By 7 March, the first French forces arrived there, and the Austrians arrived a day or so later. Over the following week, additional forces for both sides arrived, and the two armies faced each other across this valley. The French army extended in a long line from the Danube to Lake Constance. The Third Division, commanded by Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, positioned itself at the far left flank, and Dominique Vandamme's detached force, returning from reconnaissance near Stuttgart, roamed on the north shore of the river. François Joseph Lefebvre commanded the Advance Guard, positioned on the slope below Pfullendorf, and Joseph Souham, with the Second Division, took position behind him. Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino's First Division held the southern-most flank, to defend against any encirclement by Charles' force. Jourdan set up command at Pfullendorf, and the Cavalry Reeserve, commanded by Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul, stood slightly to the north and west of Souham. By late on the 19th, Austrian and French soldiers had been skirmishing at outposts for more than 30 hours, with the action growing increasingly intense. In the early hours of the 21st, General Lefebvre informed Jourdan that the Austrians were attacking all his positions, and that the general engagement would begin shortly. After 24 hours of fighting, Austrian forces pushed Lefebvre and Saint Cyr's troops back to the Pfullendorf heights. Although sappers blew up the primary bridge over the Ostrach river, the Austrians managed to ford the stream anyway. They nearly outflanked General Saint Cyr's forces on the right flank, did outflank Lefebvre's forces in the center, and cut off a portion of the southern flank from the main body. Saint Cyr's troops barely managed to pull back before being fully cut off. Finally, General Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, marching north with 10,000 men, from Feldkirch, threatened Ferino's First Division from the south. On 21 March, at 2200, Jourdan ordered the wounded to be transported to Schaffhausen in Switzerland, via Stockach. The main army then began its own retreat in the early morning of the 22nd. The reserve division of d'Hautpoul left first, and pulled back via Stockach to Emmengen ob Eck.