The Maginot Line. Did it work?

Hello every one. Im new to WW2 forums and I would like you opinion on a few documentarys Im making. I do, there are some of you that have personal exsperiance (im dyslexic, for give me) with WW2 and the are some whom have lost and some with an aptitude and iterest etc. Please view my Fisrt of five un known Documetarys (each doc is in 5 parts, youtube guide lines). The fist is about the myth of the Maginot line and the second is about the molbury horbour (If it didnt work would D-day have worked and if it didnt would west europe have an iron cuirtain over it?) The 3rd I will reveal after response to the first two. there is no money being made just research and truths. I would love and need your response. Thank you http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JoQndrkkY9c

 

Did the Line work? Any one?

 

Easy there, Nicholas, it was 3am over here when you posted, you can't expect an immediate reply here so there's no use insisting.

Sure the Maginot Line worked, the fact is that to invade France the Germans had to go the long way around it!

This is the simplistic version but true nonetheless. There is talk of the Line being incomplete, not going up northwards, but the Northern Sector of the line was to be provided by the Belgian fortification system. You can't cross Belgium without bumping into one or other fortified place from some or other era Unfortunately Belgium pulled out of an alliance with France IIRC in 1936, therefore lopping off that sector. It was also politically incorrect to extend the Maginot Line into the Belgian border, as it would signify that the French were leaving their allies to the dogs. France fortifying the Belgian border just would have made the Belgians decide to avoid having their country turned into a battleground (again) by just allowing the Germans free passage through Belgium.

The Ardennes had been left unfortified due to being difficult terrain, but the fact is that bad terrain does not defend itself. A few well placed bunkers would do wonders at least for observation, but hindsidght does wonders.

The Maginot Line was in the main an economy of force measure, a continuous line of more or less important emplacements placed in depth - not an uninterrupted trench line - with Troupes d'Intervalle in between. It was a complex system: curtains of infantry protected by barbwire, minefield, AT trenches/rails, bunkers, protected artillery positions and super heavy artillery. The ennemy was not supposed to even reach the fortresses by themselves, the infantry was here to stop the infiltrations (the 1918 Sturmtruppen lesson had been learnt) and the pre-calculated firing tables of the forts were here to prevent the german infantry to approach the infantry curtain. And super heavy artillery was there to prevent the germans to get their heavy artillery in range to bomb the forts.

While this kingsize tripwire held the Germans for long enough, the main army had time to mobilise and deploy.

Here's an interesting website http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/1491/

 

Yes the Maginot Line was an astounding success. It prevented the bulk of the German army from invading France through it. As Za already pointed out, they had to take the long way around. Perhaps if France had built it slightly more advantageous to the attacking enemy (that is it appeared more penetrable), the Germans would have attempted it and been held up with massive casualties.

 

Exactly. And if the Heer would bog down in front of the M.L. then the ininterrupted string of German successes would stop. There would be a lot of political implications. Would Adolf be able to survive this? But this is Alternate History...

 

In my opinion the French would have been better off without it. If there was no ML the Germans would have charged right into France but the French could charge right back at them. The Battle of France might have went on longer as French strength would have been fully directed at the German attack and they might take more casualities but the Germans would be denied a quick victory. Then the BEF might land more men and planes over France and the Defence could be turned into offence.

Even if the French still lost, there would be Belgium for escaping Jews to go.

My 2 cents.

 

I wasn't aware that the welfare of Jews was much of a concern for the Allies in 1940, but if you say so...

 

The Jews weren't an issue at this time, the Aktion Reinhard Camps were as of yet unconstructed, and the work camps while despicable and murderous, weren't designed to exactly exterminate the inmates (Jews, Communists, Roma, homosextuals or other "untermensch") .

And, "Totenkopf" one simply must put the loses of the French in WW1 into perspective here. They lost so many of their wage earning and fighting age men in WW1; that not only was their economy crippled due to loss of facilities and arable land which need to be re-built and re-cultivated, many of the very men with which to do the work were gone, as was their taxable income. Their armed forces manpower was limited to a single year conscription complimenting their small core professional army, and a reserve of marginally trained manpower.

The justification for the Maginot Line construction with the defense budget between wars, was that the French Republic in WW1 mobilized; 7,500,000 men, of them there were 1,385,000 killed in combat. And 4,266,000 wounded (many beyond rehabilitation). This makes a grand total of 5,651,000 men mobilized, creating a percentage of 75% of troops sent to the front considered casualties. Post war the French decided to invest in defensive works rather than equip and train another large army. This accomplished two things, it put people to work (especially important in the Depression which was to appear while it was being built), and it spent their limited defense budget on tangible efforts which bolstered their sense of protection from the Germans. If they had tried the large army approach, they might have faced another revolution themselves.

