"Yes, the monster appeared here west of Laon, and we were preparing to attack, and it kept firing from a distance, destroying our tanks...... I've never seen anything so scary that can blow the turret of a B1 tank with a single shot at a distance of 1000 meters. A French tank soldier stated.

"Oh my God, I was sitting in the back of an FT-17 tank and counting my ammunition. I didn't know what was going on, but an FT-17 tank in the distance suddenly exploded, and then there was a rumbling sound, and then I heard someone shouting to retreat, so I retreated. The other French infantryman still looked flustered.

"There were no tanks approaching us, it was a plain area. You know, after the battle of the pass, we did not choose to attack on narrow terrain again, this time we were on the plain, so the view was very good, the German tanks were at least 500 meters away from us, and the shells flew and hit our tanks directly. The third soldier questioned.

"I had a telescope in my hand. When the Germans attacked, I saw tanks in the distance, more than a dozen tanks, many of which were very different from the previous Leopard tanks...... It's definitely not the kind of tank three. I think it's a new weapon, a very powerful new weapon, something that can penetrate any of our tanks at a distance of 800 meters. A French officer said in frustration.

......

It was a large-scale investigation in which investigative insiders shed light on the reasons for the failure. I originally wanted to find out some tactical problems, but I didn't expect to get a jaw-dropping news - the German army not only changed its tactics, but also changed its weapons and equipment.

"Whoa," an officer in charge of investigating the rout spread out a thick stack of texts in front of General de Gaulle, and then sighed and said: "I have to admit that the Germans have put in a new type of tank in the Laon area, which may be equipped with more powerful tank guns, and the Germans have also changed their previous tank charging tactics and routed our advance team with long-range attacks." ”

"I always thought that it was impossible for the Germans to invest in any new tanks, and their Leopard tanks already had an absolute advantage over our B1 tanks, can you imagine that they were already so strong?" De Gaulle was much older than he had been a few days ago, and he had a lot less sharpness and strength in his speech.

Sometimes a person's physical collapse is due to the destruction of faith. The current de Gaulle is undoubtedly because of his long-standing beliefs, which is why he was crushed by the German army, so he weakened so quickly.

The theory of armored forces that he advocated did not bring him victory, but blossomed with his opponents, and he now realized that the development of armored forces that he had always insisted on was so superficial and weak. Whenever he thought that he had grasped the key to the strength of the German army, the Germans used the opposite example to teach him a lesson.

At a time when he was obsessed with heavy tank units with heavy armor and large-caliber artillery, German tanks were already moving towards the main battle tank with faster speed, smoother communication, better bulletproof shape, and more powerful artillery.

This tank is no longer a weapon, but a platform, an offensive ensemble consisting of dive bombers, lightweight artillery, mechanized infantry. In the face of this offensive as a whole, the superiority of the French army in a single superior project could not change the overall disadvantage. This is a kind of backwardness in thinking, a kind of despair that is completely surpassed.

The advanced German fighters defeated the French and British air forces in the skies, firmly controlling the air supremacy over the entire theater of operations, and then the Do-217 bombers began to destroy airfields, threatening cities, and spreading fear to every corner. Then the Stuka bombers roared down, destroying the assembled French troops on the road, leaving the French army with an air advantage but only struggling to defend passively. Immediately after that, the German tanks went on a rampage, shattering the illusion that the French army wanted to drag the war into a protracted war, interspersed with detours at a speed that mankind had never seen before, and disrupted the operational deployment of the entire coalition army. Behind the tanks, German grenadiers in trucks and armored vehicles quickly followed, filling the gaps left by the tanks and covering the flanks of the armored units.

This set of tactics, though immature, but incomparably efficient and powerful, gave Accardo the aura of a master tactician, gave the German Führer the nickname of the god of war, and brought the German army the honor of invincibility - of course, it also brought de Gaulle a nightmare that he could not wake up to, put the shackles of a defeated general on General Gammelin, and inflicted thousands of losses on the Anglo-French army.

