The brick and rubble houses of Herbécourt stood at this cross-roads. Nothing remains of them now, except a few walls, beams and fragments of the timber frameworks of the battered farm-houses. The façade, steeple and roofing of the church were destroyed. Only a few battered fragments of the sides, walls, and choir are still standing. _Leave Herbécourt by the G.C. 71._ A blockhouse for machine-guns is seen on the left, near the last ruins. _The road runs across a bare plateau, then passes through the destroyed hamlet of =Becquincourt=, after which =Dompierre= is reached._ Dompierre was the central point in the zone of attack on July 1, 1916. It was carried on the first day, after a brilliant assault, together with the neighbouring hamlet of Becquincourt and Bussus farm, to the south. The German system of defence-works comprised three successive lines of trenches connected with one another by communication trenches, and reinforced with redoubts and concrete shelters for machine-guns. Here were to be found the "Gatz" trench, and the "Misery" and "Thirst" communication-trenches. The bombardment which preceded the attack was terrific, the whole area being upturned by the shells; not a single square yard of the ground was left intact. [Illustration] The village was not spared by the bombardments; most of the houses were reduced to shapeless heaps of bricks and broken beams. The site of the church is marked by a heap of white stones, higher than the others. _After passing through Dompierre, take the road to Fay, on the left._ The ruined =sugar-refinery= of Dompierre _is on the right, 200 yards farther on (photos, p. 121)_. The Dompierre Sugar Refinery was within the French first lines, but the village itself, although close by, was still in enemy hands. The Germans attacked the refinery for two years, without being able to capture it. It was, however, cut to pieces by the shells. The brick walls crumbled away, but the steel frame-work resisted. Numbers of twisted and rusty pipes, iron plates, cocks and vats, all disjointed, broken, and out of shape, are still to be seen. _Quite close to, at a crossroad, stands_ a calvary which is now famous. The ground all around was churned up by the shells; only one hit the calvary, carrying away an arm of Christ. The cross remained intact, and supported the mutilated statue to the last. [Illustration: DOMPIERRE. THE SUGAR REFINERY IN 1916.] _Pass through =Fay=, 2 km. 500 farther on._ In the neighbouring sector of Dompierre, mine explosions succeeded one another almost incessantly at Fay, during the trench warfare period, especially in 1915-1916; the official communiqués often mentioned this fighting as being extremely violent. The French and German trenches ran along the western outskirts of the village and were protected by very powerful defence-works, difficult to approach in the open. Recourse was, therefore, to mines.