AHC: "Maginot Line was a Failure" does not become a Pop History Trope

A third way would have been success at retaining the alliance with Belgium. That leads to a better Belgian defense, plus the French army reinforcing the Belgians from day one. Instead of being parked in the norther provinces and rushing north is some kind of race the French move in a organized fashion in September 1939 & are deeply entrenched in depth when the Germans do attempt to attack. As it was in 1940 the Belgian defense and its fortress program were flawed by internal politics and several extremely difficult operational or strategic choices. A closely coordinated defense policy with France from 1928-1939 can create a fairly solid defense.
 
Hmm, I might be mistaken then. I was operating under the assumption that it was always meant to shunt a German advance through Neutral Belgium.

I guess then the question is what was the philosophy behind the line then? Because the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918 by the Entente had shown that immobile defenses in-depth could be pretty handily beaten by combined arms operations.
 
maginot-line-6.jpg


Here's one of the more extreme pre-war portrayals of the Maginot Line (source unknown). When I first read of the Line as a child, the books all portrayed the Maginot Line in this way: layers of subterranean fortresses complete with underground cinemas, built along the whole French border except at the spot where the Germans broke through. I didn't know until much later that it was just a series of fortifications with machine guns and artillery.

So, what I think drives the Maginot Line trope is that it was built up to be some kind of underground city, much more than it actually was. That made it seem all the more foolish for the French not to have extended their ten-story "earthscrapers" (one Popular Science article uses the term) through the Ardennes.

In reality the Maginot Line wasn't an impenetrable network of bunkers that would make Cheyenne Mountain seem like a slit trench. It was in the same class as the Siegfried and Stalin lines, it was intended to limit the way in which the enemy could invade. It was meant to be gone around. It was never the Line that failed, it was the defense put up outside the fortified area.
 
German fortifications were designed in-depth and to support each other, much of it was to shelter troops and artillery from artillery then deploy outside of the bunkers, in other words better prepared classic defense lines. Fortifications are meant to be a speed-bump and to channelize or delay so that reserves may deploy, mobile forces can react and breakthroughs are more costly, mostly in time. The Maginot line might have done better but my understanding is that it was not well built in-depth and of course we know its construction starved the rest of the Army for the mobile reserves necessary to fight Germany either up North or in any breakthrough. The illustrations show how self deluding Maginot was and why it became a trope of failing, it was imagined as an impenetrable wall rather than part of a coherent defense. The Battle of France showed what could be done with modern mobile war supported by air using tanks and trucks. To the extent that Maginot was a reply of WWI it was the antithesis of the offensive doctrine that failed, perhaps that is why it digs so deep into the failure motif, twice French leadership chose badly and fought the wrong war.
 
Firstly I am really enjoying this debate.

Secondly I feel that we are all using the benefit of hindsight. The French has just finished a ruinous war with Germany. A war which after a lot of trail and terrible error had developed the means of well equipped and supported forces to breach defensive lines. So why did the Fench spend so much on a defensive line. The answer can be found in the defence of Verdun. Here forts had been a pivotal part of the defence and offence. The lesson the French chose to learn and apply in the late 1920's was that super forts where still a viable form of defence.

Realistically it was only in the late 1930's that any real doubt of this strategy starts to emerge. A period when France and Britain are starting to heavily rearm (including a lot of spending and effort into mechanised forces). A time moreover when the allies felt they had several years to get themselves sorted out. It was only the invasion of Poland which proved the armoured profits right. Unfortunately for the world it was by then far to late.

I still think that the Maginot Lines reputation might have been better if the battle for France had lasted longer even if it still resulted in French defeat. Had the French concentrated their reserves and used them quickly and decisively then even in defeat it could be argued that the line had served its purpose and the fall of France would be laid solely in the hands of the people who where really culpable, the Generals who bungled the defence.
 
I guess I should say that it's often portrayed as if the French thought the Germans couldn't just simply 'go around it', even though that's what they in fact did. I feel that particular trope is facetious.
 
In this the French leaders had no one but them selves to blame. The USSR favored a alliance with France & entered into a diplomatic exchange of messages on the possibility & eventually a meeting. There are several versions of what happened, which all amount to: anti Communists in the French and British cabinets passed on on it. That very much undercut French strategy, at least for the next couple years. There are arguments the nazi regime still would have had severe economic problems after 2-3 years, but thats not the same as in ten months had the USSR been in from the start.

But not getting an immediate alliance doesn't mean that you have to hop into bed with Hitler and make his job easier.

Uncle Joe wanted to play a game of 'Let's you and him fight' expecting a WWI style bloodbath of both side, only to find that France had a glass jaw.
Whoops.

And then still ignored his own spies, as well as the neutrals and the UK, that Hiter was planning to turn East.

But Joe was too paranoid, rather to trust his new buddy Adolph.
Whoops X10
 
Hmm, I might be mistaken then. I was operating under the assumption that it was always meant to shunt a German advance through Neutral Belgium.

I guess then the question is what was the philosophy behind the line then? Because the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918 by the Entente had shown that immobile defenses in-depth could be pretty handily beaten by combined arms operations.

Re: Post 15. This is at the core of it.

The principle argument was it was a better & permanent defense zone than a field army digging trenches after another war with Germany had started. It was not for replacing field armies but to provide them with a concrete and steel vs sand bag and log carpace. The Ouverages between the Rhine & Longwy were heavily protected artillery, machine guns, command posts, ammunition storage, & supply depots for supporting the field armies or corps. They were never intended to be nor designed as stand alone works.

To elaborate slightly on this, the Commission d'Organization de Regions Fortifie's - CORF fortification project was sold to the legislature and designed for two goals or two tiers of defense. One was to cover the frontier provinces against a attack during the early stages of mobilization, about two - three weeks. Second was the system of concrete & steel strong points around which the field armies would fight.

