In the face of Aiden's complicated gaze, Churchill's eyes flashed, and he said coldly: "Don't tell me anything about the safety of the French allies, they are all responsible for the land war that it is today!" If they had been able to launch even one powerful counterattack against the lone German Panzer forces in the five days from May 16 to 20, the Northern Coalition would never have been in such a desperate situation as it is today! Since the French did not have the courage to attack, it was up to us to do it, and the heroic soldiers of Britain must not be martyred with the cowardly French. ”

"Again, don't mention Belgians to me. If they had not chosen stupid neutrality before the war, but had welcomed our troops into the country early and evacuated the civilian population, then today there would have been no fatal flow of refugees on the territory of Belgium at all, and why would we have been preempted by the Germans and would not have had time to retreat from Brussels to the beaches? The more Churchill spoke, the angrier he became, and he couldn't help but roar loudly, "The Belgian government is also responsible for the collapse of the land war today." They have to pay for their short-sightedness and selfishness! ”

Aiden was silent. He knew that Churchill's mentality was already a little unbalanced, because the 250,000 expeditionary forces besieged in Belgium were too important for Britain at the moment: they were not only the backbone of the army, but also the only reliance on Britain to resist the German landing in the subsequent war.

Although Britain did not lack manpower, and it was easy to raise 2.5 million men after losing this group of troops, because Britain did not implement compulsory military service like Germany and France and other continental countries, and young people of school age generally did not receive military training, this led to the fact that its newly recruited soldiers had no combat proficiency at all.

If the combat effectiveness of the veterans in Germany and France is 100, and the newly recruited reservists can have 50, then the British recruits are the scum with a combat strength of only 5. After these people go to the battlefield, they will only be so frightened that they pee their pants and call their mothers, and it is simply impossible to expect them to be able to take charge on their own!

If this force were to be completely destroyed in Belgium, Britain would not be able to build another army capable of fighting tough battles for at least the next two years. Once the Germans landed on a large scale, the British baby army would have no resistance and could only be pushed all the way to North Scotland. At this time, the British Navy was already in decline, and even the North Sea was not capable of competing with Germany, and it was not empty talk that Germany would launch a landing operation from the sea!

After some catharsis, Churchill's mood finally calmed down a little. He froze, then turned to Aiden and asked, "That's right." How did the Cabinet respond to the issue of allowing the Air Force to deploy its own garrison troops to fight across the strait? Don't tell me they're all going to cling to those 30 squadrons now! ”

"Your Excellency, rest assured that the Cabinet has fully agreed to your proposal. At present, Marshal Dowding has assembled his planes at the airfield in the southeast, and tomorrow he will be able to launch large-scale support on the other side of the strait. Aiden paused, then added, "In addition, the Channel Fleet will also be dispatched at the same time. Although there were no heavy warships among them, even the 102 mm guns on the gunboats were able to inflict lethal casualties on the Germans occupying Dunkirk. ”

Churchill nodded silently. At the current critical juncture of the life and death of the British Expeditionary Force, the group of officials and men in China finally started to do their work, and then waited for the development of the situation. If all goes well, the expeditionary force will hopefully be able to buy itself four days to retreat, which will save more than half of its personnel.

The waning moon dimmed, the morning light gradually dispelled the darkness between heaven and earth, and in the early hours of May 26, before the sky was completely clear, the noisy sizzling of a large number of engines resounded over the Strait of Dover. Hundreds of British warplanes painted with rings flew over the blue sea and roared towards the port of Dunkirk; Following the failure of the air raid on the Maas River pontoon bridge on May 14, the British Air Force once again assembled a powerful flying echelon that would change the color of the German army!

At the same time, a large number of light fleets also split through the waves and sailed straight to shallow waters less than 6 kilometers from the continental shelf. More than 30 120-mm and 102-mm naval guns pointed diagonally at the sky, aiming at the predetermined targets on the shore. The British artillery support fleet was also declared in place. These ships can provide long-range suppressive firepower of about 1 division, which is definitely not to be underestimated at the level of land warfare. Accompanied by the sky-high flames caused by the bombs dropped by the planes, these naval guns immediately joined the thunder ensemble, and for a time the port of Dunkirk and the nearby beaches were filled with gunsmoke, and the air waves swept through, and the huge explosions continued like a tsunami raging, waving more than ten kilometers away.

Faced with the sudden heavy fire coverage, the officers and men of the German 1st Panzer Division guarding the harbor were not confused, they quickly found shelter to avoid air raids and shelling, and prepared for battle amid the loud shouts of the officers. On the orders of Rundstedt, the 1st Panzer Division had moved to the defensive after closing the encirclement yesterday; The whole division knew that the Allied forces were likely to jump over the wall and launch a last-ditch attempt to break through the coastal area that the Germans had just occupied. Although the enemy's fire suppression was somewhat excessive, it was far from being out of control for the Germans, and after nearly a day of repairing, they were fully confident that they would face any enemy!

