© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
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After World War I, the French were understandably worried about another invasion. They had suffered many losses in the first world war and wanted to prevent future defeat from their rivals. The general consensus in France was to build a defensive wall – and thus the Maginot Line was built, named after French minister of defense André Maginot. It was a series of fortifications along the French borders with Germany and Italy; its chief design was in preventing future invasions.
The line itself was a pinnacle of modern defenses. Instead of a single wall, it was a series of over five hundred buildings – some key forts, others small bunkers, all designed to slow the advance of an enemy. The bunkers themselves were large – some over six stories deep – and had all living necessities, plus hospitals and trains to get from bunker to bunker. This is to say nothing of the impressive armaments put on the line. If the next great war were to become dependent on the trenches, as in World War I, then the French would be ready.
Yet on May 10, 1940, Germany invaded France. Within two months France surrendered. What had gone wrong?
France’s first mistake was depending too much on the Maginot Line without mobile forces. There were two main thoughts on the future defense of France: many had learned their lesson from the first war, with its endless trench battles. If France were to fall in another trench war, they would be much better defended with stronger fortifications on their side. However, a few men, such as Charles de Gaulle, argued that more mobile units were needed, such as tanks and aircraft. Their protests went unheeded. This lack of a strong mobile force caused France to become stymied in the face of a German blitzkrieg.
The second, and much more damaging problem, was France’s disregard of defense around the Ardennes Forest and Belgium. It was believed by the French that tanks could not navigate the forest, so it was left out of the Maginot Line. Belgium and France were in an alliance at the time of the Maginot Line’s conception, so it was left largely undefended as well. Unfortunately for France, German forces cut through the country from Belgium, the Netherlands, and most damningly the Ardennes Forest. Germany managed to get to the core of France without ever having to deal with the Maginot Line.
Many cite the Maginot Line as the ultimate act of hubris – that simply building a wall is not enough to defend oneself against an obvious threat such as Germany. However, in its defense, it did serve its main purpose – to slow down the attacking force. It successfully repelled the Italians until Germany came, and even then the Maginot Line never actually fell to Germany – it was simply bypassed, and eventually had to surrender with the rest of France.
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Never knew about these. Now, if I ever get my dream vacation of 2 months touring Europe by Train, Air Balloon, Airplane, and Boat I would have this on my must see list.
LOL – I guess I will never see these.
They went around :-)
I remember that the Germans simply went around the Maginot line , but this info is an interesting view on the subject .
6 storeys of bunker? Thats bloody deep. But didn’t the french suffer a lot of losses in the war? Where did they get so many resources to go and build these things then?
The persistant knocking of the Maginot Line is tremendously unfair & misleading — in fact the Magniot Line held off thousands of Germans and served its purpose — to prevent the French (and British) forces from being flanked by invading Germans.
The loss of France was caused by the aging and weak-kneed political and military leadership. The Germans won early victories, but were hardly rolling over the allied forces… most of the remaining Nazi tanks were obsolete and many of their experienced commanders were killed.
The French army continued to fight bravely, and was sold out by their leaders.
wow i think somebody must be from france…..
I find this article HILARIOUS.. all the resources put into the Maginot line.. and the damn Germans simply went around.. Gets me every time.
It’s like some one was walking along a road, and encountered a puddle in their way. And they just simply walked around with out even hesitating.
Comedy.
It’s not as funny as it is pathetic and sad. That guy up there maybe french, or just well informed…maybe both. He is right though as it really made put the hurt on Mussolini’s nitwits and did slow/hurt any German that came near it, but as said the fools in France neglected to make a complete wall and ‘comedically’ so did bypass it like the above said…going around a puddle. One hell of a puddle though when you think that the country surrendered out from under a nearly invincible puddle which is ultimately why it fell.
alipardiwala said: “6 storeys of bunker? Thats bloody deep. But didn’t the french suffer a lot of losses in the war? Where did they get so many resources to go and build these things then?”
The Treaty of Versailles, world war one came to an end without any death on german soil (well little) the Germans surrendered due to food shortages. Yet the surrender came as a shock to German soldiers, as they were still fighting on french soil.
The french got huge compensation from Germany’s Industry, hence they came out of the war farly well.
France had requested numerous time in the previous year for assitance from the British and the Americans to help defend the area around Ardennes. They were well aware of that avenue of attack. For the most part the requests were rejected. The defence of that region was done w/o major fortifications, and relied on a more mobile defence (Tanks fighing in open fields…etc). It was the dynamic non-fortified line that failed and was overrun, causing the fall of France.
