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.
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.