It was the commander of the British Expeditionary Force that Gott had come to the aid of Gammelin. When he learned that the French central line had been torn open by a large number of German tanks, Gort immediately felt that the situation was serious and that he had to deal with it at the first opportunity.

In fact, as early as the days of sit-down warfare in the past few months, Gort had been worried about the threat from the Ardennes direction. Because the forces deployed by the French here were too shabby, they relied on only nine second-rate divisions with less than 9 men to defend a nearly 50-kilometer-long front, which could not be resisted by the main German forces. However, in the face of the confident French army leaders, Gott couldn't say much: the British Expeditionary Force under his command only had 10 divisions, while the French army had 100 divisions.

In addition, for the problem of weak defense in the middle of the French front, Gort actually felt guilty. Because if you read it from a strategic level, Britain itself will also bear 40% of the blame.

Today, the war has been going on for 9 months, but Britain, as the big brother of the anti-German resistance, has only sent 10 divisions to the European continent, which is simply unimaginable compared with the data of the same period in the last war. If Britain had sent 30 divisions to France, even if the other 20 were reserves, the Coalition would not have been as tight as it is now. And the defense of the Ardennes will inevitably be greatly improved, and the strength of the 9th Army will be increased by at least half.

Because of this, Gott knew that the French had been dissatisfied with Britain for a long time. The war has been fought to this day, and the coalition forces have not won a single victory: Britain lost its fleet first and then Norway, burying the situation in a mess, and now the land war is unwilling to work hard, and it is strange that France can give Britain a good look. Knowing that he was in an awkward position, Goth kept a fairly low profile until the evening of May 13, when Goth realized that he could no longer remain silent. He must act to close the potentially unprecedented hole in the French front.

Although Gort's army was in Belgium at this time, he also had a direct aviation unit that could be used at any time to cross a distance of more than 200 kilometers. To cover this valuable expeditionary force, the British Air Force stationed 1 air force in France with a total of 474 combat aircraft. Faced with the mortal threat of the collapse of the French Central Front, Gort could no longer hide his secrets, and he assured Gamblerin that the British Air Force would fully cooperate with the French Air Force and would blow up all the pontoon bridges over the Maas River in tomorrow's air raid.

In the early morning of 14 May, before dawn broke, the field airfields on the coalition front were already roaring, and planes carrying bombs rose into the air and whizzed away in the direction of Sedang. Realizing the unprecedented threat in the middle of the line, the two had no reservations, and overnight gathered all the bombers they could mobilize, and the pilots were told that the German pontoon bridges must be destroyed at all costs. At about 7 o'clock in the morning, a huge roar sounded in the sky over Sedang, and the coalition planes, which were rarely seen on the battlefield before, suddenly filled the entire sky, like a dark cloud, and rushed towards the three pontoon bridges that were passing through the troops in large numbers!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Suddenly, the two sides of the Maas River shook and exploded, and the German anti-aircraft guns that had just been deployed here last night immediately let out a continuous roar and roar, and countless orange-red light clusters bloomed densely on both sides of the pontoon bridge, like a cluster of flowers, magnificent and dazzling. In the face of this deadly and dangerous barrage, the British and French pilots, who were well aware of the importance of the pontoon bridge in front of them, forgot their lives and died, and desperately dived down to drop bombs. The waters of the Maas River suddenly rushed into the sky, surging and surging in a thrilling way as if the ocean was trembling.

The luck of the Germans was just too good. Coalition bombs continued to stir up rolling waves around the pontoon bridge, and the fragments of several of them even swept down a river crossing soldier on the bridge, but none of them directly hit. On the contrary, in order to accurately drop bombs, coalition planes had to fly in a straight line at low altitude and low speed to break through the German anti-aircraft fire network, which made them the most ideal human targets for the German army, and were frantically harvested by ground anti-aircraft fire with ultra-high efficiency that is unimaginable under normal circumstances. In the sights of the German gunners, one after another Allied planes dragged thick smoke from a high altitude one after another, which used to be an unattainable result, but now it has become readily available!

After the first wave of attacks, as many as 40 coalition aircraft were shot down. Facing the pontoon, which was still intact, the red-eyed French urged their British comrades to launch a second and third wave of attacks. This time, not only bombers, but also fighter planes were put on bombs and lifted into the air to carry out bomb dropping missions. Not to be outdone, the German army aviation immediately sent a large number of fighters to intercept it. During the day, the ground shook over the Maas River, and the main German forces on the ground continued to pass swiftly over the pontoon bridges in the face of bullets and bullets from Allied aircraft.