German fortifications were designed in-depth and to support each other, much of it was to shelter troops and artillery from artillery then deploy outside of the bunkers, in other words better prepared classic defense lines. Fortifications are meant to be a speed-bump and to channelize or delay so that reserves may deploy, mobile forces can react and breakthroughs are more costly, mostly in time. The Maginot line might have done better but my understanding is that it was not well built in-depth ...

It was, in depth. I'd recommend Kemps English language primer on the subject 'The Maginot Line'. What folks label the "Maginot Line" usually corresponds to the CORF project that extended approx 180 kilometers from LaFerte to Schoenenbourg. The Overages that were the CORF construction were supplemented by smaller works built along the border, & a system of depots and military roads/railways behind the Overages to the south (the line or zone faced north towards the Saarland not east). The military roads, the protected ammunition depots. The underground communications & CP bunkers were a large part of the expense of the CORF project, & considered by the designers as important as the MG casements or artillery turrets.
 
But not getting an immediate alliance doesn't mean that you have to hop into bed with Hitler and make his job easier.

Uncle Joe wanted to play a game of 'Let's you and him fight' expecting a WWI style bloodbath of both side, only to find that France had a glass jaw.
Whoops.

And then still ignored his own spies, as well as the neutrals and the UK, that Hiter was planning to turn East.

But Joe was too paranoid, rather to trust his new buddy Adolph.
Whoops X10

Easy to argue all three governments miscalculated badly.
 
...& at the risk of boring people I will repeat: When the CORF project was authorized in October 1927 the Belgians were still considered Allies & it was expected the Belgian fortification project then underway, would extend the defense system north to where the Rhine and Meuse Rivers converge & turn west. Had this vision ben executed there would have been no open Ardennes avenue for the enemy to 'go around'. Why the Franco Belgian alliance fell apart & where the Belgian defense plans/construction went wrong is another discussion. Suffice to say the flawed combined Franco Belgian defense of 1940 was not what the French fortification design of 1928 was aimed at.
 
Last edited:
Re: Post 15. This is at the core of it.



To elaborate slightly on this, the Commission d'Organization de Regions Fortifie's - CORF fortification project was sold to the legislature and designed for two goals or two tiers of defense. One was to cover the frontier provinces against a attack during the early stages of mobilization, about two - three weeks. Second was the system of concrete & steel strong points around which the field armies would fight.



It was, in depth. I'd recommend Kemps English language primer on the subject 'The Maginot Line'. What folks label the "Maginot Line" usually corresponds to the CORF project that extended approx 180 kilometers from LaFerte to Schoenenbourg. The Overages that were the CORF construction were supplemented by smaller works built along the border, & a system of depots and military roads/railways behind the Overages to the south (the line or zone faced north towards the Saarland not east). The military roads, the protected ammunition depots. The underground communications & CP bunkers were a large part of the expense of the CORF project, & considered by the designers as important as the MG casements or artillery turrets.

Thank you, I will track it down. When I read German reports on the infantry divisions assaulting the Maginot line they had few difficulties piercing it and the Germans believed the line was too rigid, lacking the ability to absorb an attack as they designed their own strong points. I understand that the line itself had been hollowed out and manned by less than the best but found it interesting that at least one German general opined the Maginot was not as formidable as to be expected, I gathered not as troublesome as had Belgian forts been in the Great War. I recall the commentary being that even the really heavy artillery was not needed since the structures had inadequate all around defense? I have a book on German fortifications and it does seem the Germans planned for their bunkers to be surrounded until relieved, mutually supporting each other, etc. I will look at Maginot for similar features then.
 
Thank you, I will track it down. When I read German reports on the infantry divisions assaulting the Maginot line they had few difficulties piercing it and the Germans believed the line was too rigid, lacking the ability to absorb an attack as they designed their own strong points. I understand that the line itself had been hollowed out and manned by less than the best but found it interesting that at least one German general opined the Maginot was not as formidable as to be expected, ...

The German attacks were after the field corps had been withdrawn to build the Wegand line to the west. The fortifications had no infantry battalions in reserve for counter attacks, or patrolling & outposts. Along with the infantry regiments all the corps groups of artillery,pioneer battalions, and tanks were withdrawn as well. Air cover was very thin as well. The Germans were attacking a turtles shell with no muscle or powerful beak.
 
The German attacks were after the field corps had been withdrawn to build the Wegand line to the west. The fortifications had no infantry battalions in reserve for counter attacks, or patrolling & outposts. Along with the infantry regiments all the corps groups of artillery,pioneer battalions, and tanks were withdrawn as well. Air cover was very thin as well. The Germans were attacking a turtles shell with no muscle or powerful beak.

In my own draft ATL I have the French build a similar line at the 1914 Franco-German A-L border and with a solidly neutral if not German leaning Belgium devote something to defenses there. Again I think France hollows out its Army to man the forts and under invests in armor, aircraft and mobile forces, but here I play a cold war motif with Imperial Germany disinterested in invading France despite her paranoia. Thus the Maginot equivalent is a symbol of security, détente and later a springboard to peace through preparedness.
 
In my own draft ATL I have the French build a similar line at the 1914 Franco-German A-L border ...

Certain pre1914 fortifications in that region were renovated. I think that was separate from the main CORF project & much of it earlier in the 1920s. i.e.: the old German system around Metz was taken over intact in 1919 by the French, modernized somewhat, taken over by the Germans in 1940, canalbalized for the Atlantic wall, then hastily rehabbed in the late summer of 1944 when it final saw combat with the US Army.
 
Top