The plan conceived by Weygand between May 19th and May 21st was based on a military situation that exists no longer on May 23rd. While the Generalissimo finds himself obliged to go to the northern front in person and confer, first with the Belgians in the absence of the British, then with the British in the absence of the Belgians, precious time had been elapsing - time that the German forces used to their advantage. The corridor to the sea is now crammed with German units, and what on May 20th had still been only a bold tank-attack, has now become, 48 hours later, what Pertinax calls 'a solid-limbed array'. From north to south, the line-up has changed profoundly.

Under pressure from the enemy, the Belgians have been forced to abandon Terneuzen and Gand. King Leopold's headquarters is informed by the French Command that it can no longer count on the bases of Gravelines, Dunkirk and Bourgbourg, which have become indispensable to the supplying of the French armies, and that it must make shift with Ostend and Nieuport. This decision finally drives the Belgian army northward by compelling it to move closer to the bases without which it would be without food and ammunition. King Leopold is more sceptical than ever about the possibility of putting the Weygand plan into operation.

In the 1st Army sector, the enemy intensifies his attacks between Béthune and Lens.

The British 5th and 50th Divs, which launched the attack in the Arras sector 2 days ago, are besieged along the Scarpe. They have already lost the majority of their tanks and are in no position to effect any further advance.

Meanwhile von Kleist's Panzer divisions are attacking the southern flank of the Allied forces between the sea and the Dieppe forest. Boulogne is threatened and will soon yield. ('Tanks nothwithstanding, the attacker would have to use ladders to storm the ancient city walls, as in old prints,' records Massenon.) Calais is isolated. By the evening the 1st Panzer Div has secured bridgeheads across the Aa canal between Holque and the coast. Dunkirk is only about 12 miles away. The Germans are considerably closer to the port than the bulk of the BEF. Other armored units forge on to Lorette, Saint-Pol and the hills. The 10th Panzer Div attacks Calais. It is being defended by the French 21st Infantry Div and the British 30th Infantry Brigade along with 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. The British forces are under the command of Brig-Gen Claude Nicholson. Nicholson realizes he has no chance of holding the city against the overwhelming firepower of the 10th Panzer Div.

Rommel's division skirts the western sectors of Arras and closes in from behind on the British units still fighting in the town. Despite physical tiredness, the commander of the 7th Panzer Division is in the best of spirits. He rejoices at the thought of what his units have accomplished. To his wife he writes:

This is triumph for my division. Everything is going well. Dinant, Philippeville, the piercing of the Maginot Line; a forty-mile advance through France, overnight, to Le Cateau; then Cambrai, Arras, always far ahead of everyone else.

The outflanking of Arras from the west by Rommel's armor is extremely perplexing to Lord Gort. He is aware that his position is deteriorating hour by hour and he has but limited confidence in the success of the maneuver imposed on him by the French High Command. Churchill urges him to see Gen Blanchard. He does so. In his dispatch he writes:

I saw Gen Blanchard and proposed to him that to implement our part of the Weygand plan we should stage an attack southward with 2 British divisions, 1 French division and the French Cavalry Corps. So far as we were concerned the attack could not tank place till May 26th at the earliest... I ... asked Gen Blanchard to enquire from GHQ how such an operation could by synchronized with the attack from the line of the Somme which was said to be in process of preparation. I emphasized... that the principal effort must come from the south and that the operation of the northern forces could be nothing more than a sortie.

I never received any information from any source as to the exact location of our own or enemy forces on the far side of the gap; nor did I receive any details or timings of any proposed attack from that direction...

From that moment Lord Gort, stung and disappointed, loses interest in the Weygand plan. He decides to withdraw his forces northward of Arras in the course of the night. This move is the final blow to the C-in-C's plans. What makes it especially surprising to Gen Blanchard is that Lord Gort did not think it worth his while to warn him.

Late in the evening Göring desires that the Luftwaffe should conduct the final kill of the Allied armies in the north. He phones Hitler and pleads his case.