In this air raid, the coalition pilots showed unimaginable bravery. Despite the rain of German anti-aircraft artillery, they persevered towards the pontoon, and some pilots continued to drop their bombs even after the plane was shot. In addition, only a very small number of the destroyed coalition planes fell on both sides of the river, and the rest all plunged headlong into the river, literally falling on the way to the charge.

However, luck cruelly did not favor these warriors who sacrificed their lives and forgot to die. The battle lasted until dusk, when the last British planes were defeated, and after a count, the Allies painfully found that they had lost more than 200 planes in total, and countless were damaged. Gott sadly claimed to Gammelin that only 206 of the British Expeditionary Force's 474 aircraft were now at their disposal. But their result was only to blow a pontoon bridge out of a gap more than ten meters long, and it took only half an hour for the German sappers to repair it.

The coalition air raid was a complete failure, and it was Guderian's turn to show his strength. After a day and night of rushing to cross, the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions under the command of the 19th Panzer Corps crossed the Maas River, and Guderian immediately ordered them to attack westward with full force and mercury. Guderian had only one command for the two division commanders: the tanks should not stop at any time until the last drop of gasoline was exhausted. By this time, night had fallen, but the German army's interspersed advance was still sharp and sharp, and the roar of engines and gunfire explosions spread all over the field, making the whole world into noise and sleeplessness.

That night was one of the fiercest battles ever experienced by the German panzers. The commander of the French 9th Army, Clapp, received a strict order from Ganmalin to devote all personnel, including his own guards, to the counteroffensive, while the Germans were to smash open the door to the English Channel, and the two sides launched a desperate attack on a front tens of kilometers long. White flares rose up, illuminating the ruins, craters, corpses, and debris, and in some places, the German and French armies fought over each other, repeatedly sawing and seesawing, and the ground beneath their feet was red with blood, like mud and sticky.

At this stage of the battle, the quality of the personnel on both sides gradually dominated the victory. The German Panzer Divisions that broke through the Maas River were the core elite, and the training on the Polish battlefield made them like swords out of the sheath; However, most of the French troops were reserve officers and soldiers, and they had not experienced actual combat, and after a long time, they were quickly overwhelmed by the other side and had to retreat backwards. By the early hours of the 15th, the French army was losing everywhere, and Clapp stayed in the command post, looking at the map with increasingly anxious and haggard eyes.

According to the summary of battle reports sent back from the front, the situation of the 9th Army was already extremely bad. In the direction of Dinan, the colonial soldiers of the 4th North African Division ran out, which directly led to the complete collapse of the French front in this section, and they were no longer able to stop the advance of Rommel's department.

Before the war, the French Army's top brass had high hopes for these strong and powerful black soldiers, but their actual combat performance was simply desperate, and the collapse of the defense line in the Dinan area was to blame them. As soon as the German bombers attacked, the soldiers would immediately kneel, throw their weapons aside, and mumble incantations.

In fact, this can't be completely blamed on these black uncles, after all, they are too primitive, and they haven't seen much cars, let alone airplanes. When the black uncles were rushed by the tanks that were not afraid of bullets, their will to resist completely collapsed, and they fled to the rear without their lives. This act of fleeing from the battle also broke the fighting spirit of the approaching French army, which also began to flee for their lives.

In Sedan and Montame to the south, although the French army was still gritting their teeth and insisting on fighting, the depth of the defensive line had been penetrated by German tanks. If this continued development, the French army in these areas would sooner or later be divided and swallowed up by the enemy. At this time, the latest reinforcements of the French army were still 60 kilometers away, and they could not be put into battle for less than one and a half days. Clapp realized that the Maas line could no longer hold on, and that his troops had to retreat and establish new positions in the rear.

According to Clapp's intentions, what the 9th Army needed was time to regroup its forces with a sigh of relief. Therefore, he did not intend to withdraw far, but only prepared to retreat about 20 kilometers to establish a new defensive line starting from the village of Philip Weil. While this would inevitably double the rift that the Germans had torn apart and make the situation more difficult to manage, it was better than annihilating the 9th Army. As a veteran general, Clapp was very familiar with this short retreat, and knew exactly how each division under his command should act.

However, Clapp, who has calculated everything, has only missed one thing - morale. This should have been the last thing that the French army lacked, but at this time it became the trigger for the collapse of the 9th Army and even the whole of France.