four o'clock
News had arrived partly from travellers , partly from messengers sent to ascertain , that 60,000 , 80,000 , yes 100,000 Prussian troops blocked the way to Fulda ; so it was decided not to take that road , but to march into the midst of the Prussian territory between the Prussian armies , and to get to Eisenach by Heiligenstadt and Treffurt , there to cross the road and to fall in with the Bavarians , from whom they had received no information ; but they remained persuaded that they must be there . In vain old General von Brandis shook his head , and remarked in his curt fashion , that an army who wished to fight must learn to stand up to the enemy ; that if Prussian troops were on the road to Fulda , it was one of Wellington 's practical maxims for conducting war , `` to go on ; '' that , at any rate , they had a better chance of overthrowing the enemy and reaching the south that way , than by jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire , as they seemed determined to do . The general staff unanimously determined to march to Heiligenstadt , and the king consented . At last the army was to move on the morning of the 21st of June , at four o'clock , and a general cry of joy throughout all the quarters and cantonments greeted the order to march . In exemplary order , as on parade , the valiant brigades formed . The king left Göttingen about five o'clock , the senate of the university and the civic magistrates assembling to take leave of him . It was a brilliant and dazzling procession which in the early morning light crossed into the Prussian territory .