[Illustration: BELLOY-EN-SANTERRE, SEEN FROM THE SITE OF THE CHURCH.
_In the middle: Road from Assevillers; At the back: Belloy Wood._]
The enemy immediately launched counter-attack upon counter-attack. Terrible fighting went on throughout the night. In the early morning, the Germans regained a footing in Belloy, and entered the park of the Castle, where three sections of the Legion were surrounded.
A second-lieutenant received orders to restore the situation with the remnants of a company. Posting his men along the Belloy-Barleux road (G.C. 79), he cut the line of retreat of the Germans, who had entered the park. The latter endeavoured to break through, with a detachment of disarmed prisoners in their midst.
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.]
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.