The German Army, with a total of 31 corps and 7 cavalry divisions, defeated the Netherlands and Belgium, and made a detour west of Paris through the coastal plain in an attempt to encircle and annihilate the main forces of the coalition forces on the Franco-Belgian border.

A real collision on the Western Front in Europe was coming, with 22 corps and 8 cavalry divisions of the coalition army unfolding on the line from Eitan to Landreux. Errors in pre-war intelligence alarmed the Allied command, and when the German Army poured into Belgium, the Allied forces realized that the opposing side had outnumbered them. The German forces in Belgium were far greater than those of the Allied forces, and in the absence of superiority, it was safest to shrink the defense.

However, the No. 17 plan drawn up by Xia Fei did not have any defensive content at all, and the coalition forces on the northeastern battlefield were still advancing in an offensive posture, trying to launch an offensive in a centrifugal direction. After the Liege Fortress was lost, Xia Fei urgently convened a military meeting at the headquarters of the coalition forces to discuss a new response strategy.

Just as the meeting was in session, another piece of bad news came, the German Third Army surrounded the Belgian capital Brussels, and seemed to have exhausted the courage to resist in areas such as the Derby border and Liège, and Belgian Prime Minister Sholart ordered Belgian soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender to the Germans. King Albert I and the royal family fled to England by ship from the port of Brügge, and set up a Belgian government-in-exile in London, and anyone with a discerning eye could see that the Belgians could not resist and simply surrendered, and the prime minister sent to Germany, and the royal family to the Entente, so that no matter which side won in the end, the Belgian country would not be implicated - the small European countries played a slippery game of both sides.

The successive defeats confusing the Allied command headquarters, so one of the biggest mistakes in the war was issued, the main force of the Allied forces was required to retreat to Eitan to the line of Landres West to set up defenses, and the French Third Army, which was going south to assist in the defense of Sedan, stopped its southward movement and returned to the Franco-Belgian border area to replenish the strength of the main forces of the Allied forces to resist the German attack.

The order soon showed its bad side, as the advancing Anglo-French forces were forced to turn around and go back, the soldiers were exhausted from running back and forth, and the supplies prepared for the attack slowed down the allied army's time to move. Behind, the forces of the two infantry corps in the forward line of the German Third Army were rapidly approaching the main forces of the coalition forces, trying to bite them. Exhaustion demoralized the Coalition soldiers, and to make matters worse, the Coalition forces on the front line of Eitan and Landresi did not have prepared fortifications in advance, and even if they could make a successful return, it would take time to build up their defenses.

The French government urgently asked the British to send more expeditionary forces, and a steady stream of British Army soldiers crossed the rough English Channel on transport ships, landed from Calais and joined the coalition forces, and in a short time the number of British expeditionary forces increased from 220,000 to 300,000.

The increase in the number of troops gave the Allied command some peace of mind, believing that when the main force of the German right flank hit the Allied defensive line headlong, it was the time when Germany lost the initiative in the war. Even the wise Xia Fei did not realize that the most critical place in the entire battlefield was not the Franco-Belgian border, but the Sedang in front of the Ardennes Forest.

Moltke Jr.'s corps was the biggest variable in Schlieffen's plan, and on March 19, the German 1st Panzer Division gathered supplies, prepared 115 tanks, three regiments of grenadiers, 105 artillery pieces, and more than 50 trucks.

The French did not expect the German soldiers to appear here, and the two French reserve infantry divisions defending it were not fully manned, and the total number was less than 15,000. In addition, these troops did not have sufficient weapons and ammunition, and even more so lacked the necessary artillery for defense, but there were two large arsenals in the city of Sedan, but the order from above required that these materials be used for the main forces of the coalition forces on the northern front, and the reserve divisions were not to be used, and even after reporting to the coalition command, they did not approve the opening of these arsenals to arm the two French divisions.

The chief of the operations department of the Allied Command in charge of this direction, Gan Molin, not only did not pay attention to it, but even thought that the defenders of Sedang were making a fuss and falsely reporting information, and also sent a telegram to reprimand the French commander there, and the most important thing was that he did not report the news of the appearance of German troops in Sedang to the Allied Command, but only sent another reserve division to support.

After a period of intense busyness, the young French soldiers finally came out of the barracks, collected their weapons and ammunition, and assembled, and had just entered the improvised trenches on the outskirts of Sedan, when the German tanks had already rushed up.

The German troops, without artillery preparations, without a tentative attack, came up and sent 50 tanks, which formed a line of skirmishers in front of Sedan, their guns pointed directly at the French positions in front, the tracks crushed the green grass, the smoke from the engines blackened the earth, and the rolling of the steel tracks was fierce and unstoppable.

