From 1871 onward, French elites had concluded that France had no hope of defeating Germany on its own, and France would need an alliance with another great power to defeat the Reich. === 1927: Allied Control Commission abolished === In 1926, The Manchester Guardian ran an exposé showing the Reichswehr had been developing military technology forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles in the Soviet Union, and the secret German-Soviet co-operation had started in 1921.
21 turrets of model 1933 12 turrets of model 1932 1 turret of model 1905 17 turrets of 21 turrets of 12 turrets for mixed weapons (AM) 7 turrets for mixed weapons + mortar of 61 turrets of machine-guns === Artillery === Both static and mobile artillery units were assigned to defend the Maginot Line.
(A similar system was developed with armoured steam engines back in 1914–1918.) 15.
Beyond that, the French were well aware of the contribution of Britain and its Dominions to the victory of 1918, and French decision-makers believed that they needed Britain's help to win another war; the French could only go so far with alienating the British.
French decision-makers knew that the victory of 1918 had been achieved because the British Empire and the United States were allies in the war and that the French would have been defeated on their own.
French plans as developed by Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1919 were based on the assumption that in the event of a war with the Reich, the French forces in the Rhineland were to embark upon an offensive to seize the Ruhr.
When the Control Commission was dissolved, the commissioners in their final report issued a blistering statement, stating that Germany had never sought to abide by Part V and the Reichswehr had been engaging in covert rearmament all through the 1920s.
As long as the Rhineland was occupied by the French, the Rhineland served as a type of collateral under which the French would annex the Rhineland in the event of Germany breaching any of the articles of the treaty, such as rearming in violation of Part V; this threat was powerful enough to deter successive German governments all through the 1920s from attempting any overt violation of Part V.
A variant of the Foch plan had been used by Poincaré in 1923 when he ordered the French occupation of the Ruhr. French plans for an offensive in the 1920s were realistic, as Versailles had forbidden German conscription, and the Reichswehr was limited to 100,000 men.
Given the diplomatic situation in the late 1920s, the Quai d'Orsay informed the government that French military planning should be based on a worst-case scenario that France would fight the next war against Germany without the help of Britain or the United States. France had an alliance with Belgium and with the states of the Cordon sanitaire, as the French alliance system in Eastern Europe was known.
The largest guns were therefore fortress guns; larger weapons were to be part of the mobile forces and were to be deployed behind the lines. The fortifications did not extend through the Ardennes Forest (which was believed to be impenetrable by Commander-in-Chief Maurice Gamelin) or along France's border with Belgium, because the two countries had signed an alliance in 1920, by which the French army would operate in Belgium if the German forces invaded.
From 1871 onward, French elites had concluded that France had no hope of defeating Germany on its own, and France would need an alliance with another great power to defeat the Reich. === 1927: Allied Control Commission abolished === In 1926, The Manchester Guardian ran an exposé showing the Reichswehr had been developing military technology forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles in the Soviet Union, and the secret German-Soviet co-operation had started in 1921.
Maginot was another veteran of World War I; he became the French Minister of Veteran Affairs and then Minister of War (1928–1932). In January 1923, after Weimar Germany defaulted on reparations, the French Premier Raymond Poincaré responded by sending French troops to occupy Germany's Ruhr region.
During the ensuing Ruhrkampf ("Ruhr struggle") between the Germans and the French that lasted until September 1923, Britain condemned the French occupation of the Ruhr, and a period of sustained Francophobia broke out in Britain, with Poincaré being vilified in Britain as a cruel bully punishing Germany with unreasonable reparations demands.
A variant of the Foch plan had been used by Poincaré in 1923 when he ordered the French occupation of the Ruhr. French plans for an offensive in the 1920s were realistic, as Versailles had forbidden German conscription, and the Reichswehr was limited to 100,000 men.
At a conference in London in 1924 to settle the Franco-German crisis caused by the Ruhrkampf, the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald successfully pressed the French Premier Édouard Herriot to make concessions to Germany.
The great conclusion that was drawn in Paris after the Ruhrkampf and the 1924 London conference was that France could not make unilateral military moves to uphold Versailles as the resulting British hostility to such moves was too dangerous to the republic.
From 1871 onward, French elites had concluded that France had no hope of defeating Germany on its own, and France would need an alliance with another great power to defeat the Reich. === 1927: Allied Control Commission abolished === In 1926, The Manchester Guardian ran an exposé showing the Reichswehr had been developing military technology forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles in the Soviet Union, and the secret German-Soviet co-operation had started in 1921.
From 1871 onward, French elites had concluded that France had no hope of defeating Germany on its own, and France would need an alliance with another great power to defeat the Reich. === 1927: Allied Control Commission abolished === In 1926, The Manchester Guardian ran an exposé showing the Reichswehr had been developing military technology forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles in the Soviet Union, and the secret German-Soviet co-operation had started in 1921.
Nonetheless, in 1927, the Inter-Allied Commission, which was responsible for ensuring that Germany complied with Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, was abolished as a goodwill gesture reflecting the "Spirit of Locarno".
Kaufmann added to this, that prior to construction in October 1927, the Superior Council of War adopted the final design for the line and identified that one of the main missions would be to deter a German cross-border assault with only minimal force thus allowing "the army time to mobilize." In addition, the French envisioned that the Germans would conduct a repeat of their First World War battleplan in order to flank the defences and drew up their overall strategy with that in mind.
The Maginot Line (Ligne Maginot, ), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, as well as obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications.
Under the Treaty of Versailles France was to occupy the Rhineland region of Germany until 1935, but in fact the last French troops left the Rhineland in June 1930 in exchange for Germany accepting the Young Plan.
