Shortly aftert midnight Gen Billotte drives to Lord Gort's headquarters to meet with the BEF commander. He requests British help in launching a counterattack against the panzer's northern flank, breaking through it and forcing their way south to the Somme River. Gort's army is already holding a third of the Escaut line and he is now being asked to hold a southern line almost twice as long and to counterattack the panzer corridor. Assistance is supposed to come from the French 1st Army which has suffered heavily and the Belgian army which is losing heart. Gort thinks the move will be unwelcome to the Belgians who would be faced with the alternatives of either withdrawing with the BEF and abandoning Belgian soil or fighting on a perimeter on their own or seeking an armistice. Afterwards, in his official report, Gort writes: 'He... told me of the measures which were being taken to restore the situation on the front of the French 9th Army, though clearly he had little hope that they would be effective... In my opinion there was an imminent danger of the forces in the northeastern area... being irretrievable cut off from the main French forces in the south.'

Gort does not have much confidence in the French High Command to orchestrate such a plan. Also, the BEF's position in Belgium is quickly becoming untenable. Supplies from England have been coming through Cherbourg and Brest, two ports over 200 miles away, which are about to be cut off. The panzers have cut through his lines of communication and are forcing Gort to improvise a new line to Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, each of which can be reached by the Germans in a matter of days. He sees his only alternative is to withdraw to the coast. At 11:30am Gort instructs Pownall to inform the War Office in London the only course open to BEF might well be evacuation to England.

Afterward the British general comes up with three possible plans:

1. Holding the line of the Escaut, or in any case, the frontier defenses and a line running southward from them. But this presupposes that the gap has been plugged by successful counterattacks from north and south simultaneously.

2. Falling back to the Somme.'This plan,' comments Gort, 'had the attaction that we should be falling back on our lines of communication... It would obviously be unwelcome to the Belgians, who would be faced with the alternatives of withdrawing with us and abandoning Belgian soil, fighting on a perimeter of their own or seeking an armistice... It is doubtful whether... there would have been sufficient time for the troops in the north to conform.'

3. Withdrawing to the Channel ports, making use of the various canals and holding a defensive perimeter long enough for the BEF to embark, preferably in concert with the French and the Belgians.

'I realized that this course was in theory a last alternative,' continues Gort, 'as it would involve the departure of the BEF from the theater of war at a time when the French might need all the support which Britain could give them. It involved the virtual certainty that... it would be necessary to abandon all the heavier guns and much of the transport and equipment. Nevertheless, I felt that in the circumstances there might be no other course open to me.'

At 3:30pm Lord Gort telephones his views to the Director of Military Operations at the War Office. He leads him to understand that unless things unexpectedly took a turn for the better it will be necessary to consider evacuating the BEF. In anticipation of this eventuality Lord Gort orders the Air Component to return to Britain. The RAF now has only one Auxiliary landing field in France - at Mervile, 20 miles west of Lille.

The night of May 18th-19th, therefore, marks the crucial moment when the British High Command starts thinking in terms of a separate strategy that might mean breaking with its French and Belgian allies. It will be noted that this decision is prior to the Belgian King's capitulation and to Gen Weygand's assumption of the role of Commander-in-Chief.

To protect his southern flank Gort orders his reconnaissance regiment to move to Arras and deploys the 50th Infantry Div just north of that city, with the British 5th Div nearby in reserve. He has only 2 partially filled-out divs, the 12th and 23rd British Territorial Infantry Divs between the Germans and the sea. The 23rd Div is assigned 16 miles of front along the Canal du Nord, while the 12th is ordered to man strong points in Albert, Doullens, Amiens and Abbeville.

Meanwhile the French High Command has been struck, as has Hitler, by the exposed position of the German panzer divisions. The Wehrmacht's armored divisions extend westward like an outstretched finger for 125 miles. The rapidity of their advance has put the forward units out of step with the motorized infantry columns.

Gen Gamelin considers that it ought to be possible to 'cut the finger off' before it is too late. He drives to Gen George's headquarters in La Ferté-sous Jouarre to outline the maneuver that he advocates. He finds the Commander-in-Chief of the northeastern front, however, very agitated and so depressed that he judges him incapable of taking the helm in such dramatic circumstances. Gen Gamelin draws up his Personal and Secret Instruction No. 12, the text of which is as follows:

No. 1012 - CAB/F.T May 19th, 9:45am

Without wishing to intervene in the conduct of the battle in progress, which is within the jurisdiction of the Commander-in-Chief of the northeastern front... I consider that at the present time:

1. There are grounds... for continuing the line of our Eastern armies and the covering of Paris farther westward and for maintaining the link whith the 1st Group of Armies.

