Maginot Line

The Maginot Line (French: Ligne Maginot; German: Maginot-Linie) was constructed by the French along the French border with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy during the 1930’s and was set up according to the concepts of positional warfare, as they had developed during the Great War. Usually only the part along the German border is called the Maginot Line, while the term Alpine Line is used for the half towards Italy.

History

The idea of ​​such a defensive line already existed immediately after the Franco-German War in 1871. In 1874, the French began building the Barrière de fer (“Iron Barrier”), which consisted of numerous fortresses, forts and other similar structures. These were built of brick and proved to be no match for the explosive grenades that emerged in 1890.

The Germans built the Siegfriedstellung (= Hindenburg Line) in the second half of the First World War in order to shorten their front, to save material and people and to be able to withstand the increasing Allied superiority after the American entry into the war. The Allies were only able to break through this defensive structure in places through the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (26 September to 11 November 1918 in the Verdun sector). The Maginot Line was intended to be a similar defensive structure.

The concrete fortifications extended 150 kilometers. There were 39 fortress-like fortifications, 70 expanded bunkers, 500 artillery and infantry positions and thousands of outposts, communications trenches, tank obstacles, dugouts with protection against poisonous gases and supply points.

There now occurred the so-called 'phoney war', and in February 1940 French embassy counsellor Lemarle told Philippe Pétain, still Ambassador in Spain, that he had found in Paris "a widespread defeatist mood". For ten years France had lived in a state of false security behind the "impregnable" Maginot line and other myths such as that of the 'invincible French army'.

The entire defensive position was constructed at the cost of four billion Francs and was intended to prevent another German advance into France. The new operational principles of maneuver warfare (i.e. Blitzkrieg) negated all of these theories, however, as the Battle of France would expose.