The French had by now begun to panic. Shortly after seven o'clock on the morning of May 15, Paul Reynaud telephoned Winston Churchill to say that a French counter-attack on the German forces which had broken through at Sedan had failed, that 'the road to Paris was open' and that 'the battle was lost'. Reynaud went on to talk of 'giving up the struggle'. Churchill did his best to calm the French Prime Minister. He must not be misled, he said, by 'panic-stricken' messages. But Churchill was under no illusions about the gravity of the situation.
From: Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, A Complete History, Herry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, 1989, p. 66.
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