Colonel Scharnhorst of the Prussian staff had prepared in advance a plan whereby his sovereign's forces should cross the Thuringian hills and secure their position a fortnight before the arrival of the French, in order to take the offensive, and use their fine cavalry to advantage on the plains below. The plan was rejected, for the King still feebly hoped that his ultimatum might be accepted. When at last the reluctant monarch set out for the seat of war to join Brunswick, he took with him a numerous suite from the sanguine and even exultant court party. On their arrival at headquarters an antipodal divergence between the ideas of the King's followers and those of the conservative Brunswick was instantly developed, and the latter's command soon became nominal. In spite of the Queen's noble efforts to infuse spirit into her husband, the divided councils of his advisers produced in him an infectious incapacity which spread rapidly throughout the Prussian camp. The results were seen in the wretched disposition of the forces at the crucial moment. After considerable wrangling among the staff, their conference lasting three entire days, the army finally, on October seventh, took position, not on the southern, but on the northern slopes of the Thuringian hills--Brunswick with the main army at Erfurt, Hohenlohe at Blankenhain, and Rüchel, to whose reinforcement Blücher was advancing from Cassel, at Eisenach. Pickets were thrown out into the passes in front. This position was virtually divined by Napoleon on the fifth, and, believing that the Prussians would mass at Erfurt to strike his left, he immediately set his troops in motion. There were three columns; on the eighth the left wing, under Lannes, was at Coburg, with Augereau one day's march behind; of the center, Murat was already over the hills at Saalburg, Bernadotte and Davout were in the very heart of them at Lobenstein and Nordhalben respectively; the guard was at Kronach; and, of the two divisions of the right, one, under Soult, was at Münchberg; the other, with Ney, was at Bayreuth, one day's march behind. By these movements, the campaign was virtually won on the ninth, and that on the plan as at first conceived. The connection of the Prussians with their base of supplies by way of the Elbe was in danger, the process of turning was well advanced, and it could be a matter of a few days only before it would be complete.