As for the British, they also had a wonderful core of professionals in their army, but they were also economically devastated as per war spending. And the BEF was only reformed in early 1939 (April ?), and then only because of the French demand that they be sent to France before the French would join the British in the guarantee to Poland. And even then they were only allowed onto French soil with the understanding that Lord Gort would be subservient to French General Gamelin.

This old man (Gamelin) removed himself from all communication centers in a chateau outside of Vincennes with no phones, nor radio rooms and demanded all communications be by courier or face to face. Not the way to prepare for the new war of rapid movement to come (and see in Poland), but thinking in the past stationary/static war terms.

And I might be mistaken here, but it is my understanding that by British law only the BEF (not the British regulars), originally formed for the Boer War to supplement the territorial armies, can be sent onto foreign soil during times of peace, and only if asked by the government onto whose soil it will land. Their standing RAF had few fighters to spare for the effort in 1939-40, so that is a non-starter.

Germany on the other hand only "lost" (to death and wounding) about 54% of their combat troops, and Great Britain even less at 44% (to death and wounding) in the four years of WW1.

Only Austria-Hungary gets close in either total numbers of percentages of manpower loss. They mobilized 6,500,000 troops, had 1,200,000 killed, and 3,620,000 wounded. Their grand total was 4,820,000 men considered casualties, or percentage-wise, 73% of their armed forces. Not only their empire split into to separate nations (Austria and Hungary), they lost more territory than Germany with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia appearing out of mostly their land mass.

Tzarist Russia, while losing nearly 7 million men during their abbreviated war on their own borders, in total numbers really suffered only a slightly higher (55%) casualty rate than the German foe. Of course they were only fighting in real numbers on one front.

The Maginot Line did exactly what it was designed to do, stop the Germans from invading France directly. The Belgian line north-northwest should have been better able to slow down the Germans than it did, but they were also fighting the last war with their defensive line.

Gamelin was at first "delighted" that the Nazis had attacked through the Ardenne. He incorrectly believed he could now "swing the gate closed" on their front and smash them between two forces. He was wrong and too slow to act when he finally did.

 

About my comment on Jews: That was merely a positive outlook of not attacking through Belgium as there would be a place for attempting to live or even to try to go cross channel.

Brndirt1: I know that the all sides in WW1 suffered horrible casualties and the French didnt want that to happen again. But the French should have considered "What would happen if the ML failed?" I would thin that they would be better off building a mere "Phase Line" and have local forts build around the French countryside so that if the Phase lines were penetrated they would still have a chance to have a local strength advantage. Also the fact that the French had many many large guns in a single spot was not helping their survival rate if the line should fall. The Soviets had the right idea: "Strongpoints" of sorts that are spread out but still are strong alone. You do make good pints but I think that the French would have been better off spending that money elsewere.

 

But that's exactly what it was, a system of defense in depth. Or don't you read the information that is provided to you free of charge and just find it simpler to stick with the same misconceptions?

From the site I gave above:

 

good points and great maps. The French didn't have the luxury of depth behind their lines that the Soviets did. The USSR was deeper from the Polish border to the Urals than France was long from the Swiss border to the Channel. The French just simply didn't have the territory into which to withdraw or from which to regroup and launch any new offensives.

The French "mindset" at the time was so "defensive" that the removed the only French officer who had the audacity to propose an aggressive use of armor from the promotion lists. One Colonel DeGaulle. His book on the use of armor which was published in the mid thirties outlined the use of massed armor as spearhead divisions followed by mobile infantry to consolidate the territory the tanks overran. He was reprimanded, removed from the promotion lists, and his opinion labled "anti-French".

Guederian (fluent in three languages) read and translated DeGaulle's book and implemented his, and two British armored experts (Fuller and Liddel-Hart?) publications into the application of the so called German "Blitzkrieg" with a few "twists" of his own.

 

Clint, that above certainly is one of the most self evident statements I ever read in this forum in the latest times, of course no country could compete with the Soviet Union in terms of strategic depth and even so Stalin got fed up with retreating ground and issued his "No Step Back" order

But we are talking here of a fortified line which did not consist of a single line à la Hadrian's Wall (which did have back up forts in the rear anyway), but of a fortified line consisting of a string of fortified places covered by interval troops in between. Quoting from "that website",

This in the tactical zones. Behind that in the strategical depth, and as shown in "my" other two maps shown previously there were the old fortified border towns. I'd like to remind that this entire area was studded with fortifications since the Middle Ages, but in useful terms since Louis XIV. I call your attention to the Vauban works, and this region is chock full with those.

This kind of old fortified cities ought not to be discounted, for old forts of this kind proved their value in WW2 at for instance Brest-Litowsk, Königsberg, Breslau, Glogau, etc etc.

Anyone who relies on a single crust defence is a fool, and from that 1940 French infantry manual I have, Froggies were no foolies at lower echelons