They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake
all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten
with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked,
the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated
by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe
which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost
on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne,
the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle.
The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general
to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion
of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences
of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced
into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another
gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful
Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci
(about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened
their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines,
the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit
to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain.

The Conflict with the Nervii

But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more
energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates
(about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above
all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body
of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci,
far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit,
concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces
on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately
of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge,
and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these
districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often
visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations
for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived
on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied
in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while
the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights,
the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's
forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment
the enemy had crossed this also, a