“Where is the strategic reserve?” he asked Gamelin and, breaking into French, “Où est la masse de manœuvre?” The Commander in Chief of the Allied armies turned to him with a shake of the head and a shrug and answered, “Aucune—there is none.”* “I was dumfounded,” Churchill later related. It was unheard of that a great army, when attacked, held no troops in reserve. “I admit,” says Churchill, “that this was one of the greatest surprises I have had in my life.”
