On the 7th day of the German offensive against Poland, the entire western defense line of the Polish army was completely eroded.

To the north, the German Army Group North was in the von Ferns. Under the command of General Bock, on the first day of the orderly breakthrough of the Danzig corridor and the convergence of the infantry battle groups of East Prussia. Subsequently, the 3rd Army and the 4th Army of Army Group North launched an assault on the east side of the Vistula River in East Prussia and East Pomerania respectively, annihilating two infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades that the Polish High Command had originally intended to attack East Prussia.

According to the information provided by Reinhardt, Army Group North annihilated the elite troops of two divisions and two cavalry brigades in the Polish front through preemptive means, breaking the original strategic objective of the Polish high command in one fell swoop.

As a result, the Polish High Command's attempt to shorten the line of defense by occupying East Prussia was completely frustrated, and the Polish army in the north was unable to construct a coherent new line of defense in the short term.

In the south, Manstein's plan was a great success. The 14th Motorized Corps under Army Group South cut off the retreat of the main Polish forces around Radom in one fell swoop according to the route laid out by Manstein in advance, completing the first army-level encirclement in the whole campaign. In the next 3 days, through step-by-step compression, a main Polish army group in the encirclement was completely annihilated.

By the end of the battle, Army Group South had captured 60,000 Polish officers and soldiers, captured 130 artillery pieces, and annihilated 7 main Polish divisions. The price paid by Army Group South was only the death of more than 400 officers and men, and the wounding of more than 1,200 officers and men.

Army Group South was able to achieve such a beautiful ratio of battle losses, on the one hand, thanks to Manstein's frequent mobilization of German elite armored forces to fight out the cavalry divisions of the Polish army for charging, which reduced the pressure on the front-line infantry; On the other hand, it is also due to the fact that the Luftwaffe wrestled air supremacy from the Polish Air Force, so that it was able to frequently support the infantry and unilaterally slaughter the Polish Army.

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"It's only been a week before the Germans have completely broken through our carefully arranged defenses on the Western Front! How do you generals command the troops? 200,000 people, we lost 200,000 out-and-out elite divisions! Even if it was 200,000 pigs, the Germans would have to catch them for several days! As a result, you guys are so easy to lose 200,000 main forces and a large area of land! ”

As the supreme military commander of the Polish High Command, Marshal Smiegre was furious with a group of generals under him.

The situation on the Eastern Front, which had worried Smigre, was stabilized with a reinforcement of no more than 100,000 men at the suggestion of Major General Béronte of the French officer corps.

And the Western Front, which had a heavy army at the beginning, is now losing and retreating, and the army is defeated.

More than 500 of the most advanced fighters in Poland were wiped out by the Luftwaffe on the first day of the war. There are more than 100 old fighters from the First World War left, and even if they are taken out, it is estimated that they will not play a role.

The Air Force was beaten as a "turkey" by the Germans because of the low performance of the airframe and the quality of the pilots. The army was even more crushed into a "soil dog" by the German armored forces because of its outdated operational thinking.

Because the backward and conservative Polish army hardly knew the great changes in the outside military, let alone the great power of the tanks used by the German army, it still stubbornly believed that it was in an era when cavalry could do everything. On the battlefield, the Polish soldiers even thought that the armor of the German tanks was nothing more than camouflage made of tinplates.

Smigre heard that many Polish cavalrymen with white gloves and long sabers from the front swarmed up and launched a fierce assault on the German tanks with sabers and spears in their hands. However, after a burst of machine-gun fire from the German tanks, the cavalry all lay down.

Regarding the rumors of such a stupid charge of the Polish cavalry, Belante from France was even more surprised and speechless. He could even imagine the scene: the majestic Polish cavalry swept like a violent wind, and the sound of horses' hooves and shouts of killing suddenly became loud. Then, under the strafing fire of the German tanks, the cavalry fell down in rows, almost none of them could get close to the tanks, the front ones fell, and the rear ones made up again, and then the Germans in the tanks were very happy to kill one after another, row after row.

You can't fight like this! Although this was not his own army, Berente, who had seen much more than the Polish generals, knew that no matter how heroic the troops would be able to do so, he would not allow this one-sided situation to continue.

"Does General Belante have any insights?" Seeing that Béronte had some insights, Smigre immediately pinned his hopes on this young French general who plotted for the Polish army and successfully resisted the torrent of the Soviet army.

Since the Polish generals are short-sighted waste, it is better to rely on this excellent major general from France. At least others have proven their talents with a successful plan to stop the Soviet army, and these generals in the country have not yet come up with a decent plan.

"The situation is not optimistic." After taking two French staff officers to look at the battle diagram for a while, Berante suddenly said: "The border defenders will collapse at the first touch, and the cavalry that launched a counterattack has suffered great losses because they do not understand the performance of tanks. Now it is almost impossible to reorganize the line of defense on the Eastern Front! ”

Bironte's words were like a bolt from the blue, and Marshal Smigre was sweating profusely. Although the defeat of the Polish army in the battle in the Radom area was revealed, Smigre still hoped that Berente, a general from the "first army power in Europe", would see some victory that he did not see, even if it was just to find a new line of defense to regain a foothold.

Smigre sighed secretly, even Bironte, who had always been conceited, now seemed to be unable to find a way to turn defeat into victory........ Who in Poland still has the ability to save the situation?

"The man in the German command who made the plan, he did have two brushes, and I admit that he was a formidable opponent." Belant still looked at the red and blue diagram on the wall, and said slowly: "He counted every strategic point behind the old line of defense that the Polish army needed to build a new line, and quickly occupied those points with his mobile troops, so that even if the Polish army stopped retreating immediately, it would not be able to build a continuous defense line." ”

"Still, he's missing a bit......." Belante suddenly raised his decibels, laughing.

Seeing this scene, the eyes of everyone present sparkled with excitement, and they were engrossed in anticipation of Belante's next sentence.

"To halt the German offensive, it is not necessary to build a defensive line. The Polish army now only needs to quickly mobilize Posen's 8th Army to the southeast, and regain the initiative through a successful counter-assault. The commander of the German Army Group South must not have imagined that we would concentrate our efforts on cleaning them up first. When we interrupt their original plan and master the rhythm of the war, the situation will naturally improve! "Bironte, the French major general, is actually issuing instructions to a group of Polish lieutenant generals at this moment.

Unusually, these Polish generals, who were a cut above Berente's rank, did not feel anything wrong. They were completely impressed by the talent that Belente had previously displayed, and began to identify with the French star Petain from the bottom of their hearts.

It's just that they don't know that the German opponent that Belante has in mind, Manstein, who developed the battle plan for Army Group South, is not a commander who can only follow the rules step by step. Breaking Manstein's original assumption does not mean that the situation will get better!