WI Maginot line was built from the Swiss border to the English Channel.

Would the French stop te Germans.

  • Nein, Hitler still reaches Paris like otl.

    Votes: 16 25.0%
  • Germans win but with take huge loses.

    Votes: 24 37.5%
  • French repulse the blitz and WW1 repeats it's self.

    Votes: 19 29.7%
  • Oui, the Germans will be stopped and pushed back to Berlin.

    Votes: 5 7.8%

  • Total voters
    64
  • Poll closed .
A longer Maginot line would definitely help, but I think better French leadership would be worth a lot more.
 
Those things could stand a nuclear blast and fought until AFTER the armistice. Not a chance for the German.

Reason it didn't get built that way was because of the Belgium. They didn't want a militarised border and said they'd do it on their side. Which they fucked up. Way to go Belgium
 
Well unless the Germans can somehow figure out a way to neutralise a totally impregnable fortress they are screwed I mean OTL showed that concrete and guns are all that is needed to stop a mechanised advance cold forever with no possible counter.

I mean what are they going to do land glider troops with explosives on top of it?:rolleyes:
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Well unless the Germans can somehow figure out a way to neutralise a totally impregnable fortress they are screwed I mean OTL showed that concrete and guns are all that is needed to stop a mechanised advance cold forever with no possible counter.

I mean what are they going to do land glider troops with explosives on top of it?:rolleyes:
The actual counter to that kind of attack, in a well run military?
Shell the fortress! With airburst only, of course.
 
The actual counter to that kind of attack, in a well run military?
Shell the fortress! With airburst only, of course.

Super Heavy artillery also does the job. I mean its not like the Germans are going to sit still while this is happening if the French put everything into building super fortresses then the Germans will work that into their plans. I mean super heavy guns or specialised shells are a lot cheaper than fortifications.


Of course the true flaw in the plan is that France still thinks its a great power. If it builds this line then its admitting to itself and all its allies that it isn't and can't even pretend to protect a (at the time) close ally from attack never mind the half dozen weak countries that for time were tied to France before realising Paris wouldn't lift a finger to help them.
 
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Thing is, it wasn't intended to be a complete border. It was concieved to blockade the eastern border and harbours troops in this zone in order to prevent the northern front being surrounded without main reinforcements.

Not only a complete border would have implied skyrocketing costs, but it would have been a really, really bad diplomatical move : as in telling Belgians "Well, you're on your own, now. Good luck with whatever threat come into you"

And, actually, its precise role worked well : it did harboured troops and preventing the easter border (now that Vosges line couldn't really serve as a defense, and with the strategic focus on territorial sanctuarisation but as well troop sanctuarisation).
Its Alpine counterpart is another exemple on how it could have worked, at least on short-term.

If it's associated with failure, it's less about its existence than having a more than inept French High Command, which believed Ardennes, or even part of Belgium to be inexpugnable, with Allied armies being able somehow to take all the pressure of German offensives. That's coming back right from the 20's with Pétain arguing that campaign fortifications would be enough, or that permanent fortifications were a thing of the past (which may have been true, but his solutions weren't exactly sound).

I'd think that a full-fledged Maginot Line would have implied too much of a ressource drain, a political and moral drawback, and a diplomatic ruckus to have been really viable; and that given absence of strategies that weren't mental, you can bet that ineptitude would have find a way to make it percied (would it be by sheer lack of men).

And a high command or strategic commissions actually knowing what they were doing would probably not have gone for a full-fledged line, preferring series of fortifications with "gaps" (as it was first advised, as a gap in Vosges, to allow for strategic mobility).
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Super Heavy artillery also does the job. I mean its not like the Germans are going to sit still while this is happening if the French put everything into building super fortresses then the Germans will work that into their plans. I mean super heavy guns or specialised shells are a lot cheaper than fortifications.


