At 4 p.m., a transport plane slowly descended from the rain over the airport on the northern outskirts of the city.

Churchill stepped out of the hatch, and the cold droplets of water immediately made him face, but Churchill completely ignored the attendant behind him who wanted to hold an umbrella for him, and strode straight towards Sir Roth, the British ambassador to France, who came to greet him. Seeing the Prime Minister who had arrived with a few dignitaries of the Empire, Ambassador Roth felt a trace of bitterness in his heart, and after shaking hands with Churchill, he said: "Please report back to you when you go to the embassy for the specific situation." However, it is expected that the Germans will enter Paris in a few days at most. ”

The car hummed and carried Churchill, who frowned, into the city, and after listening to the reports of several military attachés, Churchill finally understood the situation of the battle at this moment. It turned out that on the Belgian front, the main force of the coalition forces was not shaken, but in the Ardennes area in the middle of the front, the German offensive was like a tsunami frenzy, and the French army defending this section had been completely routed. Churchill, who learned that the main force of the coalition was still alive, looked a little gloomy, and immediately rushed to the French Foreign Ministry without stopping. In his understanding, the French should have already had a way to deal with it, after all, this situation the French experienced several times during the world war, so they would not be defeated like this.

The white walls are clean, the trees are green, and the courtyard of the French Foreign Office is as elegant and quiet as he remembers, but when Churchill stepped through the door, he found several large flames burning in the central clearing, thick black smoke and choking smell rising from the rain. Seven or eight French officials pushed carts and dumped stacks of papers into the fire, their faces full of haste and panic, as if they were about to evacuate from here.

Churchill walked slightly, and an ominous premonition rose again in his heart. Walking into an elaborate room, Churchill finally saw the French Prime Minister Renaud, whom he wanted to meet on his trip. Next to Renault, there were also French Defense Ministers Daladier and Army Commander-in-Chief Gammerin. At this time, several high-ranking French officials were in place as if they had lost their souls, and when they saw Churchill appear, none of them took care of etiquette and invited their allies from afar to sit down and discuss.

There was a solemn atmosphere in the room, and time seemed to freeze at this moment, and the Englishman standing in the doorway and the Frenchman inside stared at each other blankly, only the sound of a rustling rain echoed in their ears. I don't know how long it took for Gan Molin, as the commander of the army, to break his silence. He briefly told Churchill about the situation of the war, the content of which was similar to what Churchill had learned from the British military attache in France, but the difference was that Gammel mentioned that in the rear of the German armored forces, there were 8~10 fully mechanized divisions advancing rapidly. These troops struck on the left and right flanks, tearing apart the French army's crumbling central defense line like crab claws.

“…… At present, the Germans were rushing at full speed towards Amiens and Arras, apparently with the aim of advancing to the sea and cutting off the Allied retreat deep into Belgium. Otherwise, point to Paris. Gammel said slowly, outlining Churchill's current front in front of a set up map. Churchill, though he didn't know much about land warfare, sensed something was wrong from the salient in the middle of the line, which clearly penetrated deep into the heart of France: the Germans were only about 100 kilometers from Paris, but now it was only a few days before the land war began.

"Where are the strategic reserves?" Churchill suddenly asked the Frenchman in front of him. Gan Molin's heart was bitter, why didn't he send a reserve team to try to plug the gap? However, the torrent of refugees had formed an unstoppable torrent of dominoes in the middle of the front, and the French reinforcements would be dispersed as soon as they approached, and in turn would become part of the rout. For this reason, France even took the elite 1st Panzer Division into it, and now it is undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire and filling the bottomless pit in vain!

Gan Molin's lips furled, and after a moment of silence, he responded, "Not a single one." We are inferior in numbers, equipment, and methods, and it is impossible to plug this gap. Churchill's eyes were shocked in disbelief, and his fat body shook, almost faint and falling. Churchill gritted his teeth and walked slowly to the map to stare at it, no matter what, he could not give up hope of fighting.

"Counterattack, we should counterattack." Churchill pointed to the map and said with a determined expression, "The breach of the Maas line is serious, but not fatal. Things may be bad, but by no means irretrievable. Between 1914 and 1918, there were many breakthroughs, but all of them were blocked. Even in 1914, when the German army was only 20 kilometers from Paris, didn't we withstand it? Based on past experience, this offensive of the Germans will not last long, at most 1-2 days, they will definitely stop advancing, and then it will be the moment of our counteroffensive! ”

Listening to these generous remarks based on emotion, Gan Molin's desperate heart, which was already a pool of stagnant water, actually rippled a little. Yes, now that the German army in the Middle Road has penetrated deep into the heart of France, supplies must be insufficient; And their flanks were not stable, because the large number of infantry could not have the mobility of mechanized troops, and the German army in the center was now advancing on the front of the dozen divisions.

