The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

should that be the case: to fall back to the coast, using the Douai–La
Bassée–Aire Canal and other water obstacles to help them. ‘But,’ noted
Pownall, ‘the withdrawal ended at the sea at Dunkirk, from which hopes of
evacuation of personnel were small indeed.’ Gort summoned his corps
commanders, General Brooke and General Evelyn Barker, and put them in
the picture while Pownall warned the War Office in coded language for fear
that the line was being tapped. Later in the afternoon, Pownall rang again
and this time was emphatic. If the gap was not closed by an urgent, strong
and co-ordinated counter-attack from the north and south, withdrawal to
Dunkirk would become inevitable.
In these dark hours, the appalling paucity of information and the hopeless
lack of communications was really debilitating Allied efforts. Reports
arrived at Arras, then at Wahagnies, by despatch rider or by liaison officers
in person. Journeys of ten to fifteen miles could take an age because by this
time the roads were clogged with refugees. Arthur Hughes had been
shocked by the sight of so many. So too had Henry Pownall. ‘There are
many most distressing sights,’ he scribbled, ‘the old women are indeed sad
to see, poor old things – never a smile on the faces of many thousands I
have seen. Why should there be indeed?’ This, of course, made the coordination
of the kind of forces necessary for such a counter-attack difficult.
It also made it very hard to keep abreast of just precisely where the
Germans were.
As it happened, the Germans hardly knew themselves. Since the
collapse of the Meuse front, all three spears of Army Group A had sped
west at an astonishingly untroubled rate. Hans von Luck and the
reconnaissance troops of Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division had been charging
through the French countryside of Champagne. ‘Keep going, don’t look to
left or right, only forward. The enemy is confused; we must take advantage
of it’ were Rommel’s orders, echoing what Guderian and General Reinhardt
were urging upon their men a short distance further south. Hans and his
men reached Avesnes on the 16th, some fifty miles from their crossing
point on the Meuse; by dawn the next day, having pushed on through the
night, they had reached another major obstacle, the River Sembre, a dozen
miles further west. French troops moving forward to the front had no idea it
had already reached them. Astonished to see German troops so far west
already, they had not blown the bridges and Rommel’s men had crossed the