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6 The Maginot Line France’s Great Folly or Reasoned Response to the GermanThreat Introduction By the twentieth century, advances in technology had produced a quantum leap in the mobility and destructiveness of military power; nevertheless, strategic defenses continued to be constructed, most notably the maligned Maginot Line. This largely subterranean French fortification system, while lacking the grandeur of Hadrian’s Wall or the Great Wall of China, ranks among the strongest defense barriers in history. It is also often cited as a badly misguided policy that critically contributed to France’s rapid defeat in 1940. Facing a stronger adversary , could the strategic defense system productively shape German behavior? Given the perception of Berlin’s revisionist commitment, the ability of the Maginot Line to influence the Germans depended greatly on its operational effectiveness . Often presented as an obsolete legacy of World War I, its impact on the military balance requires closer examination. While its effects on the adversary and military balance have been criticized, particularly strong condemnation has been attached to the Maginot Line’s impact on French decision making. This barrier does provide an excellent example of the pronounced psychological as well as material impact that defensive obstacles may produce, but did it create the debilitating “Maginot mentality” often declaimed? Blanket condemnations or strident apologies do not promote proper understanding of the effects of the Maginot Line. Appreciating this barrier requires an awareness of the contextual factors that motivated the initial choice and an understanding of how the defense system subsequently shaped the strategic environment. The first half of this chapter explains why France decided to build the Maginot Line. More specifically, why did France choose to fortify part of its frontier while leaving the remaining area with minimal fixed defenses? The barrier had a long incubation period as the Army High Command debated the merit, location, and form of defense for most of the 1920s. While construction of the Maginot Line progressed in the 1930s, calls for major changes to frontier The Maginot Line 205 defense policy emerged in light of growing German threat perception, shifting alliance dynamics, evolving military technology, and fluctuating French politics. The chapter considers the two peaks in such questioning, 1932 and 1936, and the effect of the Maginot Line’s existence on the debate. Ultimately, France did not extend fixed defenses to cover the entire eastern frontier although the government actually encouraged the impression of broad coverage, which became widespread at home and overseas. The final section considers its wartime performance . After the Wehrmacht sliced through the Ardennes forest and defeated France in six weeks in 1940, the Maginot Line obtained global renown as a symbol of flawed military policy. A pivotal moment in the fortification’s history occurred when War Minister André Maginot addressed the French Chamber of Deputies on December 10, 1929. After a decade of internal military and government debate on the subject of frontier defense, Maginot had come to obtain money for the barrier that would ultimately bear his name. While having limited involvement in the conception of this strategic defense, he spoke with passion and authority on its behalf. Beyond being a long-standing military expert among the French political leadership, the minister’s stature resulted from a debilitating leg wound suffered at Verdun in World War I. Maginot’s moving oration and political acumen ensured appropriation of the funds necessary for this massive construction project. Widespread recognition among French political and military elites of a need to bolster frontier security ameliorated Maginot’s task. By the late 1920s, the attempted accommodation between Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and his German counterpart , Gustav Stresemann, had begun losing momentum. This approach was always regarded as naïve by senior French officers. Nor did they believe nascent efforts at collective security could be relied upon to protect the homeland. Alternatively , international and especially domestic constraints had prompted the French military to view a purely offensive-based strategy as impractical. The national security debate in the 1920s increasingly focused on developing a strong defensive-based approach, but which variant to pursue against the Germans was a subject of considerable debate. In theory, the French had four options: (a) forward defense, (b) linear defense along the entire eastern border , (c) strongpoint defense at key sections of the border combined with mobile field forces, and (d) defense-in-depth. The key decision makers preferred some combination of these approaches, albeit with varying points of emphasis. Ultimately, the plan Maginot presented to the French assembly...

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