The Hour of the Donkey

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'On the morning of Saturday, 10 May 1940, at 5.35, the German Army invaded the Low Countries, ending the

"Phoney War" which had lasted in Western Europe since the outbreak of hostilities the previous September.

'Holland was overwhelmed before any help could reach her, but as in 1914, the Allies advanced hurriedly into Belgium, the French 1st Army and the British Expeditionary Force coming up alongside the Belgian Army on the line of the River Dyle in an attempt to protect Antwerp and Brussels.

'In fact, nothing could have suited the Germans better, for it was to the south, into France herself, that their decisive thrust was aimed. Having negotiated the supposedly impassable terrain of the Ardennes they burst like a dummy4

thunderbolt on to the banks of the River Meuse in the region of Sedan on 13 May. Without waiting to concentrate their forces (as military prudence dictated), they at once launched a daring assault on the French defences across the river; and, having smashed through those defences, they then departed further from the rules with an act of even greater daring: instead of securing their breakthrough by attacking the broken flanks of the French line their armoured forces drove straight forward into France on a narrow front.

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