WI: Maginot Line covers the Ardennes?

Deleted member 1487

I'd expect that initially at least you can simply spend more, since the Maginot Line started construction in the late 20s when the French had a large budget surplus. There were extensive proposals under the Tardieu government about how to spend it, and most likely they would simply allocate increasing funding to the Maginot Line. When the economic crisis of the 1930s strikes then it will probably see cuts, but I don't think that this is catastrophic: the Magot Line and its associated troops was already plentifully strong to resist a German attack in 1940, so a somewhat less powerful central section wouldn't be a significant problem. The other aspect is that the Maginot Line's construction was essentially finished by 1936 in the North, so cutting spending in other areas during this period isn't that bad as a whole: most of the equipment produced up until 1936 is useless. It could even have positive aspects, as The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force relates, the French severely messed up their fighter production by switching to the D.520 instead of building the upgraded MS.406 as the MS.450 which would have enabled far more fighters which would have been good enough, if not quite as good as the D.520 and BF-109E. If they were less confident in their production and had kept with the serviceable MS.450 then they could have had significantly more fighters in 1940.
Its been a while since I read it, but the book "Seeds of Disaster" covers how the Maginot Line blew a huge hole in the French military budget that it suffered from even as late as 1940. The line started construction in 1929 right before the Great Depression and was built until 1938, which meant that for the vast majority of time it was being built it gutted the ability to spend on the non-ML military items, which left the French air force crippled as of 1940. Remember by 1936 the French government was insolvent to the point that they couldn't even afford mobilize to fight in the Rheinland, a key reason why they didn't oppose Hitler then and why Hitler thought he could get away with it (German intelligence had informed him of France's finances). The issue is more than just equipment, though you can't simply not spend until 1936 and then start...the French did try that with their military, which was largely hamstrung due to lack of funding through the Great Depression and into the late 1930s, and crucially left them with a too tiny force of pilots to even man the aircraft available. Having more fighters is pointless, especially of lesser performance, if they didn't even have enough trained pilots to use them...which was a key problem in 1940.

BTW the Maginot Line was breached in several places IOTL, including in the Southern part of the line, which was weaker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line#German_invasion_in_World_War_II
 
Exactly the Ardennes were impenetrable... if someone bothered to destroy the mountain roads and fell a few thousand trees as EXPECTED, just as Malta was indefensible... had the Italians bothered to invade...
Right which is kind of the point that I think people find easy to miss in these threads.

The Maginot Line worked. It forced the Germans to pin their hopes for success on a sector that was very hard to advance through and incredibly easy to defend. This was the whole point of the Line.

And then the French just... didn't bother to defend that sector. This is a stupefying failure even for a supposedly slow and poorly led army.

Everything about how the French leadership was obsolete and it was too sluggish and the wall was obsolete in an age of mobile warfare, all of that is just kind of beside the point.

In my mind, it is unfair to blame the Wall for doing its job.
 
On paper that makes perfect sense, but on paper the 9th Army had hefty reserves and reinforcements inbound. Yet it vaporized in 3-4 days under attack of two armored corps.
I don't mean to say that I think that the French position is infallible, but still, shorter frontage, more troops, more reserves, must mean that the French have a better chance of holding the line.

True, but when it looked like XLI Corps was stalled by the fortifications near Montherme the 8th PzDv was sent north & the 'break through' crossing of the corps was north the French sector of the Meuse River.
Ok then, but this still leaves a much reduced frontage to take advantage of in any case.

Perhaps, tho on the game board I've found sweeping maneuvers to Paris or the Channel less productive than first a closer encirclement of the armies at hand. ie: Swing north to Brussels and Antwerp with XLI and XIX corps better traps the French 1st Army, the BEF, and the Belgians.
Perhaps, but even in this case there would be fewer troops trapped in a less ambitious encirclement. It might still be enough to do in the French, but a more northern front and stronger front should mean the Battle of France lasts longer at least.

Google some pictures of the traffic jam in the Ardennes in 1940.

Frankly expanding the Wall would be a waste of money. Just ask yourself what the likely consequences would be of turning loose a couple companies of men with chainsaws.