Soon, more than fifty tanks broke through the first and last line of French defense without losing a single one, and the city of Sedan was not far ahead. The grenadiers who followed behind felt that the war was much simpler than expected, and they followed behind the tanks, and under the cover of machine guns, rushed into the French trenches, and after a short time the French completely lost the courage to resist and raised their hands in surrender. One grenadier regiment continued the attack with the tank units, the other two regiments extended along the trenches to the flanks, and by the time they entered the city of Sedan 1,200 French soldiers had been wiped out, more than 5,000 captured, and the Germans themselves had lost no more than a hundred.

The Germans, who were already short of troops, had to divide more than 500 soldiers to guard a large number of prisoners, and the method of guarding the prisoners in an emergency was very simple, more than 50 machine guns were aimed at the young French who were gathered together, and it was not until the end of the battle of Sedan that the German soldiers in charge of guarding them were relieved and uneasy.

When the tank unit reached more than 1,000 meters near the city, it was counterattacked by the French artillery in the city. German artillery also deployed, throwing shells at the city of Sedan. Four tanks were destroyed by French artillery, and three others broke down with their engines after a scrambled march and attack, and the remaining tanks and grenadiers rushed into the city of Sedan under French fire.

The French reserves, already frightened by the German tanks, finally collapsed at this time, their artillery could not stop the German attack, the infantry in the front line was easily crushed by the Germans, and the saddest thing was that the French lacked anti-tank weapons.

At this time, all countries, including Germany, lacked anti-tank weapons, and although there were samples in laboratories and military factories, very few were equipped to the army. The first is because of the lack of attention to tanks and extreme trust in the power of traditional infantry, and the second is the slow pace of equipment replacement when there is no war pressure. At this time, most of the French anti-tank weapons were placed in the troops on the German-French border, which were used to destroy the German tanks when accompanying the infantry attack, of course, they chose the wrong place.

Motivated to defend their homeland, many French soldiers rushed towards the German tanks with a bundle of grenades, most of them were killed by the course machine guns and the grenadiers who followed behind, and a few soldiers managed to rush in front of the tank, blowing up the tank tracks and forcing the tank to lose its ability to walk. Tanks are not the best weapon in street fighting, but will cause heavy losses, but fortunately, the resistance of the French in the city of Sedan is not fierce, they do not have the courage to hold on, under the continuous advance of the German army, finally retreated in the opposite direction, leaving the German army with a relatively intact Sedan town.

The French soldiers who had escaped were not lucky, and more than 50 German tanks, which had been waiting for a long time, suddenly appeared behind the fleeing French soldiers and attacked indiscriminately with tank guns and machine guns. In the wilderness, humans can run faster than shells and bullets, or as fast as tank tracks. Of the more than 3,000 French soldiers who tried to escape, more than 700 were unfortunately killed by tanks, most of the rest surrendered, and a few of the routs fled into the bushes or woods to escape capture.

The Germans did not continue to pursue the scattered routs, they had more important things to do. With insufficient troops, they had to take care of more than 8,000 French prisoners, maintain order in the city of Sedan, arrange defenses, repair tanks, clean up the battlefield, and count supplies. The need for manpower everywhere made the German commander feel overstretched, but two hours later the support of the 2nd Infantry Division of the 1st Panzer Army arrived, and the shortage of troops was alleviated.

Even happier were the two large arsenals, which were completely uncountable for a while, and the German soldiers were given enough ammunition, more artillery and tens of thousands of barrels of fuel, enough for the First Panzer Army to continue fighting for a long time.

Moltke Jr., who arrived soon after receiving the good news, was in a good mood, and he ordered an infantry regiment to escort the convoy to transport fuel for the armored troops in the rear that were still waiting to be resupplied, ordered the 3rd Infantry Corps to build a defense on the spot at Sedang, ordered the 5th Infantry Corps to go forward 15 kilometers to expand the depth of defense in the Sedan area, and ordered the 9th Cavalry Division to protect the right flank of Sedang. Once the 1st Panzer Army arrived, it was time for him to attack north, and the 2nd Panzer Army was also speeding through the Ardennes Forest, and they would greatly strengthen Moltke's attack.

The news of the loss of Sedan finally reached the Allied Command, and the frightened Xia Fei ordered to investigate, and the chief of the Operations Department, Gan Molin, who had concealed the news, was dismissed, and ordered the reserve infantry division that went to support to wait for the Fifth Reserve Army, which was coming to support in the direction of Paris, to join up with it and attack Sedan together. Until this time, Xia Fei did not consider the German army in the direction of Sedang to be one of his main forces, and under the persuasion of his staff officers, he reluctantly pulled another cavalry division from the south to support. (To be continued.) )