on 21 may 1940 the first army was one of the armies trapped in a vast pocket with their backs to the sea that would eventually result in the dunkirk evacuations. as the germans moved in, what remained of the once-formidable first army was hopelessly surrounded at lille but counterattacked and resisted fiercely in a delaying action aiming to buy time for the beleaguered anglo-french defenders of dunkirk. general jean-baptiste molinié's 40,000 remaining men engaged seven german divisions (including the 4th, 5th, and 7th panzer divisions, roughly 110,000 men and 800 tanks), capturing general of the in the fighting and halting the german capture of dunkirk for three days. it is estimated that the first army's last battle allowed the evacuation of an additional 100,000 men from dunkirk.