feb 10, 1939 - The Weygand Plan and the Battle of Arras

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The German forces had pressed their advantage forward on the morning of February 10th, forcing the Allies to order the Weygand plan.
This plan that was proposed by French commander Maxime Weygand called for a counter-offensive by using the armies that are trapped in the north and combined them with an attack by French forces on the Somme front by using the new French 3rd Army Group.

The counter-offensive failed during the Battle of Arras which ended in a German victory because Weygand arrived in France from French Levant and tried to manoeuvre his newly assigned troops and cancelling the flank counter-offensive that was ordered by French General Maurice Gamelin which was to cut off the German armoured columns which had punched through the French front at the Ardennes Forest.

Since Weygand lost 2 crucial days trying to organise his attack, the German infantry had caught up behind their tanks in the breakthrough and had consolidated their gains.

After the battle, Commander-in-Chief of the BEF Gort ordered a retreat from Arras because he had no faith in the Weygand plan, nor in Weygand's proposal to try to hold a pocket on the Flemish coast.
Gort knew that the ports needed to supply such a foothold were already being threatened.

Around the same day, the 2nd Panzer Division had assaulted the French town Boulogne where the British garrison that was stationed there had surrendered.

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