"Your Excellency, Commander, I request to resign from the post of commander of the 19th Panzer Corps." Guderian's tone was calm, but his eyes were dancing with surging rage, and he looked directly at Kleist and said.

In the three days since the breakthrough of the Maas River, Guderian has tried his best to crush the resistance of the French army, and the entire Panzer Army is fighting desperately, but in the face of such efforts and unprecedented victories, Kleist turned out to be this attitude, which really made Guderian feel angry and unacceptable. In a fit of anger, Guderian directly flipped the table: Ye will no longer serve your stupid boss, Ye is going to pick a son and leave!

Kleist's hands behind his back clenched suddenly, and his face couldn't help twitching slightly. He never expected that Guderian would threaten himself with resignation. If it is just in peacetime, any lieutenant general in the army is qualified to succeed Guderian, but now it is in wartime, and it is a taboo for soldiers to change generals on the spot, not to mention that Guderian has formed a very high prestige among soldiers by crossing the Ardennes and breaking through the Maas River, and his departure will inevitably cause great turmoil in morale. There is a high probability that the situation on the front line will be reversed!

However, Kleist's hesitation lasted only a moment, and was replaced by determination and anger. If he confesses in front of Guderian today, then Guderian will become more and more rampant and completely ignore himself; Not to mention that if he wants to restrain this brute bull in the future, even other colleagues will look down on him Kleist and laugh at him for not even being able to handle his subordinates. As a result, Kleist will no longer have the face to mix in the army. Thinking of this, Kleist was angry, he didn't believe that there was no butcher Zhang and he wanted to eat the hairy pig!

"Well, you've been fighting hard for 8 days in a row, so it's time to take a break. Now you go and hand over the work at hand to a senior general, and then report to the headquarters of the army group. Kleist nodded, and explained to Guderian what was going on. Guderian was immediately dumbfounded. He had no intention of leaving the front line at all, the threat of resignation just now was just a means, but he didn't expect Kleist to be so resolute, and he was relieved of his command of the armored army under his command by directly pushing the boat!

Guderian, who was angry and bullfighting, turned around and left directly, boarded the plane in anger, and returned to the front-line command to hand over the work. However, out of resentment against Kleist, Guderian sent another telegram to the commander of Army Group A, Rundstedt, and in front of the latter, he sharply accused Kleist of being black. Knowing that his love was leaving, the shocked Rundstedt hurriedly called back to stay. He touched his chin and thought for a long time, and a sly smile gradually crept up the old and thin face.

"Your Excellency, what can I do if Guderian is going to resign?" The commander of the 16th Army, Busch, spoke worriedly, full of concern about the situation at the front, "The 19th Panzer Army has been under the command of Guderian since the day it was formed, and his position in the eyes of the officers and men of this army is irreplaceable. What's more, now there is simply no one else who is up to the job, and once he leaves, the combat effectiveness of this unit will be reduced by at least 50%! ”

"You're right. So I didn't allow him to leave. Rundstein nodded. Busch opened his mouth and said, "But what about Kleist?" If you openly defend Guderian, you will fall out with Kleist, who has worked with us for more than 30 years, and he should not be treated this way. Moreover, we must also comply with the orders of the army command, and the armored forces immediately stop the offensive. If Guderian had obediently obeyed this order, he would not have gotten into such a situation with Kleist today. ”

Rundstedt suddenly smiled ghostly, and his solemn and solemn face became indescribably slippery and treacherous, and said leisurely: "Of course, I have to respect the orders of the army command and maintain the dignity of Kleist, so I have ordered that Guderian be forbidden to continue the attack." It's just that the 19th Panzer Corps is now at the forefront of the battle line, and they always need to reconnoiter the perimeter and search for the enemy's situation in order to facilitate future battles, right? However, the scale of this reconnaissance and search operation is beyond the control of the army group headquarters in the rear. ”

Suddenly realized, Bushi burst out laughing, and looked at Rundstedt's eyes full of admiration. In the face of the two forces in sharp conflict, Rundstedt was able to deal with such a heavy weight, which made Pensch sigh at himself. After a moment of excitement, Bushi hesitated and said, "But Commander, will we embarrass the Army Command by doing this?" After all, the order to stop the offensive was given from here. ”

"Don't worry, Admiral, I know Brauchitsch and Halder all too well. The two of them would not have given such an order after the collapse of the French 9th Army, which most likely was only the Führer's intention. Rundstedt spoke, his words full of confidence, "If I allow Guderian to carry out a 'reconnaissance search,' the two Army Chiefs will not only not stop it, but will expand this order to all seven Panzer Divisions of Army Group A." And even if the Führer were to track him down in the future, he would not be able to catch the slightest evidence of my disobedience. ”

Things did not turn out as Rundstedt had expected. Receiving an order to conduct a reconnaissance search, Guderian immediately understood the intentions of his old superiors and led the whole army to continue to stride forward. At the same time, Brauchitsch and Halder, who were far behind the battle line, understood the trick in seconds, and while praising Rundstedt's cunning, they also extended this order to the other two Panzer Corps.