Once the French forces left the Rhineland in 1930, this form of leverage with the Rhineland as collateral was no longer available to Paris, which from then on had to depend on Berlin's word that it would continue to abide by the terms of the Versailles and Locarno treaties, which stated that the Rhineland was to stay demilitarised forever.
A defensive strategy based on the Maginot Line was an excellent way of demonstrating to Britain that France was not an aggressive power and would only go to war in the event of German aggression, a situation that would make it more likely that Britain would enter the war on France's side. The line was built in several phases from 1930 by the Service Technique du Génie (STG) overseen by Commission d'Organisation des Régions Fortifiées (CORF).
Dickerson Maginot Line today Armament of Maginot Line (Czech only) World War II defensive lines Historic defensive lines Tunnel warfare Separation barriers 20th-century fortifications Military installations established in 1930 1930 establishments in France
21 turrets of model 1933 12 turrets of model 1932 1 turret of model 1905 17 turrets of 21 turrets of 12 turrets for mixed weapons (AM) 7 turrets for mixed weapons + mortar of 61 turrets of machine-guns === Artillery === Both static and mobile artillery units were assigned to defend the Maginot Line.
21 turrets of model 1933 12 turrets of model 1932 1 turret of model 1905 17 turrets of 21 turrets of 12 turrets for mixed weapons (AM) 7 turrets for mixed weapons + mortar of 61 turrets of machine-guns === Artillery === Both static and mobile artillery units were assigned to defend the Maginot Line.
The line stretched from Switzerland to Luxembourg and a much lighter extension was extended to the Strait of Dover after 1934.
Some GFM cloches were transformed into AM cloches in 1934.
Under the Treaty of Versailles France was to occupy the Rhineland region of Germany until 1935, but in fact the last French troops left the Rhineland in June 1930 in exchange for Germany accepting the Young Plan.
However, after France had failed to counter the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland, Belgium—thinking that France was not a reliable ally—abrogated the treaty in 1936 and declared neutrality.
The main construction was largely completed by 1939, at a cost of around 3 billion French francs (around 3.9 billion today's U.S.
As the water table in this region is high, there was the danger of underground passages getting flooded, which the designers of the line knew would be difficult and expensive to overcome. In 1939 U.S.
Another complication was Holland, and the various governments never resolved their problems. When the British Expeditionary Force landed in France in September 1939, they and the French reinforced and extended the Maginot line to the sea in a flurry of construction from 1939–1940 accompanied by general improvements all along the line.
In consequence, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries in 1940, passing it to the north.
In 1940, France deployed about twice as many men, 36 divisions (roughly one third of its force), for the defence of the Maginot Line in Alsace and Lorraine, whereas the opposing German Army Group C only contained 19 divisions, fewer than a seventh of the force committed in the Manstein Plan for the invasion of France.
The original construction did not cover the area ultimately chosen by the Germans for their first challenge, which was through the Ardennes in 1940, a plan known as Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), due to the neutrality of Belgium.
Following the Munich Agreement and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Germans were able to use the Czech fortifications to plan attacks that proved successful against the western fortifications (the Belgian Fort Eben-Emael is the best known example). == German invasion in World War II == The World War II German invasion plan of 1940 (Sichelschnitt) was designed to deal with the line.
On 14 June 1940, the day Paris fell, the German 1st Army went over to the offensive in "Operation Tiger" and attacked the Maginot Line between St.
The Battle for the Maginot Line, 1940 (Pen and Sword, 2017). Journals == Further reading == Mary, Jean-Yves; Hohnadel, Alain; Sicard, Jacques.
Nevertheless, Maxime Weygand signed the surrender instrument and the army was ordered out of their fortifications, to be taken to POW camps. When the Allied forces invaded in June 1944, the line, now held by German defenders, was again largely bypassed; fighting touched only portions of the fortifications near Metz and in northern Alsace towards the end of 1944.
During the German offensive Operation Nordwind in January 1945, Maginot Line casemates and fortifications were utilised by Allied forces, especially in the Bas-Rhin département in Grand Est, and some German units had been supplemented with flamethrower tanks in anticipation of this possibility.
Stephen Ambrose wrote that in January 1945 "a part of the line was used for the purpose it had been designed for and showed what a superb fortification it was." Here the Line ran east–west, around the villages of Rittershoffen and Hatten, south of Wissembourg. == After World War II == After the war the line was re-manned by the French and underwent some modifications.
With the rise of the French independent nuclear weapons by 1960 the line became an expensive anachronism.
When France withdrew from NATO's military component (in 1966) much of the line was abandoned, with the NATO facilities turned back over to French forces and the rest of it auctioned-off to the public or left to decay.
Ouvrage Hochwald is the only facility in the main line that remains in active service, as a hardened command facility for the French Air Force known as Drachenbronn Air Base. In 1968 when scouting locations for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, producer Harry Saltzman used his French contacts to gain permission to use portions of the Maginot Line as SPECTRE headquarters in the film.
Besides that, a few private houses are built atop some of the blockhouses. Ouvrage Rochonvillers was retained by the French Army as a command centre into the 1990s, but was deactivated following the disappearance of the Soviet threat.
Paris, Histoire & Collections, 2001.
Paris, Histoire & Collections, 2003.
Paris, Histoire & Collections, 2009.
The Maginot Line: History and Guide, Pen and Sword, 2011.
The Battle for the Maginot Line, 1940 (Pen and Sword, 2017). Journals == Further reading == Mary, Jean-Yves; Hohnadel, Alain; Sicard, Jacques.
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