"But General, it is impossible for so many soldiers to lie. The officer was a little embarrassed and said, "If the officer is trying to shirk responsibility, this is reasonable, but so many soldiers also say so, obviously this matter deserves our attention." ”

"Look at this. De Gaulle handed the officer a copy of the information, and he picked up a soldier's testimony at random and flipped through it.

The officer took the text handed to him by de Gaulle, and when he looked at it, he turned pale with fright. Because it was written the recent movements of the German army, and it happened that these movements were the last thing the British and French forces wanted to see.

In Belgium, because of the rebellion of General Gru and the defection of the Belgian army, the Anglo-French army once again fell into a bitter battle, like a giant in a deep quagmire, struggling left and right but never able to get out. They routed all the way to the southwest, but they were never able to escape the entanglement and encirclement of the German army.

The invisible wall that constrained the German advance had disappeared, and the German armored forces began to attack after a short rest. De Gaulle's French 10th Panzer Corps was easily defeated, and again retreated 10 miles south. This also thwarted the plan to flank German Army Group A.

In northern France, after a night's rest in the German armored clusters, the engines roared again. Guderian's troops stormed Hamm, where they routed the French infantry that stood in his way. The defeat in the area west of Laon was no longer enough to surprise de Gaulle, for his neighbor, the French 9th Army, was on the verge of losing the important town of Hamm.

Of course, this was only the flank covering force of the German army, and on the front of the attack was Rommel's 7th Panzer Army, which had already captured all the bridges along the way and was aggressively attacking Albert. If they were able to capture Albert along the way, the entire Allied supply lines in Belgium would be exposed to the threat of German tanks.

Another piece of desperate news came from the direction of Stone, where French reconnaissance units had spotted that German regular infantry units had replaced the small number of grenadiers and strengthened the line between Stone and Lisley. While the German cavalry had already advanced to the vicinity of Laon, and the elite mechanized grenadiers had drawn their forces and began to attack again with the German tanks, the situation that the French army feared most appeared again.

"General! I ...... What should we do now?" the officer asked de Gaulle with some panic after reading the intelligence analysis.

"What else can I do?" De Gaulle smiled bitterly, sighed and said: "The Luftwaffe has paralyzed the main lines of communication, and the mobilized troops of our army are either stuck on the road, or because the mobilization is too slow, they are not yet able to form combat effectiveness. ”

He pointed to the map and said helplessly to his subordinates: "Even if they are formed and have a certain combat effectiveness, they will not be able to crush the German armored forces without heavy weapons." Because even we didn't do that. ”

"If General Gammelin had come to his senses of the crux of the matter, he would have made us abandon the front and strike all forces to hold Amiens. That's where the real thing is to be held. He said, tapping on a dot on the map.

"General, I am now on my way to Amiens with all the forces I can find. The officer stood up and said, "I assure you, if you can't hold Amiens, I'll die there, and I won't take a step back!"

"It's not that I don't believe in your determination. De Gaulle smiled, waved his hand and said, "Because I'm going to Amiens too." We had huge losses and we didn't have much strength to draw upon, so I decided to make a last ditch fight - 30 tanks, all I could find. It's up to God to bless France this time......"

And at the same moment, the advance of the German armored forces was preparing to cross a river by the water. They captured the bridge over the river and captured more than 100 French troops left here. These German tanks rested by the river, looking at the river with a confident smile. This is the upper reaches of a very famous river, where many years ago they fought one of the deadliest battles in human history, where the Germans lost more than 530,000 people.

That's right, this is the upper reaches of the Somme, and it's only a short distance from Hamm, the target of General Guderian's attack this time. The French were not in the slightest position to organize the advance of the German army, and the German armored forces that had been replenished and supplied were all the way west, much faster than the defeated French army.

In many cases, they left behind a large number of prisoners, and some of the French defenders even thought that the tanks were allies of the British. The lightning attack of the German army left the two men who were struggling in Belgium with no choice. The defeat of the Anglo-French forces seemed to be a foregone conclusion, but the telegrams sent to Gort in Britain clearly pointed out that a turnaround would take place within a few days, and that a miracle could happen as long as they continued to hold on.