The French troops under Pichegru in the immediate front of the Emperor consisted of three divisions, with an average strength of twelve thousand men each, extended along an entrenched position some eighteen miles long, on the wooded heights of Bohain and Nouvion. Of these Fromentin’s division held Catillon on the Sambre, a village rather over four miles east and south of Le Cateau; westward of Fromentin, Ballaud’s division lay astride the road from Le Cateau to Guise, at Arbre de Guise and Ribeauville; and, still further to west and south, Goguet’s division held the ground about Vaux, Prémont, and Bohain. The nearest French troops beyond these to westward were fifteen thousand men under Chappuis about Cambrai; while to eastward three divisions of the French right wing, numbering some thirty thousand men, lined the Sambre from St. Waast to Maubeuge. There was therefore an opportunity of overwhelming one or other of these isolated bodies; but the Austrians clung religiously to their old methods. The force was divided into eight columns, three of which were directed to move north-westward toward Cambrai, so as to check any movement from that side. These need trouble us no more. Of the remaining five, two on the left were ordered to drive the enemy out of Catillon, cross the Sambre, and after clearing the forest of Nouvion to push forward their light troops. One column in the centre, under Coburg’s personal command, was designed to move by Ribeauville upon Wassigny to master the heights further to southward; while two more on the right, under the Duke of York and Sir William Erskine, were to advance, the former upon Vaux, the latter upon Prémont, to drive the enemy from their entrenched positions there and at Bohain, and to press their light troops forward upon Le Catelet. All commanders were expressly ordered to halt the main portion of their troops on the captured ground, so that there was no intention of pursuing the enemy in the event of success.