Guderian had promised to reach the Meuse in four days. He got there in three. His attack at Sedan began on May 13, 1940, with a thunderous air raid by the Luftwaffe that did little damage to the bunkers across the Meuse but unnerved the defenders. A French lieutenant there recalled the maddening sound of Stuka dive bombers swooping down with sirens howling. The noise “drills into your ear and tears at your nerves,” he wrote. “You feel as if you want to scream and roar.”

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Toward evening, Guderian sent infantry and engineers across the river in inflatable rafts to blast defenders out of their bunkers and construct pontoon bridges for the tanks and other vehicles. Many of the French units holding the unfinished extension of the Maginot Line in this sector were little more than construction crews and lacked combat training. Their opponents, by contrast, had drilled meticulously for this operation in Germany by crossing the Mosel River under live fire. By nightfall, the defenders were retreating in droves, clogging roads and spreading panic. “Tanks are following us!” they shouted, although no tanks would in fact cross the Meuse before daybreak. Their commander, Brig. Gen. Henri-Jean Lafontaine, wasted precious hours that night shifting his command post rearward and seeking detailed orders from superiors. By the time he counterattacked the next morning, Guderian—who habitually led from the front and made snap decisions—had enough armor and artillery across the river to repulse the belated French challenge and secure his bridgehead.

Guderian then overcame objections from superiors, who wanted to consolidate forces at Sedan before advancing, and pushed ahead with two panzer divisions, leaving a third behind to defend the bridgehead. He was taking a big risk, for Allied warplanes were swarming over the Meuse, and the French were massing heavy armor at Stonne, south of Sedan. Between May 15 and 17, Stonne changed hands more than a dozen times as panzers battled in the streets with hulking French Char B heavy tanks, so thickly armored that shells bounced off them like buckshot. Those gas guzzlers could not operate long without refueling, however, and few had functioning radios. Many eventually fell prey to lighter but more maneuverable panzers and to German artillery, including fearsome 88mm anti-aircraft guns that doubled as tank killers with their barrels lowered. The French were defeated at Stonne, and a spirited effort by Brig. Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s Fourth Armored Division to halt Guderian at Montcornet, west of Sedan, failed as well. “A few of his tanks succeeded in penetrating to within a mile of my advanced headquarters,” Guderian observed, but de Gaulle’s lonely bid faltered for lack of support.

Operation Sickle Cut was succeeding beyond expectations. To Guderian, it was “almost a miracle,” and others up front felt equally confident. To some at headquarters, however, the relative ease of victory seemed too good to be true. Surely the Allies would make concerted efforts from the north and south to pinch off the advancing panzer columns before they reached the Channel.

What German chiefs did not know was that their stunning breakthrough had spread despair and defeatism not just among defenders along the Meuse but all the way up the chain of command. When General Alphonse-Joseph Georges, commanding French forces at the northern end of the front, learned that the enemy had punched through at Sedan, he “flung himself into a chair and burst into tears,” one officer recalled. “He was the first man I had seen weep during this campaign. Alas, there were to be others.” Georges regained his composure, but he and his fellow chiefs never regained the initiative. Their supreme commander, General Maurice Gamelin, had committed the bulk of his reserves to stop what he assumed was the main German thrust to the north and had completely lost hope, declaring that the French army was “finished.”

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