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marching throng. Belgian recruits – called up when their homeland was invaded and who had been issued nothing more than a scarlet army blanket – appeared in the confusion, uncertain of where they should go or what their role was supposed to be. One gang of Belgian recruits told British MPs they had been ordered to cycle to the French town of Albert to report, little knowing the town would be in German hands long before they arrived. While they pedalled away, eager to receive arms and uniforms, ready to defend their homeland, others simply sat around in town squares as if waiting for someone – anyone – to tell them what to do. At Boulogne 1,800 unarmed sixteen-year-old Belgian Army recruits turned up and requested they be immediately shipped to England to be trained. When one British NCO watched as his men passed a gang of dispirited French soldiers, he decided to demonstrate that his own men were not yet beaten. The Frenchmen were leaderless, unshaven and had abandoned their weapons. With a precision born of years on the parade ground, the NCO called his men to fall in and march in step, showing their allies how soldiers should behave.
    Yet such displays were futile. No amount of parade-ground precision could stop the rout. Such was the clamour to flee the advancing Germans that families upped and left their homes at a moment’s notice. British soldiers found themselves entering abandoned houses, with the tables laid for breakfast and the food still warm. It was as if the population of whole villages had become invisible. Yet the truth was simpler – they had joined the flight westwards without pausing to think of what might happen. One group of retreating soldiers were asked by some Belgian women to show them how to drive the family car – their brother was the only one with experience of driving but he had left to join the army. After a few brief moments of instruction the women drove away, the gears straining as they endeavoured to flee as fast as possible.
    The story was the same across the front. The British attempted to hold their positions but could do little to stem the advance of the enemy. At Audenarde on 19 May, the 4th Battalion of the Royal West Kent Regiment had been ordered to make a stand, something they had done with great success. For two days they held out against an enemy assault that had begun with thirty bombs dropped on their positions, inflicting twenty casualties. In the action that had followed, the West Kents stunned the enemy with a perfectly coordinated counterattack. First the British mortars had struck the enemy positions, then swift attacks had come in from Bren carriers, pouring fire at the German flanks, targeting troops who had fled the mortaring. After each attack the carriers swiftly withdrew then struck again at a different position. By the time the enemy replied with mortar fire the carriers were long gone, their crews already drinking beer outside a cafe to celebrate their bluff. Despite the valiant efforts of units such as the West Kents, there was little they could do to stem the advance and they eventually withdrew, joining in the retreat with a twenty-mile overnight march.
    There were plenty of heroic encounters that brought the Germans to a halt, but these were not enough to prevent collapse across the whole front. Hundreds of men were sacrificed in engagements that became futile when officers discovered that neighbouring units had retreated, leaving their flanks exposed. When the troops saw their allies, the Belgians or the French, withdrawing in such a manner it was the source of immense distrust. The growing sense of disharmony between the Allies would continue in the weeks that followed, with all sides accusing each other of betrayal.
    Unknown to the soldiers fighting in the north, theirs was not the only battle being fought. The advance to the River Dyle was further revealed as a folly as the Germans had surged through the Ardennes and punched through the French