The line performed as it was designed to do. The wall also forced German forces through very difficult terrain, slowed them down, and strained the German supply lines. I doubt France would have faired any better without the wall. German military doctrine (and technoloy) was a generation ahead of the rest of the world.
When Germany attacked France, they went through Belgium, circumventing the Maginot Line. But France had reason to expect that Germany could not invade Belgium that easily, because Belgium was well defended with its own version of the Maginot Line.
Germany’s attack on Belgium was not unexpected, as they already did this in WWI. That is why Belgium built a series of huge forts at its borders. Together with the easily defendable terrain with lots of rivers and canals, Belgium was thought to be save. The Germans’ mode of attack with hollow-charges and heavy gliders was unexpected and unprecedented. Read the history of Fort Eben-Emael to learn about that crazy story.
On the question of payment for all these bunkers: Having lost the war, Germany had to pay for them.
Guido is absolutely right, and the article is FULL of misconceptions. The French expected that the Germans would invade through Belgium. IN fact, they built the Maginot Line precisely to free up their best troops to meet that attack. The problem was that the French advanced to meet the German feint through northern Beligium leaving themselves open to the stronger attack through southern Belgium and Luxembourg.
Note also that the Germans built their own line – The Siegfried Line – again to free up troops for advance through Belgium…
A few observations if I may…
1) The germans did in fact pretty much simply destroy the french, british and belgians in their blitz in May-June 1940, despite any arguments to the contrary. France was a country that had been thought to be prepared for and competitive with german forces and capable of fighting them to a standstill. Yet they were ROLLED OVER like bugs under the wings and treads of the blitz. This shocked people all over the world, not least Joseph Stalin, who had been counting on a protracted war in France to give him a couple years to rebuild his purge-decimated, obsolete military before hitler would inevitably attack him. He was stunned when France went BELLY UP in a few weeks, its military soundly beaten.
2) When germany surrendered ending WWI its TROOPS may have still been fighting in France, but their generals all knew the war was LOST. It didn’t matter where they were fighting because (a) the allies had lots of reserve troops and supplies and had only to launch their final offensive, and (b) the germans had NO reserves left of any kind and were suffering thousands of desertions from their front lines every week; entire regiments had were simply get up and surrendering. Their generals knew that when the next allied blow was launched they would have no response – the allies would break through and invade germany and there would be nothing they could do about it. Finally (c) the latest allied offensive had cut key supply routes to the german front lines and they could no longer even supply their troops.
(3) The germans did in fact attack several points on the Maginot line, though mostly as a diversion. But they did attack and defeat a Maginot-like fort (Eban Emael) in Belgium, wiping it out in a few hours with a tiny airborne force, something it had not been designed to defend against.
Yeah right, the French salute is when you raise both hands high above your head.
They spent all of their time and money building these things, they planned on fighting WW2 if it came as WW1 was fought. WW2 was completely different the Nazis invented fast, mobile armored warfare.
Wow. So many errors in this piece as well as the comments. First off all the Maginot Line was not France’s only line of defence. You do know that the French had as many tanks as the Germans right? In fact the French overall had more mechanized and motorized forces than Germany. Whats funny is all this info on the fall of France is easy to find and look up but people choose to stick with the whole “cheese eating surrender monkeys” bit. Don’t think the French tried to fight? Do a google search on the battle of the Gembloux Gap, the battle of Hannut, the battle of Stonne, the battle of Flavian and the battle of Calais. And finally the French had over 300,000 casualities during the battle( 90,000-120,000 killed and around 200,000 wounded. The French were stuck with some awful leaders that failed to make the most of it’s assets. It was stuck with a rigid, sluggish and centralized command that could not adapt to quick changes. And one last thing the Germans never broke through the deepest parts of the Maginot line. The Metz, Lautner and Belfort sectors.
I’ve Also heard that one in ten Frenchmen were Collaborators-which hastened France’s Defeat. Like in Poland, they fought the Last War. If they had hunkered down in the main cities like Paris, they could have turned it into a Stalingrad. Their Tanks were pretty Good, but I don’t know if their air force could have held off the Luftwaffe anyway.
One factor relevant to the Maginot Line and France’s rational for its employment that is rarely discussed is that by the end of World War the First, the French understood that in any future war with Germany they could never compete demographically. At that time Germany was more populace and still growing while France was smaller, and its fertility rate diminished much earlier than the rest of Europe during the 19th century. France understood of Germany that it could never again compete on equal terms on the battle field in modern attrition warfare. What to do? A massive scheme for leveling the battle field was required, thus the Maginot Line.