Colonel Charles de Gaulle of...

history · 17 May 1940 · 84 years ago

Colonel Charles de Gaulle of the French 4th Armored Division launched a 200-tank counterattack at Montcornet, France; the French forces saw initial success, capturing 500 prisoners, but the momentum quickly waned. Guderian seized upon the opportunity and launched his own counterattack in France, driving the French back several kilometers. In Belgium, British Expeditionary Force commander General Lord Gort, fearful of being surrounded, ordered his troops to fall back to the Scheldt River; this move allowed German General Reichenau to capture Brussels. Meanwhile, Dutch resistance to the German invasion comes to an end with the evacuation, by French destroyers, of the survivors of the Franco-Dutch forces in Zeeland and on the islands of Walcheren and Beverland. 

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