The VIIIth Corps, composed of troops from Hesse, Baden and Wuerttemberg, stood north of Frankfurt.

The Bavarian troops lost battles at Hünfeld and Dermbach on 4 July and withdrew to the Franconian Saale river.

Now the VIIIth Corps abandoned Frankfurt, moved south across the Odenwald and then turned eastward to meet the Bavarians at the River Tauber.

But soon a truce was negotiated after the news had reached the Bavarian headquarters, that the Prussians and the Austrians had signed their Armistice of Nikolsburg at the same day.

[19] Helmut von Moltke, the chief of the Prussian general staff, had planned an offensive war to beat the federal troops before they could unite and fully use their superiority in men and equipment.

The plan was successful because the untrained federal armies needed a long time for mobilization which the Prussians had prepared well.

Formally Prince Karl Theodor of Bavaria, the commander of the VIIth corps, was supreme commander of all the federal troops, but Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, the chief of the VIIIth corps, also received orders from the Federal Convention (Bundestag) in Frankfurt and the governments of the states which had sent troops.