If he had been a German commander, he would never have let the threat from both flanks exist. I am afraid that it will not be long before the German army in the center will stop on its own and wait for the follow-up infantry and baggage teams to catch up, and the French army, which is currently in a panic and retreating, will also have a precious respite!

"If we are going to carry out a counterattack, then our troops must move quickly, and do not give the follow-up German infantry time to reach the front......" Ganmalin said slowly in a deep groan, his gradually perked up demeanor that made Churchill's heart feel a little calm. However, before Churchill could relax, he saw Gamblerin cast a earnest gaze and said, "But to carry out this operation, the force we lack the most is the air force." Due to the constant bombing by German aircraft, the build-up of our troops was now in question, and the morale of the troops had fallen to the lowest point. Now that our air force has been depleted on the Maas River, and you still have 40 air squadrons on your homeland, I implore you to provide full air support. ”

Churchill's expression suddenly became a little strange, and his determined and tenacious expression gradually became weak and embarrassed, and the eyes of several military and political dignitaries standing behind him also flashed, full of shame that they had been peeled off the skin.

In supporting France in the war, Britain was indeed very selfish and stingy. With nearly 1,500 combat aircraft, the Royal Air Force has sent only a fraction of its strength to France, but it still retains as much as two-thirds of its strength on its own soil. At this moment, only a small number of these planes deployed on the British mainland are on reconnaissance and combat missions, and the vast majority of them are parked on the tarmac to bask in the sun. In fact, this situation is very normal: in order to defeat France, Germany has already used all its strength to feed, and even the aircraft carrier aircraft has been transferred to land to participate in the war, where is the time to manage Great Britain across the Channel?

But the old bureaucrats who dominated the British Cabinet did not see it that way. In their eyes, one German plane flew over Britain and dropped a bomb, which was worse than the death of their own mother. To do this, they would rather leave more than a thousand pilots on their home soil and do nothing than pull out a single hair to help their allies. At this time, in the face of Ganmalin's request, Churchill, who had put forward his own counterattack proposal, could only agree to it, and Churchill had no choice but to beg the cabinet bureaucrats like Sun Tzu to let them spit out some troops to kill the French.

As the meeting gradually shifted to a purely military level, Churchill could not say anything, so he withdrew from the meeting early, hurried back to the embassy and sent a telegram to the cabinet asking for reinforcements for the air force. Churchill was becoming more and more optimistic at this time, for the British and French generals believed that the German onslaught in the center would be slowed down or suspended for a day or two to wait for the infantry and logistics forces to catch up. The worst outcome would be to lose large swathes of territory to the Germans, and as long as the front could be stabilized, the war would be far from a moment of despair.

To be sure, this judgment of Gammelin is not intellectually weak. As early as the previous day, on the evening of May 15, the commander of the German armored group, Kleist, had ordered the front-line troops in the frenzy to immediately turn to the defense to cover the subsequent personnel crossing the river. In addition, Kleist also drew a line on the map, which he called the "bridgehead position range". Whoever dares to cross this line will be given a good look.

If it were replaced by other German generals, Gammelin's prediction had already come true, but this time the opponent of the French was Guderian, who was the god of fighting in the whole of Europe and even the world at this time. Not only did he completely control the mystical essence of armored blitzkrieg, but he also dared to roar at his superiors, completely ignoring the oppression of the rank order.

After receiving this order, Guderian immediately jumped and scolded Kleist for being blind in command, and he immediately made a phone call, and demanded in a strong tone that the latter withdraw his order. Guderian insisted that it was precisely because the enemy reinforcements were arriving that it was necessary to launch a rapid attack, using the maneuver and assault power of tanks and aircraft to destroy the enemy's main force and prevent it from cohesive and effective operations.

After more than half an hour of foaming phone arguing, Kleist gradually ran out of words, and finally reluctantly took a step back. He agreed that Guderian should continue his 24-hour armed reconnaissance, and soon the order was passed on to the rest of the troops. Guderian immediately pinched the chicken feathers as an arrow, and used all three of his armored divisions to launch a "reconnaissance" in the direction of the English Channel, and Rommel on the northern flank also learned the same and led the 7th Panzer Division to pounce towards the heart of France.

The commander of Army Group A, Rundstedt, was an old man and realized that Guderian would definitely play some tricks, but after carefully studying the situation, Rundstedt pretended not to know and allowed the François-like general to carry out his blitzkrieg idea to his heart's content.

[Note]: François, general of the Eastern Front of the German Army in World War I. In the Battle of Tannenberg, it was he who twice ignored Ludendorff's orders and led the 1st Army straight to the deep rear of the Russian army, which enabled the German army to win a great victory in the total annihilation of the Russian 2nd Army.