Pichegru now returned and took up the supreme command, Souham remaining in charge of his own and Moreau's divisions. On the extreme right, from Pont-a-Tressin, only demonstrations were to be made; the centre, between Baisieux and Estaimbourg, was to be the scene of the holding attack of Bonnaud's command, while Souham, in considerably greater density, delivered the decisive attack on the allied right by St Leger and Warcoing. At Helchin a brigade was to guard the outer flank of the assailants against a movement by the Hanoverians and to keep open communication with Courtrai in case of attack from the direction of Oudenarde. The details of the allied position were insufficiently known owing to the multiplicity of their advanced posts and the intricate and densely cultivated nature of the ground. The battle of Tournai opened in the early morning of the 22nd and was long and desperately contested. The demonstration on the French extreme right was soon recognized by the defenders to be negligible, and the allied left wing thereupon closed on the centre. There Bonnaud attacked with vigour, forcing back the various advanced posts, especially on the left, where he dislodged the Allies from Nechin. The defenders of Templeuve then fell back, and the attacking swarms--a dissolved line of battle--fringed the brook beyond Templeuve, on the other side of which was the Allies' main position, and even for a moment seized Blandain. Meanwhile the French at Nechin, in concert with the main attack, pressed on towards Ramegnies. Macdonald's and other brigades had forced the Espierre rivulet and driven von dem Bussche's Hanoverians partly over the Scheldt (they had a pontoon bridge), partly southward. The main front of the Allies was defined by the brook that flows between Templeuve and Blandain, then between Ramegnies and Pont-a-Chin and empties into the Scheldt near the last-named hamlet. On this front till close on nightfall a fierce battle raged. Pichegru's main attack was still by his left, and Pont-a-Chin was taken and retaken by French, Austrians, British and Hanoverians in turn. Between Blandain and Pont-a-Chin Bonnaud's troops more than once entered the line of defence. But the attack was definitively broken off at nightfall and the Republicans withdrew slowly towards Lannoy and Leers. They had for the first time in a fiercely contested "soldier's battle" measured their strength, regiment for regiment, against the Allies, and failed, but by so narrow a margin that henceforward the Army of the North realized its own strength and solidity. The Army of the Revolution, already superior in numbers and imbued with the decision-compelling spirit, had at last achieved self-confidence. But the actual decision was destined by a curious process of evolution to be given by Jourdan's far-distant Army of the Moselle, to which we now turn.