Of course the true flaw in the plan is that France still thinks its a great power. If it builds this line then its admitting to itself and all its allies that it isn't and can't even pretend to protect a (at the time) close ally from attack never mind the half dozen weak countries that for time were tied to France before realising Paris wouldn't lift a finger to help them.
...that is quite astonishingly Francophobic. It misrepresents the very real strength of the French military of the time - in the 1930s it was an open question which was strongest in the world, the French or the Soviet Union - and also misrepresents both the relative industrial balance and the nature of the Blitzkrieg victory.


Actually - you know how the Maginot Line fortifications work, right? There's the interval divisions as well. It's not just a bloody huge fort and nothing else.

Also how long it takes a super heavy gun to set up to firing position. We're talking a week or so, with a nine round salvo occupying an entire day.
 
Doing so would mean that the defensive planning IOTL would be thrown out the window. Plan Dyle called for the French 1st and 7th army plus the BEF to move into Belgium and occupy a line from Breda through Antwerp and to Nammur, linking up with both Dutch and Belgium forces. The french 9th army then would occupy a line from Nammur to the French border. Their were weak fortifications that went all the way to the Strait of Dover, however, Trying to build such strong fortifications all the way to Dover would be very expensive. The Maginot line as it was cost 3 billion Francs to construct and would likely need that same amount if not more to fully complete it.

Doing so would also have diplomatic repercussions since that is pretty much telling the Dutch and Belgians that they are on their own to fight Germany. Even trying to get the French government to agree to this would be hard to do, Édouard Daladier's cabinet was pretty ineffective and he would likely lose a vote of confidence in the chamber of deputes before war broke out.

It misrepresents the very real strength of the French military of the time - in the 1930s it was an open question which was strongest in the world, the French or the Soviet Union
The issue is that the French during the 30's were rather short on young men. The decline of the birth rate during the first WW and after it meant that many of the reservists were older and would take longer to mobilize and diminish French industry because they would need to leave their jobs.
 
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...that is quite astonishingly Francophobic. It misrepresents the very real strength of the French military of the time - in the 1930s it was an open question which was strongest in the world, the French or the Soviet Union - and also misrepresents both the relative industrial balance and the nature of the Blitzkrieg victory.


Actually - you know how the Maginot Line fortifications work, right? There's the interval divisions as well. It's not just a bloody huge fort and nothing else.

Also how long it takes a super heavy gun to set up to firing position. We're talking a week or so, with a nine round salvo occupying an entire day.

The French military that managed to talk itself out of doing anything every time the civilian government that gave it everything it asked for funding wise during a disasterous economic downturn asked it for its assessment of its capabilities to react to German moves, that let its premier fighting formations get outflanked and pocketed enmasse because it ignored a gaping hole in its defences that was pointed out by a certain former British King who had been at the front for about a week when he noticed the lack of units there and the French military that kept its best planes grounded for later use during Blitzkrieg?


Blasting open fortified lines is something that can be done with preparation and is particularly easy against a foe that tries to defend in depth everywhere with a communications network that hasn't evolved since world war one.
 
The issue is that the French during the 30's were rather short on young men.
That could have been adressed relatively easily. After all, it was the whole point of fortification lines, as sanctuarizing both territory and troops from too important losses.

Colonial mobilisation, (even in 1944, in a pretty much bad shape, there was enough to rise 1,5 million. It'd expect something at least similar in a far better situation), among other things, could have compensated for that.

But the main issue is really to be searched in divisive strategic conceptions, having mostly an over-reliance on late WW1 conceptions (the conception of communication lines was largely oudated, for exemple, but admittedly there was something very similar for Soviet Army in 1939/1941).

French High Command beneficied from a lot of financial and political support (regardless of governments) and while it allowed several mechanical and technical advances (such as with tanks), their strategies, structures and use of this material was...heck, it wasn't even up to WW1 standards.

Marc Bloch's book on it, that have the main advantage to have been written on spot, almost immediatly after the defeat underline that quite well : there were people in charge that had no idea about what they were doing, working with stuff they didn't wanted to work with, and eventually fighting a war they didn't want to fight.
 