Granted I am not a professional soldier, but I am not persuaded that either the length of the Maginot Line or the obsolete French doctrine and leadership was the point of failure here. I mean, yes, the line could have been longer, and yes, the French could have been better led. Those didn't help, but the initial advance in the Ardennes could have been stopped alarmingly easily even within those limitations.
I doubt that the chainsaws would have had much impact without being backed up with troops to defend them, there were Chasseurs ardennais defensive roadblocks that were quickly dealt with by German engineers when not covered by defensive fires. That being said, even small units could make a difference: Chasseurs ardennais units were able to inflict heavy delays on German forces moving through the region. But at the same time the French troops which were sent in didn't always perform very well, despite ostensibly being high quality, as can be attested by French spahi units' chaotic fight and the troubles of light cavalry divisions.

Its been a while since I read it, but the book "Seeds of Disaster" covers how the Maginot Line blew a huge hole in the French military budget that it suffered from even as late as 1940.
I have read Seeds of Disaster a while ago as well but would have to re-read it through again to look at the budget. However, other books I have read, especially French Foreign and Defense Policy 1919-1940 have markedly different views on the matter, and I haven't suggested increasing Maginot Line spending beyond the early years, simply accepting somewhat lighter fortifications on parts of it. I don't think that the Belgian defenses would be particularly expensive, since they can follow along the Meuse and be equivalent to the lighter defenses that the Rhine sectors were provided with, unlike the heavy fortifications of the Metz sector, since they are defending a river crossing anyway and are in front of forbidding geography. The Rhine defenses only took up some 18% of French fortifications spending, despite being a long individual section.

The line started construction in 1929 right before the Great Depression and was built until 1938, which meant that for the vast majority of time it was being built it gutted the ability to spend on the non-ML military items, which left the French air force crippled as of 1940.
ZAzt35p.png

The Great Depression did not start in France until several years after the American 1929 crash, so for the initial several years the French continued to enjoy their surplus. The line's funding and construction had been completed by 1936 as laid out by French Foreign and Defense Policy, 1918-1940. Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II notes that most of the principal forts were done by 1935: remaining construction was the new forts and secondary defensive fronts like the Alpine Line and the Mareth Line.

Remember by 1936 the French government was insolvent to the point that they couldn't even afford mobilize to fight in the Rheinland, a key reason why they didn't oppose Hitler then and why Hitler thought he could get away with it (German intelligence had informed him of France's finances).
The French had a lot of different reasons why they wouldn't fight in 1936, and the Maginot Line itself was only a relatively small portion of the French army's budget: its main financial impact is spending on investment, arms procurement, infrastructure, where it squeezed out mobile forces investment rather than pushing up spending as a whole.
1936 it should also be remember, is the year when, on September 7th, Leon Blum's Popular Front government voted 14 billion francs for a four-year army re-equipment plan, while the Maginot Line's cost as a whole generally is cited at around 5 billion francs. The French were not broke for long term military investment in that year.

The issue is more than just equipment, though you can't simply not spend until 1936 and then start...the French did try that with their military, which was largely hamstrung due to lack of funding through the Great Depression and into the late 1930s, and crucially left them with a too tiny force of pilots to even man the aircraft available. Having more fighters is pointless, especially of lesser performance, if they didn't even have enough trained pilots to use them...which was a key problem in 1940.
The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force notes that the French had a surplus of fighters to pilots in 1940, particularly once you take into account the large numbers of foreign Czech and Polish fighters who were sent to France... and who if they had planes at all, sometimes had to fly death traps like the Caudron C.714, when they weren't pushed out into penny packets in local defense units. We have discussed the problems with French pilot training before, and they are real, but they weren't in 1940 because the French didn't hit their production targets. Simple changes to the French air force structure in Fall 1939 could easily present a much better portrait for 1940, although of course this is simply speculation: it is entirely possible for them to make the same mistakes, but if we assume that the euphoria they felt in 1939 is reduced, then they might adopt a more sensible and less risky course with positive impact on both general air force quality and quantity come May 1940.

In bombers it was apparently even worse, so much so that the French were using rotating teams for their bombers to achieve a faster sortie rate, although this being the French Air Force they still had dismal sortie rates anyway....