After nearly an hour of bombardment, the anger from the British planes was finally almost vented. German soldiers climbed out of their bunkers in sporadic shells from the sea when they saw a wave of khaki sweeping in from the east. In order to recapture Dunkirk as soon as possible and carry out the retreat, the British army did not wait for the heavy artillery in the rear to arrive for deployment, and directly launched an attack with the existing forces. As far as the eye can see, there are as many as 10,000 British troops advancing in a straggler queue in the field, and more than a dozen tanks are mixed in it.

"Boom! Rumble! "Artillery fire roared, bullets were fired, and fierce battles began on the outskirts of the harbor. In contrast to the historical situation, it was the Germans who took the town to resist, while the British attacked the waterways in the wilderness, desperately storming the positions in front of them, almost at all costs.

According to the estimates of the top management in London, even if all went well, about 100,000 soldiers would not have time to evacuate from the sea, so the commander of the expeditionary force, Gordon, no longer cared about casualties, desperately urged the troops that had already arrived in Dunkirk to attack. With the popping sound of a series of bullets burrowing into the flesh, the British soldiers instantly spilled blood, and a large number of corpses gradually spread all over the center of the battlefield, the flesh and blood were blurred, and the intestines were rotten, as tragic as a slaughterhouse.

Knowing that Dunkirk was under attack, the command of German Army Group A quickly adopted a countermeasure. Hordes of Army fighters immediately took off from the front-line airfields to support the troops of the 1st Panzer Division, which was fighting fiercely; At the same time, Guderian was also actively adjusting his deployment, preparing for the 10th Panzer Division to carry out a flank assault on the enemy forces attacking Dunkirk. With the might of his armored forces, Guderian believed that this left hook would throw the enemy into disarray, and even if it could not encircle and annihilate, it would greatly contain the opponent and prevent him from attacking the frontal target with all his might.

At about 9 o'clock in the morning, the German army aviation was the first to arrive at the battlefield. At this time, the second wave of the British Air Force happened to fly near the coastline, and the two sides immediately began their first large-scale air encounter since the beginning of the war. Fighter planes rolled and roared, barrage pierced the sky, and Hurricanes and Spitfires repeatedly tangled with Messerschmidt-109E, whose dazzling circling maneuvers dazzled the soldiers on the ground, and they did not even dare to fire into the air again.

With neither German nor British willing to give up their grip on Dunkirk, the battle soon turned into a tug-of-war of attrition that lasted throughout the day. The German Army Aviation, which had three-quarters of the size of the historical Goering Air Force, still maintained a numerical advantage over the British Air Force at this time, and the Messerschmidt-109E fighters were matched by only a small number of British Spitfires; However, although the British Air Force was weak in hard power, their pilots had been recuperating at home for a long time, and at this time it suddenly broke out, and its attendance rate reached twice that of the German army, which greatly made up for the lack of aircraft number and performance.

After the air battle, it was extremely rare for the German army aviation not to overwhelm the enemy, but the Stukas were a little uncomfortable with the situation of the enemy in the sky, and were shot down nearly 20 planes in a row.

However, the situation was catastrophic for the British Army, which desperately needed to be evacuated from the sea. Due to the lack of air support, the British soldiers soon discovered that the German tanks in front of them were simply incomprehensible: their own armor-piercing weapons were of no use to them, while the latter, as a mobile point of fire, could inflict massive damage on their own soldiers with artillery and machine guns.

Although theoretically, the 40mm anti-tank guns used by the British army were able to penetrate the flank and rear armor of the Lynx tank, but now that the Germans are cowering around the harbor and the coast, where can the British soldiers have the conditions to go around the flanks? No matter how they rush, the British army can only gnaw this hard bone from the front!

After a day of fierce fighting, the British army was beaten to the ground, and the casualties exceeded 10,000, but their result was only less than 700 meters forward, and they did not even touch the town of Dunkirk. On top of that, the Germans had discovered the great power of their tanks in frontal defensive battles. Now that the Germans are blocking the main offensive passage with more than a dozen tanks and infantry, the British army is almost helpless; If you have to wait for the heavy artillery to catch up and smooth the opponent a little bit, then the daylily is cold, and now the British army lacks the most time!

In addition, the rapid response of the German 10th Panzer Division also made Gordon anxious. In order to quietly slip from the front line, the 10 divisions were not assembled into a single regiment, but were in a narrow state with obvious front and rear distribution, which led to the fact that he must now divide enough forces to cover the flanks, otherwise he would be cut off from the center by this German army. If you can't rush to the beach tomorrow, you will be really in danger, after all, the French and Belgians who were betrayed by themselves will definitely not be able to stop the German army for too long!

What Gordon didn't expect was that the Belgian reacted far more violently than he expected.