Prevent the fall of France

Anaxagoras

Banned
So the solution need to be politic? Could the survival of Albert I of Belgium have any impact? If Germany is expelled out of France what happend next?

Germany will collapse. It only kept itself going by ruthlessly plundering the resources of its conquests, including bringing in vast number of slave laborers from the conquered territories.
 
Germany will collapse. It only kept itself going by ruthlessly plundering the resources of its conquests, including bringing in vast number of slave laborers from the conquered territories.
I know my grandmother was from Poland and was used as a slave during the war.
 
So what pod is required for France to be able to resist and eventually push back the german invasion?


Technically following the OTL lines of technological and military development, France always was behind Germany in all aspects. (at least in the period refering to the WW2.) Only the French Navy was comparable in level of technology and superior in numbers.

To have France survive the German attack of may 1940, something else than france itself had to accomplish that, possibly a sudden attack of teh USSR on the Eastern border, even if that was futile, given the contemporary Red Army following the timeline. (USSR was only read for war in 1943, not before). It could however draw away enough German military resources to have the Advance of the German West front stall enough to have it becomming a repeat of WW1. If the Allies could have brought enough military power in the Low Countries adn Northern Fracne, and the USSR could draw away enough of the German Wehrmacht, things in France might have looked better, though all would depend on wether the German leadership was bold enough to take the bait, as the Intelligence all to well knew about the weaknesses of the Red Army in may 1940, believing it to be inferior to the German Army of the time. Theoretically the Germans could allow the Russians to advance for a while, concnetrating on the destruction of France as primary adversary on land for the time, later on pushing back the Russians.
 

Cook

Banned
In fact the Maginot Line did its job...

If its job was to soak up French resources and men, provide a physical barrier to the French understanding of modern warfare, instill in them a passive mentality that saw them do nothing while Hitler overturned each of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles specifically designed to prevent another German attack of France and then go on to attack one eastern French ally after another, all without any response for France and then finally had them staring intently at the German border while the Germans bypassed it, then yes, the Maginot Line did do its job.


If however its job was to prevent Germany from invading France, then no - it was an abject failure.


Get some reserve troops in there instead and pull out some of the Elite Garrison forces and get them in the field.
The Maginot Line was not garrisoned with elite troops, the troops manning the fortifications consisted of men no longer considered fit enough for front line combat. Not that it mattered either way; the forts of the Maginot Line were so vulnerable to infiltration and flank attack that interval troops were required between the forts to defend them; three times as many men were required to man trench lines identical to those of 1916 between the forts as were manning the fortresses of the Maginot Line itself.
 
Cook, the goal of the Maginot Line was to make any future German attack go through Belgium, instead of through the Franco-German border. Therefore, it did the job it was designed to do.
 
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