Colonial mobilization, (even in 1944, in a pretty much bad shape, there was enough to rise 1,5 million. It'd expect something at least similar in a far better situation), among other things, could have compensated for that.
But then that comes with the issue of actually being able to mobilize those troops and be able to project them to France. Having the money to do so is also a problem. It wasn't until 1937 that the French economy started to pick back up, and the Maginot Line was a huge drain, trying to expand it to the English Channel would have put an even bigger stress on the economy. They wouldn't be able to fund having such a large army. The French troops in May of 1940 didn't have very good moral, their living conditions were poor, they weren't being paid much at all. The conditions would be worse with more troops and less money.
 
But then that comes with the issue of actually being able to mobilize those troops and be able to project them to France.
Which was done, IOTL, in 1944 where ressources weren't exactly being stellar. Granted, we're talking of an american-equipped army for most of it, but it was technically feasible at the point the age problem wouldn't have been that of a blow especially with a sound defensive strategy.

It wasn't until 1937 that the French economy started to pick back up, and the Maginot Line was a huge drain, trying to expand it to the English Channel would have put an even bigger stress on the economy.
I completly agree : see my first post on this thread.

They wouldn't be able to fund having such a large army.
With the situation in 1939/40? I agree. But most of the blame must be pulled on how French army was structured and lead, with a lot of wasted opportunity, or sheer waste.
With people actually knowing what they were doing, a more rational use of ressources would have been at least partially compensating.

As for the living conditions, while true, it was far less so than during WW1 which make the Phony War a picnick on the countryside by comparison.
You're entierly right on moral, and there's again, Bloch's analysis of the situation he had at hand is most precious : idiotic propaganda, poor troop structuration, useless excercices or moves, people having no idea what they were doing...

Again, the blame on command (which is not alone in that, but share a lot of the blame would it be because it denied it for years, preferring to accuse "frivolity" "masonery", "socialism", "Jews") covers a lot of the very real problems you described : even if ressources magically popped up, and that political/moral/diplomatical coast going all stronghold were disappearing, I'm quite confident that the poor joke of an HC that existed in France would still have found a way to fail it up.
 
Neither the French economy in the 1930s could afford nor will the terrain along the Belgian border (too flat and open) allow for a Maginot Line extended to the sea.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
This is one of those ideas that works if you have 75 years of hindsight.

Otherwise, all it does is break France's economy and may in itself bring about either a Far Right or Far Left overthrow of the Republic.
 
The actual counter to that kind of attack, in a well run military?
Shell the fortress! With airburst only, of course.
The Maginot line forts were set up covering one another to do exactly this. Of course, they also had their own organic mortars, and the interval divisions were tasked with counterattacking and clearing any forces that did break through onto the top of the fortifications, although the French were expecting that to be conventional infantry divisions rather than a handful of paratroopers.

Super Heavy artillery also does the job. I mean its not like the Germans are going to sit still while this is happening if the French put everything into building super fortresses then the Germans will work that into their plans. I mean super heavy guns or specialised shells are a lot cheaper than fortifications.
Umm... not always - digging a deeper hole and pouring more concrete on the top of it isn't exactly expensive, and there is a very real upper limit to how big a shell you can build and still have it work. Also, this isn't 1918 where you've only really got a two dimensional threat - the French have the ability to attack any really big guns (which can't run or hide - they take days to put together and produce such a big bang that locating them is a doddle) from the air, and conversely the Germans could potentially build an analogue to Tallboy or Grand Slam and attack them from the air. This isn't a simple weapon/armour problem, it's much more complex than that. The Maginot line forts aren't one big blockhouse, but a complex network of tunnels with blast doors and the like within them stretching over a very large area - bombarding them will degrade them but you won't get a golden BB knocking them out.
I'd also suggest reading up in the effort both sides had to go to to capture Fort Vaux at Verdun in WW1 - that's a far weaker fortification than anything on the Maginot line, yet required a 10:1 German superiority in manpower to take as well as extensive 420mm support (and a similar effort by the French to take it back again). Critically, it also took them a week to do so - time during which the French army could mobilise and the interval divisions could counterattack or reinforce the fort.
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Of course the true flaw in the plan is that France still thinks its a great power. If it builds this line then its admitting to itself and all its allies that it isn't and can't even pretend to protect a (at the time) close ally from attack never mind the half dozen weak countries that for time were tied to France before realising Paris wouldn't lift a finger to help them.
in 1929 when they started work on it? France was widely thought to have the most powerful army on earth at the time, and certainly the most modern. Who else was there? Germany was still disarmed, the US was a joke and the UK were only interested in the colonies.