BTW the Maginot Line was breached in several places IOTL, including in the Southern part of the line, which was weaker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line#German_invasion_in_World_War_II
That was once the reinforcing divisions were withdrawn along the Rhine sector, it was pointed out in one of the several books on the Maginot Line (I suspect Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II, but it could also be The Maginot Line History and Guide) that if the French hadn't withdrawn their units then the Germans would probably have faced a nasty setback along that front. In the North several new lines which had been extended and were complementary to the core Maginot line did fall as well, but they were much weaker than the rest of the line and isolated, and attacked with overwhelming force. If we assume that the French keep their number of troops they assigned to the Maginot line historically roughly stable (again, perhaps I am too optimistic about the French, they heavily over-committed there OTL and could do so even more if they have lighter fortifications and a longer line), then breaching it should continue to be essentially impossible.
 
Last edited:

Ian_W

Banned
That was once the reinforcing divisions were withdrawn along the Rhine sector, it was pointed out in one of the several books on the Maginot Line (I suspect Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II, but it could also be The Maginot Line History and Guide) that if the French hadn't withdrawn their units then the Germans would probably have faced a nasty setback along that front. In the North several new lines which had been extended and were complementary to the core Maginot line did fall as well, but they were much weaker than the rest of the line and isolated, and attacked with overwhelming force. If we assume that the French keep their number of troops they assigned to the Maginot line historically roughly stable (again, perhaps I am too optimistic about the French, they heavily over-committed there OTL and could do so even more if they have lighter fortifications and a longer line), then breaching it should continue to be essentially impossible.

Y'know, theres a timeline there ... 'A Stuck Sickle', where the interval divisions (and reserves in general) aren't withdrawn, and a German attack through the Ardennes gets stopped.
 
Y'know, theres a timeline there ... 'A Stuck Sickle', where the interval divisions (and reserves in general) aren't withdrawn, and a German attack through the Ardennes gets stopped.

That would be first up to the Belgians. Don't have any references in front of me, but from memory: Belgians had two light divisions, a mix of motorized and horse screening the German/Luxembourg border south of Liege to the French border. These occupied a double line of small gun bunkers, road blocks, minefields, barbed wire, ect... platoon and company positions with MG. AT guns, cover by mortars and artillery. This was a huge front for two light mobile divisions to cover, but the wooded hills made it difficult to by pass the strong points. Further west two more reserve infantry divisions were available to reinforce this sector if needed. One was assembled at Namur, the other near Huy French plans for establishing their own delaying positions in the Ardennes were based on the Belgians Delaying in this position for a fun day, then falling back through a series of intermediate positions for another 30+ hours. On Day 3 of the German advance the Belgians would join the French established along the line south from Huy-Marche-Neufchatu.

The French advance guards of four of their mechanized cavalry divisions arrived at the planned positions about noon on Day 2. They were surprised to find the Belgians already passing the position, with the Germans right behind them, and no plans to halt and fight. The Belgians had orders to retreat north and join the main Belgian army covering Louvain & Antwerp. So instead of a prepared fight on a delaying positions during the 12th & 13th May the French on the afternoon of the 11th found themselves in a meeting engagement with seven armored divisions. Out numbered about 10-1 in tanks and motorized infantry the cavalry made a desperate fighting withdrawal during the next 30 hours. Recrossing the Meause River from Dinant south and east to Luxembourg.

Exactly why the Belgians left the prepared positions so quickly i can't say. There were 3-4 cases where platoons did not receive the retreat orders on time and held up the Germans for hours. Rommel's 7th Pz Div had a great deal of trouble on the morning of 10 May securing a ford across a small stream near the border. A column of Guderians corps was stalled some six hours while dismounted infantry made their way across a series of steeply wooded hill side to find the flank of the Belgian position. The defenders finally received orders to retreat before the German flanking column found them. The Belgians had made a considerable investment in this border defense & abandoning it before the Germans had a chance to actually attack it

Exactly the Ardennes were impenetrable... if someone bothered to destroy the mountain roads and fell a few thousand trees as EXPECTED, just as Malta was indefensible... had the Italians bothered to invade...

The Belgians had created extensive road blocks, felled trees, mines, concrete barriers in some locations. But, they made little effort to fight on those positions, covering the blocks with fire. The Germans had pioneer detachments at the head of the columns to clear the obstacles, and all the tank crews and motorized units had rehearsed what they could do as well. Without Belgian MG, mortars, or artillery suppressing them the obstacles could be cleared as if on a training exercise. The largest hold up seems to have been the blown bridges. Guderian indicated post war his corps used their entire stock of bridging material crossing the Ardennes and the Meause River. When the pontoon bridges were completed at Sedan nothing remained at hand to bridge further streams or repair the bridges if bomb damage occurred.
 
