As Friday, May 24 dawned, Britain’s War Cabinet faced an impending calamity. Ten days before, German armored columns had broken out of the Ardennes forest and started an almost unopposed drive across the center of France. French counter-attacks from the south had been turned back with ease, the Belgian army was cut off and surrounded, and German forces were pressing closely against the British Expeditionary Force, which had retreated to a few Channel enclaves. According to the passage, what day did German armored columns break out of the Ardennes forest?