Thing is, it wasn't intended to be a complete border. It was concieved to blockade the eastern border and harbours troops in this zone in order to prevent the northern front being surrounded without main reinforcements.

Not only a complete border would have implied skyrocketing costs, but it would have been a really, really bad diplomatical move : as in telling Belgians "Well, you're on your own, now. Good luck with whatever threat come into you"
It did something else too. It channeled the German attack so that it had to come through Belgium - guaranteeing that the UK would come into the war on the French side, and vastly simplifying the French defensive plans while ensuring that any fighting would be on Belgian rather than French soil. Indeed, if Gamelin hadn't been a complete moron then the Maginot line would probably be regarded as a masterstroke. He was explicitly warned by his 2IC that the Dyle-Breda plan was very vulnerable to a German attack through the Ardennes and ignored the warning because the two didn't get on politically (see To Lose a Battle: France, 1940 by Alistair Horne for details of the meeting or indeed my timeline in my signature to see how it should have gone).

This is one of those ideas that works if you have 75 years of hindsight.
Probably not even then. What should (could) they have done instead?
 
(see To Lose a Battle: France, 1940 by Alistair Horne for details of the meeting or indeed my timeline in my signature to see how it should have gone).
Indeed. Anna Lacroix-Riz's Le Choix de la Défaite is quite interesting as well, while from a more political-focused point of view.

Probably not even then. What should (could) they have done instead?
I think going for the original conception of a "broken" line, with opening gaps between fortified lines would have been both less costly, and may have forced staff to either being partially changed or at least to get adapted a bit to military realities.
 
The Maginot Line wasnt as expensive as many think. It consumed on average about 8% of the military budget per year to construct.

What defeated France wasnt the Maginot Line or the attack through the Ardennes it was the fact that France was politically and economically in a mess and no shiny military would have changed that.
 
The military was shiny enough, even though it could have done with a better-managed mobilization. And while the political and economic conditions in the late Third Republic were far from optimal, they were not in themselves sufficient to bring France to its knees. The leadership of the military, now, that's another matter. From Gamelin sticking to the Dyle plan without considering the niggling matter of keeping a reserve, to the defeatist command of l'Armée de l'Air whose rate of sorties was abysmal, to various commanders who fell back when they should have held and tried to fight when they shouldn't have, to having no doctrinal answer to the new way of waging war, to Weygand refusing to consider the evacuation of military personel and equipment to Algeria, there is a cornucopia of things that went wrong among the top brass of the French military. Funnily enough, in the Riom trials, Gamelin was among the accused but so were Léon Blum and Edouard Daladier. Conspicuously, Weygand and Pétain were not, since they were the leaders of the Vichyst regime, even though their role had been decisive in leading to the 17th June armistice. Blum and Daladier still managed to prove in what amounted to a kangaroo court that the military leadership bore the largest responsability in the debacle. The trial was interrumpted and never resumed.
 
Even if the French had built the Maginot Line from La Manche to Switzerland, the like will still get breached anyway, thanks to German airborne troops neutralizing some of the fortifications with paratroop and glider landings (the Maginot Line wasn't designed with airborne troop invasions in mind).
 
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