It would be tedious to describe so feeble an operation. The scene of the engagement is a country much broken by ravines and hollow roads, so that the heavy artillery of some of the columns was with difficulty brought forward; but the French, being in a manner surprised, were manœuvred out of their positions with little trouble or loss. The Duke of York’s and Erskine’s columns alone encountered resistance worth mentioning, but they found little difficulty in turning the French entrenchments, while the Austrian Hussars and a squadron of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons succeeded in cutting down great numbers of the retreating enemy. Altogether the Allies lost fewer than seven hundred killed and wounded, while the action was reckoned to have cost the French over two thousand men, besides from twenty to thirty guns, of which eleven were captured by the British columns. Beyond this the French were little molested in their retreat to Guise, and the trifling success of the day was marred by disgraceful plundering and burning on the part of the Allied troops after the engagement. The British had already shown tendencies in this direction, but had been checked by the Duke of York, who had hanged two offenders, caught red-handed, on the spot, without even the form of a drumhead court-martial. Now, however, the Austrians led the way in misconduct, either led astray by some of their savage auxiliaries, or in aimless revenge for their starvation during the winter; and the British were only too ready to follow the example.[220] [Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF APRIL, 1794. _Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London._ ] ◆April 18.◆ On the following day the army halted between Nouvion and Prémont, pushing its outposts further to southward, while detachments of Austrians were posted also at Prisches, a few miles north of Nouvion, and at La Capelle, Fontenelle, and Garmouset to eastward, so as to cover the left flank and rear of the army. Thereupon the Prince of Orange, whose troops had been advanced towards Cambrai on the 17th, countermarched to Le Cateau, and assembling his force at Forest, about three miles to the north of it, ◆April 20.◆ on the 20th fell upon the enemy’s posts over against Landrecies on the left bank of the Sambre. After a hard struggle, which cost him one thousand men and the French twice as many, he carried the French position, and at once opened the trenches before the town. ◆April 21.◆ On the following day Pichegru delivered feeble and incoherent assaults upon the positions of Prisches and Nouvion, and upon the heights to the south of Wassigny, all of which were beaten off with the loss to him of many men and four guns. ◆April 22.◆ Further desultory fighting at the advanced posts on the next day was equally unfavourable to Pichegru, as indeed he deserved for his folly in not concentrating the thirty thousand men, who lay ready to his hand at Maubeuge, for an overwhelming attack.