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.
_Keep along G.C. 201, towards Amiens._ The remains of =Satyres Wood=
are in a hollow of the road, about 1 km. beyond Estrées.