A Complete Maginot Line

King Thomas

Banned
What if the Maginot Line had stretched from Switzerland to the sea? Is there any chance that it could have done it's job and kept the Nazis out of France?
 
The line wasn't designed to stop the Germans, it was to slow them down so France can mobilize. Unfortunatly the psychology of defensive war kicked in, and the French grew so confident with the line that they reduced the army further and failed to keep themselves up to date with modern doctrine.

Given the French army was so unprepared, I don't see how they could possibly win. At best the line slows the Germans down enough that France puts up a better fight. Perhaps it would give the French the time to overcome the initial shock and refuse surrender. This would mean a government in exile in North Africa or Britain. But France would still end up being occupied.
 
To get the Line extending from Switzerland to the sea we're implicitly assuming pod's that (ai) include a preference of investing in the ML over all/most other civil/military projects for a period of many years or (aii) a lesser impact from the Depression and issues around the devaluation of the franc and (b) a relationship with Belgium such that (a) the immediate pre-war Belgian policy of 'no allies' was established longer or (b) the French weren't concerned of the foreign policy consequences of putting the Belgians between the ML rock and the German hard place

I do not see France falling to a German landward attack. OTL France fell because the ML was outflanked, the main German thrust occurred at hinge of the Anglo-French advance into Belgium and the French strategic reserve was despatched into Holland. As I'm attempting to show, there is some credible doubt about the overwhelming success of the German attack being replicated under the assumption of the abandonment of the Holland advance (the Breda Variant to the Dyle/Escaut Plans).

The Germans chose not to attack the ML in OTL for a good reason: it was an excellent defensive position. In terms of economy of force, piercing the line would have been a poorly remunerative operation from the German point of view and there would have been serious doubts in OKH about whether or not the German army could bear such an ordeal. There may have been a challenge-and-response result where the Germans sought a technological advance, but such an advance would, I suggest, bear little resemblance to what we see as classic blitzkrieg dispositions.

Of course, as I've noted above, the France of a complete ML would be very different from OTL and, hence, the Europe of 1940 might be very different as well.
 
France would be even worse off. Think of the opportunity cost involved with extending the Maginot line -- what will France not be able to afford due to the cost? If the Allied plan doesn't change, they're still going to move mobile forces into Belgium, and those forces will still be cut off by the German thrust. In OTL, once the Allies had been cut off and destroyed/forced to evacuate, Germany was able to break through the Maginot line using its reserve Army Corps.

In TTL, the surviving French forces would be spread just as thin, and defenses without soldiers to man them and mobile forces to support them are worse than useless.
 
As well as the shortage of money and political consequences of leaving Belgium on the outside another factor I have read of against the extension of the line to the Channel is the low water table. Much of the defences of the line are fairly deep underground and there are doubts about whether it could be built and maintained in the low and damp coastal region. As such it may not be physically possible to extend the line.

Steve
 
But coastal fortifications (Maginot Lite) could be backed up by naval gunfire.

There is also the possibility of adding one or more concrete battleships, using e.g. naval surplus 12´ guns of WW I vintage ... cheap and outdated, but quite effective against troops and armor advancing over pre-measured ground.
 
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