After receiving the order, Rommel and the others, who had been waiting impatiently for a long time, immediately started at full speed and pounced on the enemy in front of them. Since Hitler was able to bypass the army headquarters and directly intervene in the front, then he could also take advantage of Hitler's inattention and slam him in the back!

For the French army, they experienced a great joy and sorrow from heaven to hell. When the Germans had stopped before, the French speculated that the enemy must have exhausted their offensive and had been forced to stop as in the previous war, so they breathed a sigh of relief and began to rest. Unexpectedly, only a few hours later, the Germans caught up again, and they were suddenly scattered like birds and beasts in terror. Some French troops seemed to have a premonition that the tide was turning, and they simply did not bother to flee again. Tired and depressed, they put up a white flag directly in front of the station, and then watched the German soldiers pass by them.

Tanks rumbled and roared, rolling up dust, and on the vast French plain, more than 2,000 tanks from seven German panzer divisions were speeding at full speed in the direction of the channel. Countless armored vehicles, trucks, and motorcycles followed closely behind the tanks, advancing far faster than their predecessors 26 years ago. Looking from the air, I saw countless vehicles converging into an unstoppable surging torrent, rolling towards the northwest, straight like the Tianhe River rushing out, and the snow spring river collapsed.

Seeing that the torrent of German armor did not come straight to Paris, Renault and other French dignitaries could not help but breathe a sigh of relief, but the military leaders led by Ganmarin were like falling into an ice hole, full of fear and despair. For no other reason, the Germans' goal was to annihilate the main Allied forces in Belgium.

To this day, in addition to the French 2nd Army, which was close to the "gate" in the middle of the line, which had withdrawn about 5 divisions from the previous support for the 9th Army, the remaining 30 French divisions, 10 British divisions, and 22 Belgian divisions were already caught in this encirclement that was about to be closed. The combat effectiveness of this group of troops accounted for more than 50% of the land power of the coalition forces, and if they were lost, they would definitely deal a devastating blow to France!

In fact, as early as May 15, two days earlier, Gammel had already foreseen a great threat from the central front. Gammerin realized that, in order to avoid the danger of the main force of the coalition army being attacked from the flank, the Allied forces in Belgium should immediately withdraw to French territory and redeploy the line along the line from Lille to Nans.

However, it is one thing to think about it, but it is another thing to actually do it. Gammelin did not forget that on the night of May 14, which had just passed, the 9th Army had a general collapse because of an order to retreat; The flight of the army triggered a catastrophic wave of refugees, leaving the central front in an irreparable situation. What if the situation like the 9th Army happened again when the Northern Coalition retreated? You must know that the northern front is not calm and calm, so that the troops can retreat calmly, and the coalition forces have been fighting fiercely with the German Army Group B!

Taking a step back, even if the troops invested by the French and British armies on the northern front were elite and far more resistant to pressure than the 9th Army, which was dominated by second-line troops, and would not cause order to collapse due to retreat, the Belgian civilians on the ground were different.

As many as 8 million Belgians, as soon as they see the retreat of the coalition forces, they will inevitably run away in panic, which will not only seriously delay the retreat of the coalition forces, but also force the coalition forces to abandon a large number of inconvenient materials and heavy equipment because of the blockage of the roads. You must know that the war of the industrial era is not comparable to that of the Middle Ages, when each person was given a kitchen knife and could go to war. Why is the coalition army on the northern front so strong in combat? In addition to the well-trained personnel, the well-equipped personnel are also extremely important!

In addition, the withdrawal of coalition forces will also have political implications. You, Gammelin, are going to give up all of Belgium to Germany for ravage, and you guess if the Belgians will agree? If the Belgian army is weak, it will be fine, but the regular army with more than 20 divisions will definitely not be able to bear the consequences once the Franco-British army breaks out!

Thus, although Gammelin was aware of the crisis early on, he was unable to withdraw his troops as he had envisioned. At the same time, Gammelin seriously underestimated the subsequent advance speed of the German armored forces, which also made him still have some illusions about the situation, thinking that the German army would not advance far before it would stop. By the evening of 17 May, however, the situation had taken a turn for the worse and it was no longer possible for him to hold out. In order to prevent the northern coalition forces from falling into a joint siege, Gan Malin painfully ordered the whole army to retreat, and gave up all the materials and equipment that could not be taken away.