. The Italian army, numbering about 120,000 men, was under the nominal command of King Victor Emmanuel, the real commander being General La Marmora. The Austrians, numbering about 72,000, were commanded by Archduke Albrecht. The battle resulted in the defeat of the Italians, who withdrew across the Mincio. The Austrian commander remained on the defensive. Garibaldi, with about 6,000 volunteers, invaded the Tyrol, but was defeated in two small actions. Though he finally succeeded in gaining a foothold on Austrian soil, his operations were of no importance. On the 20th of July the Austrian fleet, under Tegethoff, defeated the Italian fleet in the great naval battle of Lissa, in which the Italians lost three iron clads.