The French had no idea that the German-Austrian army would choose the rugged and precipitous Vosges Mountains as their main point of attack, where the French top brass had only five divisions and less than 80,000 troops. Moreover, since the reserves were transferred to the Somme line, when the Maas line was breached, there was no way to send reserves to quickly reinforce to plug the gap.

The 7th Panzer Division had only the 57th Panzer Battalion crossing the river in one night. Lieutenant Colonel Schell continued to lead the force into the French depths. Shortly before noon, Lieutenant Colonel Schell reported that they were being held back by French troops at Nashato on the east bank of the Meuse. After about twenty minutes, Sher reported that they were surrounded in Nashato.

General Herzog ordered Colonel Luxembourg to lead the 18th Mechanized Infantry Regiment and the 58th Panzer Battalion, which had already crossed the river, to urgently reinforce Nashato. An hour and a half later, Colonel Luxembourg arrived in Neussato only to find out that it had been a false alarm. The 57th Panzer Battalion did meet the French resistance, but in the face of tank attacks, the French quickly broke up and fled, abandoning Nashato. Scheer's report to the division headquarters was that he had reached Nashato. In German, the words "arrival" and "surrounded" were mistranslated by the translator due to the same root.

Now the Austro-Hungarian avant-garde troops have broken through to more than 60 kilometers from the defense line on the Maas River.

At the same time that the 7th Panzer Division began to cross the river, the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions and the 39th Army, which belonged to the 7th Army, also began to cross the Maas River and began to march towards the Champagne Plain, while the German 9th Army also broke through the Maas line defended by the French and was attacking Baledik.

The German 4th Army, on the other hand, had a large number of French defenders in this area due to the proximity of the crossing to Verdun, and still did not make progress after a day and a half of strong attack.

The entire French line of defense on the upper reaches of the Maas River was now in shambles, and General Castenor, the commander-in-chief in charge of the defense of the Eastern Front, had asked the commander-in-chief, Pétain, for reinforcements, and the commander-in-chief, who had just returned to Paris, had him hold on to Verdun, and he was mobilizing his forces and would surely deal a heavy blow to the enemy. As for the large number of tank forces of the enemy mentioned by Casteno, the commander-in-chief did not believe that this would cause the collapse of the entire line of defense. He believed that it would be impossible to stop the breakthrough of tank units in depth, but even if these tanks broke through, it would not be much of a problem. What is the use of these tanks even if they drive into town? The enemy's tanks needed to be refueled, and their tank crews were subjected to fire from the defending infantry if they left the tanks. If they don't get food, water and fuel, the tanks are useless.

But in fact the French soldiers were not as calm as their commander-in-chief had hoped, and when they encountered enemy tanks which they could not damage at all, they panicked and fled in all directions, making it impossible to organize an effective counterattack as their commander-in-chief had envisioned.

By this time, the German-Austrian army had already successfully crossed the Maas River with five panzer divisions and two infantry corps, and began to penetrate rapidly in depth, disrupting the entire French defense. Half of the 37 French divisions defending the Maas line had collapsed, and more than half of the remaining troops were held to the fortress of Verdun under the command of General Casteno.

More than half of the Austro-Hungarian 7th Army has now crossed the Maas River, and the subsequent 3rd and 4th armies have also begun preparations to cross the river, and their Panzer Division has also crossed the river in advance, and together with the 7th Panzer Division, they have begun to advance rapidly to the line of the Saône, aiming directly at Paris.

The 39th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Miller, followed closely behind the armored forces, and they advanced rapidly along the path carved out by the tanks and armored vehicles of the 7th Panzer Division in the mountains and forests. Along the way, the ground could be seen littered with tracks, some trees had been cleared by tanks or construction vehicles that had opened the road, and the road was lined with broken and broken trunks.

Occasionally, small groups of infantry left behind by the 7th Panzer Division could be seen on the roadside, guarding the French soldiers captured by the Panzer Corps, waiting for the follow-up troops to receive them.

More than 30,000 French troops were captured along the way from Epinale to Neuzato, and perhaps because he was tired of the war, Lieutenant General Miller was surprised to find many French infantry unguarded, and they gathered on the side of the road, expressionless, silently waiting for themselves to be captured by the enemy.

Lieutenant General Miller's vehicle passed by the French soldier, which worried the adjutant, and if any French soldier suddenly had the courage to pick up his rifle and look at the lieutenant general, General Miller would most likely become the highest-ranking officer killed on the Austro-Hungarian side since the outbreak of the war.

The engineering vehicles of the 7th Panzer Division shoveled through the woods and carved out several narrow roads in the mountain woodland, which were filled with the sound of trees falling to the ground. The entire armored division lined up in a long snake formation that stretched for more than a dozen kilometers along several paths, passing through the rugged mountains and forests. Ignoring some of the French troops behind them, who were still stubbornly resisting, they crossed the Saône and stopped at Simon.

Herzog's troops ran out of fuel, and he had to order a temporary halt to the advance and wait for the supply convoy behind him. During the two days of fighting, the 7th Panzer Division advanced 150 kilometers and completely penetrated the French lines. Now that they had taken possession of the road leading to Paris, there was a smooth road ahead, and from here to Paris the French had no more obstacles to their advance.

The entire French line was in disarray, and the German 9th Army was closing in on Sharon. The French 7th Army on the Reims Line collapsed first, and the French army was threatened by the German 11th Army breaking through from the Maas River, while the opposing German 2nd Army also launched an offensive on the Somme Line.

Under the attack of the two armies, the French defensive line, which had been shaken by the army's morale, quickly collapsed, and the soldiers fled from the trenches and fled all the way in the direction of Paris, with only a few elite French divisions still stubbornly resisting.

But it didn't help.

The recalcitrant French army was quickly overwhelmed by the tide of nearly 450,000 German soldiers.

Like a fallen domino, one point collapses, and the entire line of defense quickly collapses.

The Austrians' entry was like the straw that broke the camel's back, and the Somme defensive line, which Britain, France and Germany had barely maintained with millions of casualties, suddenly collapsed like a flood bursting its banks.

The German 2nd Army joined up with the 11th Army, then joined forces and continued along the flank of the French line like a rolling torrent inexorably westward.

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