As Churchill was soon to realize—barely in time to order the withdrawal of the surviving British forces from Dunkirk—the German penetration was far more than a “scoop or raid.” Three corps composed of eight German armored divisions, “Panzers,”7 had snaked through narrow roads in the dense Ardennes Forest in southern Belgium and Luxembourg. By the morning of May 14, they were across the Meuse River at Sedan and began streaming into France. One week later, they reached the sea.