I doubt that the chainsaws would have had much impact without being backed up with troops to defend them, there were Chasseurs ardennais defensive roadblocks that were quickly dealt with by German engineers when not covered by defensive fires. That being said, even small units could make a difference: Chasseurs ardennais units were able to inflict heavy delays on German forces moving through the region. But at the same time the French troops which were sent in didn't always perform very well, despite ostensibly being high quality, as can be attested by French spahi units' chaotic fight and the troubles of light cavalry divisions.

Okay, I will admit, that was hyperbole I should not have stooped to.

But my point is, this really should have been the easiest sector to defend, and none of the complaints usually lodged against the French for having unimaginative leadership, slow response times, antiquated tactics, or what have you apply in the slightest. A German advance through that kind of terrain could and should have been easily halted. In my view the failure here is unconscionable. It is that almost unbelievable blunder, and not the Maginot Line, that surely must go down as the greatest French error. The Maginot Line did exactly what it was supposed to do: it forced the Germans into alternative, less ideal strategies. It's like the French forgot the purpose of their own wall.
 
Okay, I will admit, that was hyperbole I should not have stooped to.

But my point is, this really should have been the easiest sector to defend, and none of the complaints usually lodged against the French for having unimaginative leadership, slow response times, antiquated tactics, or what have you apply in the slightest. A German advance through that kind of terrain could and should have been easily halted. In my view the failure here is unconscionable. It is that almost unbelievable blunder, and not the Maginot Line, that surely must go down as the greatest French error. The Maginot Line did exactly what it was supposed to do: it forced the Germans into alternative, less ideal strategies. It's like the French forgot the purpose of their own wall.
Yes, you are right that French troop deployments were rather poor. There were large numbers of troops stuck behind the Maginot Line which were unnecessary and could have easily been pushed out to cover the Ardennes, and to increase forces in Belgium, or to simply provide a larger central reserve in any case.

At the same time given the French understanding of operations it isn't as risky as it seems in retrospect. Given the difficult terrain present in the Ardennes, first the German attack had to move much more quickly than the French thought possible, and indeed the German forces arrived much more rapidly than the French envisioned. The French hadn't grasped the sheer power of airpower to enable their defensive lines to be softened up enough, and in this regards the incredible, hundreds, even thousands, of aircraft employed for this single tactical attack was without precedent in history, which again heavily upset the French time table, since the assumption was that the enemy needed to bring up large amounts of artillery to make any fording of the river possible. Indeed, it also upset their tactical plans: there were large German forces positioned in front of the French troops at Sedan, which the French artillery officer chose to only bombard to a mediocre extent, instead of firing off a much greater amount of artillery ammunition, because he assumed that the Germans would be attacking at a later date and thus should conserve shells for the real battle, since it wasn't possible for them to have brought up the necessary artillery. Of course the Germans attacked rather soon thereafter. Moving multiple panzer corps through difficult terrain in a few days and then carrying out the largest air bombardment in history up to this point in lieu of artillery were both things which caught the French by surprise, and to some extent make their mistake less stupid than it appears.

Nevertheless, when they had such a large force of troops frozen behind the Maginot Line that were completely useless, it was a risk the French didn't need to take, and even Pétain had noted that the Ardennes needed sufficient security to really make it impregnable as the French thought.
 
Nevertheless, when they had such a large force of troops frozen behind the Maginot Line that were completely useless, it was a risk the French didn't need to take, and even Pétain had noted that the Ardennes needed sufficient security to really make it impregnable as the French thought.

Therein lies the part I do not understand. The purpose of the Maginot Line was to make a head-on push into France either impossible or very, very slow. Consequently, the Germans would either have to break through so slowly that the French had ample time to rush in reinforcements, or, and this is the crucial point, it would force the Germans to go through the Low Countries again.

So the wall served its purpose, so far as I can tell.

"It's okay, they probably won't use that route because it's not ideal" is pretty lazy strategizing when the survival of your country is at stake and the whole point of your defensive strategy is to force them to seek out non-ideal routes.

Anyhow, to go back to the original question that started this thread, if the Ardennes is properly defended, I doubt France falls.
 
VERY illustrative... since IT DID COVER THE ARDENNES!