2. So far as the 1st Group of Armies is concerned, rather than allow it to be encircled we must play a really bold game: on the one hand by opening the way to the Somme, if need be; on the other by flinging specially mobile forces against the rear of the German panzer divisions and the motorized infantry divisions following them...

3. With all available resources we must prepare an offensive by the 2nd Army, in conjunction with the right flank of the 6th, in the direction of the bridges at Mézières.

4. Participation in the battle must now be the aim of the entire French and British air strength. The fighters' main task is to retain control of the sky along the front held by the 1st Group of Armies and, as far as possible, to protect our movements behind the lines.

-The bombers are to attend to the columns of advancing westward, by attacking them from the rear and stemming their progress. Special attention is to be given to the group of panzer divisions.

-Subsequently, and at the appropriate time, they are to stand by to support the action of the 2nd Army.

-Between them, they are to drop river-mines on the Meuse bridges.

5. It is all a question of time.

M. GAMELIN

Meanwhile the hours are passing, and each one brings a worsening in the situation at the front. At the end of the morning Gen Georges's headquarters receives a telephone call from Amiens. It is the general in command of the 9th Army engineer corps announcing that Gen Giraud has been taken prisoner while driving from Wassigny to Le Catelet.

'From then on,' records Henri Bidou, 'the 9th Army just evaporated, as an organized unit it no longer existed.'

With the exception of the 9th Panzer Division of von Küchler's Army, which is still advancing toward Anvers, the whole German armor has arrived on time at what has been called the 'rendezvous of May 19th'.

After meeting up along the line Cambrai-Péronne-Ham they are positioned as follows, reading from north to south:

1. Advancing from Maestricht via Gembloux and Binche: the XVI Panzer Corps (Hoeppner) with the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divs./

2. Advancing from Dinant via Maubeuge and Solesmes; the XXXIX Panzer Corps (Schmidt) with the 5th and 7th Panzer Divs.

3. Advancing from Monthermé via Vervins and Guise: the XLI Panzer (Reinhardt) with the 6th and 8th Panzer Divs.

4. Advancing from Sedan vial Montcornet and Ribémont; the XIX Panzer (Guderian) with the 1st, 2nd and 10th Panzer Divs.

This formidible mass of steel is forging along the Somme, between Cambrai and Saint-Quentin.

It was at this moment that Guderian's armor clashes for the second time with the French 4th Armored Div.

De Gaulle writes:

The tanks have a series of objectives: Crécy, Mortiers, and Pouilly. They are to get to the bridges and cut the enemy's path to La Fàre. The artillery was with them... We reached the Serre after chasing off various hostile forces that had infiltrated into the area. But north of the river the enemy was in position. He held the crossings in force and destroyed those of our tanks that tried to approach them. His heavy artillery came into play. In point of fact, we were at grips with large German units pouring towards Saint-Quentin...

And now came the Stukas! They were to bomb us till nightfall, deadly to the vehicles that could not leave the roads and to the artillery out in the open.

In the early afternoon Gen Georges ordered me to discontinue. The deployment of the 6th Army was completed and my division had at once to be put to other purposes... I decided to retard the enemy for another twenty-four hours by regrouping the division around Vosges by nightfall, so that it would be ready to launch a flank attack if he tried to thrust onward from Laon to Rheims or Soissons. The maneuver was carried out in an orderly fashion, even though the enemy was attempting to engage us at every point.

Guderian notes, on his side:

The threat to our left flank was slight. We were aware that the 4th Armored Div, under Col de Gaulle, was in the vicinity: it had been making its presence felt since May 16th and had made its first appearance at Montcornet on May 17th. De Gaulle kept his apppointments on the days that followed and, on May 19th, with a few isolated tanks, came within a mile and a half of my forward command post in Honon wood, which was quite unprotected except for some 2-cm ainti-aircraft guns. I was kept in suspense for some hours, till these unwelcome visitors turned about.

By evening the German tanks are nearing Amiens, having covered nearly 50 miles at a stretch.

The situation confronting Gen Weygand can hardly have been graver. The French armies are worn out after nine days of uniterrupted fighting. Some of them, the 9th in particular, have already annihilated. As for the large mechanized units, their present state is as follows:

Armored divisions:

The 1st no longer exists.

The 2nd has 20 'B' and 20 'Hotchkiss' tanks.

The 3rd has only 15 'B' and 20 'Hotchkiss' tanks at its disposal.

The 4th (Col de Gaulle's) has now only about 30 'B' tanks.

Weygand's first act as C-in-C is to suspend the execution of Gen Gamelin's 'Personal and Secret Instruction No. 12'. Before plunging into an operation on this scale he wants to form a clearer idea of the situation at the front and establish personal contact with King Leopold, Lord Gort, Gen Billotte and Gen Blanchard.