The German armored clusters drove straight in, and their power and speed were unheard of in the history of warfare. France was in a panic. In the early morning of May 15, 1940, French Prime Minister Paul ? Renault frustrated to give only 5 days ago to replace Neville? Winston with Chamberlain as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? Churchill called:

"I'm afraid we're going to lose this battle."

Churchill was stunned and asked:

"I simply don't understand that an attack with a large number of rapid armored units would cause such a drastic change."

In order to further understand the facts of the war situation and to cheer up the already desperate French leaders, Churchill flew from London to Paris on May 16, 1940. Churchill met at the airport with some of the leaders of France, such as French Prime Minister Renaud and the Anglo-French Allied Commander-in-Chief Gammerin.

Churchill immediately realised that the situation was much worse than he had imagined - each of them had a gray face, and Churchill asked Ganmalin:

"Where are the strategic reserves?"

Gammelin shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and said:

"There are no strategic reserves"

After hearing this, Churchill was simply dumbfounded, he didn't know what to say, originally Churchill was still hesitating whether to start the "generator plan" immediately, now it seems that there is no need to hesitate, the will of the French to resist has begun to collapse from the top, and there is no worse situation than this.

……

The speed of Rommel's 7th Panzer Division's advance not only caught the Allies by surprise, but also unnerved the German High Command and Army Group A, who were afraid that the 7th Panzer Division would be dumpled by the British and French forces, and now that victory was in sight, they hoped that Rommel would not take any risks, and the telegram ordering Rommel to stop the advance was soon delivered to Rommel.

The city government of Arras had become Rommel's command post, and Rommel, who had been ordered to stop the advance, was circling around the command post, and beside him were the deputy division commander Bismarck, the commander of the 25th Panzer Regiment, Luxemburg, and the chief of staff, Hans, and the telegram ordering Rommel to stop the advance was passed on to several people.

Rommel dazzled several of them, and Hans, the chief of staff, couldn't help but ask:

"Division commander, this is the Führer's order, let's just execute the order, otherwise what else can we do?"

"What about the opinions of the other brothers?"

After Rommel asked, he circled around the command post with his hands behind his back, in fact, his Rommel heart was also fiercely fighting, whether to disobey or not to disobey, this question stumped Rommel.

Disobedience is to continue to storm Dunkirk, but the strength of one of his divisions is too weak, and Guderian must be pulled in to disobey the order, and only a few armored divisions can attack Dunkirk together to take Dunkirk.

Rommel is not sure if his brother Guderian will go with him to kill his head, and the two of them also need to convince Reinhardt, the commander of the 41st Panzer Army, that the future is uncertain! It's so hard to even disobey, can Rommel not be in a hurry to turn around?

Watching dozens of divisions of the Anglo-French coalition retreat safely from under their noses, Britain has the confidence to stick to their homeland, otherwise they can only platoon recruits with no combat experience to send them to death.

Rommel's brothers, you look at me, I look at you, and finally everyone said in unison:

"We listen to the division commander, and we all remember that the division commander once said, take us from victory to victory."

Listening to this, I couldn't imagine that winning the battle with these stubborn Germans could have this effect, and Rommel unknowingly gained the loyalty of several of his brothers, yes, yes.

In this case, Rommel was not polite, and he immediately contacted Guderian, who was more than 50 kilometers away from his left flank, by telegram, and Rommel made in detail why he wanted to take Dunkirk -- he must not allow the Anglo-French troops to escape from the sea.

Of course, Guderian knew that the British had a strong home fleet, and if the British really wanted to retreat from the sea, Germany really couldn't stop it, and the only way was to take the port of Dunkirk.

Guderian was already dissatisfied with the order to stop the advance, and he also planned to disobey the order, but his brother Rommel first sent a telegram asking for disobedience, and the two hit it off.

As for Reinhardt of the 41st Panzer Corps, he was reluctant to disobey, but he agreed to put his two Panzer Divisions in the back road of Rommel and them, and help Rommel and Guderian watch the back road. Rommel and Guderian felt that this arrangement would be fine, and in case the attack did not go well, they could safely retreat.

Guderian, who decided to disobey his orders, immediately led his armored fifteenth army towards Arras, and his speed was even faster than before, so that when he encountered a group of scattered French soldiers on the road, he did not want to delay in getting out of the car to take prisoners, and only shouted with a megaphone: "We have no time to take you prisoners, you must lay down your arms and leave the road, so as not to get in the way." ”

On May 16, 1940, Guderian urged his three Panzer Divisions to move westward, aiming to reach the Dunkirk area on the eastern shore of the English Channel.

Guderian swept through Amiens and reached the English Channel near Abbeville. At this time, the German high command did not expect that the battle in France would go so smoothly, so it did not know how to deploy troops for a while. It was not until the next day that they gave the order to the tank troops: to advance north from Abweyl.

Guderian and Rommel knew that the line of attack from Sedan to the west coast of France, formed by his Army Group A, had cut off the retreat of the French army from the north to the south. To the north, Bock's Army Group B had captured the Netherlands and eastern Belgium, and the left flank of the main Anglo-French Allied forces of 87 divisions was in fact surrounded by the Germans.

The only hope of escape is in the northern French seaports, including Dunkirk. Therefore, he must quickly occupy these seaports in order to completely cut off the other side's sea retreat.

On the morning of May 17, 1940, Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps had reached Arras, and Reinhardt's 41st Panzer Corps, on its right flank, had also reached the line of the Graflin Canal, more than 20 kilometers from Arras.

Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps joined Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, and the four of Germany's most elite Panzer Divisions could take Dunkirk with a little more effort, and dozens of infantry divisions followed.

Rommel and Guderian were determined to lead their armored forces in another encirclement battle to wipe out hundreds of thousands of British and French troops in the coastal area.

Just as Rommel and Guderian were gathering their forces to attack Dunkirk, the High Command sent another telegram with an order to stop their advance, saying:

"The enemy of Dunkirk will be left to the air force of Marshal Goering to settle it".

Immediately after receiving the order, Guderian sent a telegram to Brünburg to question and protest, but received the final reply:

"This is an order from the Führer himself, and it must be carried out."

[Thank you brothers for the reward, please brothers don't waste recommendation votes, vote for fallen leaves every day, and be grateful.] 】

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