For some values of "cover", maybe. A much thinner version, and with gaps (in particular behind the Ardennes), was extended North in the last years of construction. I'm not sure work was completed at every ouvrage.
 

JAG88

Banned
For some values of "cover", maybe. A much thinner version, and with gaps (in particular behind the Ardennes), was extended North in the last years of construction. I'm not sure work was completed at every ouvrage.

Ouvrage density was given as a function of terrain, the less suitable got more works and so on, but of course it matters little if you dont arm them, complete them, use them or deploy the support troops.
 
Honestly, the whole point of the Maginot Line was to buy time for the call up of the reserves, not to simply stop an attack. The line did what it was supposed to do where it was attacked.

Many folks will claim it was easily broken but the only place it was "easily" broken was at the end of the Western portion isolated petit ouvrage La Ferté (southeast of Sedan) which was an unfinished area and was not fully built with all 3 combat block areas and only manned by 107 soldiers (lower manned than other sites along the line)...see the pictures from this site. http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/LaFerte.html

Sendo, you are correct though, the doctrine at the time was to rush to the aid of Belgium in order to encourage the Belgian's not to fold and not to fight the battles on French soil...that means a large force still would have been trapped up in Belgium.


Exactly the whole point was so that the fighting would be in Belgium

In that sense it worked perfectly
 
Not really, as the money to pay for the forts would mean less mobile forces could be afforded. That or gut the AdA even more. If that happens then the Luftwaffe really runs riot over the French army.

It’s not that much of an extension to the forts.
 

Deleted member 1487

It’s not that much of an extension to the forts.
It wasn't a short distance either and was already fortified IOTL. Part of the reason they didn't think spending the money was worth it was Eben Emael and Namur fortifications were expected to be the Belgian extension of their fortifications.
main-ov.jpg


Plus they'd have to build a bunch of forts like this:
topfotomaginotcrosssection-1.jpg
 
It wasn't a short distance either and was already fortified IOTL. Part of the reason they didn't think spending the money was worth it was Eben Emael and Namur fortifications were expected to be the Belgian extension of their fortifications. ...

Exactly. Sitting in a defense on the Northern French border means defending a long stretch of flat open countryside, with a excellent road and railway net for the attacker to use. It also leaves the Belgian defense unsupported to be destroyed in isolation. Advancing into Belgium adds the 22 Belgian divisions to the density of the defense, defends the Belgian arms industry & a large part of the the Belgian industrial base, defends the Channel/North Sea ports for Allied use, places the defense in the much more defensible Ardennes forested uplands and the Rhine/Meuse rivers barriers.

Folks should note the French did sit in the frontier defense between Longwy & Givet. Unlike further north where two powerful armies advanced deep into Belgium the 2d and the bulk of the 9th Armies hunkered down in zone of fortifications, both old and new. Here instead of advancing into Belgium with a strong field army just four very light mechanized 'cavalry' divisions were sent to assist the Belgians in delaying whatever the enemy sent into the Ardennes. The fortified zone along the frontier, backed by ample reserves failed in barely 36 hours, in some sectors substantially less. This had a lot to do with the quality of the units defending and little to do with the strength of the defense works.
 

Deleted member 1487

Exactly. Sitting in a defense on the Northern French border means defending a long stretch of flat open countryside, with a excellent road and railway net for the attacker to use. It also leaves the Belgian defense unsupported to be destroyed in isolation. Advancing into Belgium adds the 22 Belgian divisions to the density of the defense, defends the Belgian arms industry & a large part of the the Belgian industrial base, defends the Channel/North Sea ports for Allied use, places the defense in the much more defensible Ardennes forested uplands and the Rhine/Meuse rivers barriers.

Folks should note the French did sit in the frontier defense between Longwy & Givet. Unlike further north where two powerful armies advanced deep into Belgium the 2d and the bulk of the 9th Armies hunkered down in zone of fortifications, both old and new. Here instead of advancing into Belgium with a strong field army just four very light mechanized 'cavalry' divisions were sent to assist the Belgians in delaying whatever the enemy sent into the Ardennes. The fortified zone along the frontier, backed by ample reserves failed in barely 36 hours, in some sectors substantially less. This had a lot to do with the quality of the units defending and little to do with the strength of the defense works.
That and the impact of aerial interdiction on the movement of reserves coupled with the failings of the French air force and army command structure.
 
Top