The lieutenant shouted to the prisoners to lie down, then ordered his men to fire on the standing Germans. The latter surrendered, with the exception of a handful who attempted to carry away a wounded French officer. The newly-released prisoners, although unarmed, dashed to the rescue of the commander and brought him back in triumph. Belloy was almost entirely reconquered, and when in the evening a new counter-attack was launched, their assaulting waves were literally mowed down. The terrific bombardments which took place before and after the capture of Belloy-en-Santerre entirely annihilated the village. The road at Belloy passes by a large French cemetery and, a little further on, the ruins of the church. _Take a newly-made road leading to the Amiens-St. Quentin road. Turn to the right, towards Estrées (3 km.)_ and pass _(on the right)_, a British then a large French cemetery. _=Estrées= is next reached._ [Illustration: MILITARY CEMETERY TO THE EAST OF ESTRÉES.] Estrées This village was built along the wide road (an old Roman causeway) which runs from Amiens to Vermand, and thence to Saint-Quentin (G.C. 201). This absolutely straight road formed the separation line between the Chaulnes sector and the Somme battlefield properly so-called, where the Franco-British attack began on July 1, 1916, and which extended along both banks of the Somme, as far as the small river Ancre. Estrées was one of the points where the fighting, begun on July 1, was most violent. The French, whose first-lines at the time ran east of Foucourt, carried the advance trenches which covered Estrées, along the Amiens--St.-Quentin road, after most desperate fighting, and finally gained a footing in the village. The photograph opposite shows the condition of the road after its capture by the French; the causeway had disappeared and, on the shell-torn ground there were hardly any traces left of the German trenches which had everywhere fallen in. [Illustration: ESTRÉES. SITE OF THE CEMETERY IN AUGUST, 1916.] Estrées village had to be captured house by house. On the evening of July 4, after three days' fighting, the Germans held only the eastern part of the village. For the next twenty days, about 200 of them hung on desperately to it, holding back the assailants with machine-guns posted in the cellars, which fired through the narrow vent-holes. To overcome this resistance, which prevented all advance north or south, it was necessary to sacrifice these houses, and for six consecutive hours 9-in., 11-in., and 15-in. shells pounded this small area. Only fifteen survivors were found in the ruined foundations; the rest of the German garrison had been wiped out. [Illustration: THE AMIENS ST. QUENTIN ROAD IN SATYRES WOOD, WEST OF ESTRÉES (1916).] This terrible struggle utterly destroyed the village. Its site and the surrounding land form a chaotic waste; all traces of the former landmarks have disappeared.