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

wondered Pownall. ‘It seems almost too much to hope for.’ It certainly gave
Gort an option which would otherwise have been lost. On the 25th, news
arrived that Boulogne had fallen, then that the Germans in the north had
broken across the River Lys in parts. The Belgians were still clinging on to
Courtrai, but a dangerous gap had appeared between the end of the British
north flank and the Belgian army. Gort ordered his last reserves, one
brigade and one machine-gun company, to help fill the gap, but it was clear
that unless it was more amply filled, the Germans could easily push through
and get in behind the British from the north. To make matters worse,
General Dill, the Vice-CIGS, then flew over with the news that the BEF
was getting criticism at home. The icing on the cake was a copy of a
telegram from Reynaud to Churchill in which he complained that the
British withdrawal from Arras and the Scarpe had seriously jeopardized the
plans for the counter-attack on the 26th and that, as a result, Weygand had
given the order to call off the proposed attack northward from the south.
This was disingenuous: Weygand had called off the northward thrust
because his forces south of the Somme had not managed to get their act
together in time.
Increasingly urgent messages arrived from General Brooke,
commanding II Corps on the northern flank. The gap was widening
between Menin and Ypres; captured German documents confirmed that the
Germans were intending to attack heavily towards Ypres. By five o’clock,
news arrived from the Belgians that they were unable to close the hole in
the line.
By this time, Gort was already reaching one of the toughest decisions of
his life. Between 5 and 6 p.m., he was alone in his small office at his
Premesques headquarters, first staring at the map spread out on the wall and
then sitting at his desk. Just before 6 p.m., news arrived that General
Altmayer would be providing only one division for the next day’s supposed
counter-attack; unbeknown to Gort, Général Blanchard, who had finally
taken over from Billotte, had already told Weygand that the French First
Army was too weak to take part in a counter-attack. Weygand had
responded by giving Blanchard complete discretion as to whether the attack
went ahead or not. The Weygand Plan was thus already utterly dead in the
water. As at Arras, the French were bottling it once again. Even worse,
Moroccan troops had apparently bolted at Carvin, to the south of Lille. Two