The second article, published in 1938, states that launching a swift strategic knockout has great attractions for Germany but appears to accept that such a knockout will be very difficult to achieve by land attack under modern conditions ( especially in view of the existence of systems of fortification like the Maginot Line ) unless an exceptionally high degree of surprise is achieved.

The XV Panzer Corps attacked towards Brest, XIV Panzer Corps attacked east of Paris, towards Lyon, and Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps completed the encirclement of the Maginot Line.

The Wehrmacht bypassed the Maginot Line by marching through the Ardennes forest.

The Maginot Line (, ), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defenses, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I, and in the run-up to World War II.

Military experts extolled the Maginot Line as a work of genius, believing it would prevent any further invasions from the east ( notably, from Germany ).

It was strategically ineffective, as the Germans indeed invaded Belgium, defeated the French army, flanked the Maginot Line, through the Ardennes forest and via the Low countries, completely sweeping by the line and conquering France in about 6 weeks.

As such, reference to the Maginot Line is used to recall a strategy or object that people hope will prove effective but instead fails miserably.

The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack, and had state-of-the-art living conditions for garrisoned troops, including air conditioning, comfortable eating areas and underground railways.

Part of the rationale for the Maginot Line stemmed from the severe French losses during the First World War, and their effects on French demographics.

In practice, France deployed about twice as many men, 36 divisions ( roughly one third of its force ), for defence of the Maginot Line in Alsace and Lorraine, whereas the opposing German Heeresgruppe C only contained 19 divisions, or less than one seventh of the total force committed in Fall Gelb.

The location of this attack, probably because of the Maginot Line, was through the Belgian Ardennes forest ( sector 4 ) which is off the map to the left of Maginot Line sector 6 ( as marked ).

The Maginot Line was built to fulfill several purposes:

Although the name " Maginot Line " suggests a rather thin linear fortification, the line was quite deep, varying in depth ( i. e., from the border to the rear area ) from between.

* Ouvrages ( 6 ): These fortresses were the most important fortifications on the Maginot Line, having the sturdiest construction and the heaviest artillery.

* Telephone Network ( 8 ): This system connected every fortification in the Maginot Line, including bunkers, infantry and artillery fortresses, observation posts, and shelters.

There are 142 ouvrages, 352 casemates, 78 shelters, 17 observatories and around blockhouses in the Maginot Line.

* The Maginot Line ( French / English / German / Italian )

* Maginot Line ( requires Flash )

The Maginot Line by Bryan J. Dickerson

* Maginot Line today

** WWII: German armies open a wide breach in the Maginot Line at Sedan, France.

* Maginot Line at War

In France the lesson of World War I was translated into the Maginot Line which was supposed to hold a line at the border with Germany.

It was stationed in front of the Ouvrage Hackenberg fortress of the Maginot Line and had thus escaped being encircled with the rest of the BEF at Dunkirk.

Educated at the Slade School of Art 1986-1990, he began his writing career with two operas, The Swiss Admiral's Trousers ( 1986 ) and The Maginot Line ( 1987 ) which were staged at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith respectively.

Because the Germans on May 13 broke the Maginot Line at Sedan, the army decided to withdraw further and abandon Antwerp and the Koningshooikt-Waver line.

In the 1920s, France established an elaborate system of border defenses ( the Maginot Line ) and alliances ( see Little Entente ) to offset resurgent German strength and in the 1930s, the massive losses of the war led many in France to choose the popular appeasement policy that supposed prevented war with Germany over Czechoslovakia, whose alliance with France proved worthless at the Munich Agreement of 1938.

There, he was first interned at the French concentration camps in Rosselló, later forced to work on the Maginot line, and finally deported by the Germans to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

The British believed the line could protect the colony from Japanese invasion for at least six months and even called it the " Oriental Maginot Line " ().

In the 1930s the Maginot Line fortifications Ouvrage Saint-Gobain, Ouvrage Saint-Antoine and additional fortifications at Le Sappey were built.

Maginot was another veteran of World War I, who became the French Minister of Veteran Affairs and then Minister of War ( 1928 – 1931 ).

The Maginot Line would be the prime example of the failure of immobile, post – World War I fortifications.

The great Maginot Line was bypassed and battles that would have taken weeks of siege could now be avoided with the careful application of air power ( such as the German paratrooper capture of Fort Eben-Emael, Belgium, early in World War II ).

The first stone was place by André Maginot, Minister of War on 29 October 1922.

As a reaction to her World War I experience, France entered World War II with a purely defensive doctrine, epitomized by the " impregnable " Maginot Line, but only to be completely circumvented by the German blitzkrieg.

The stunning victories by the Germans early in World War II showed that fixed fortifications like the Maginot Line were worthless if there was room to circumvent them.

The obsolescence of large fortifications was displayed by the failure of the Maginot Line in the beginning of World War Two.

* André Maginot – Minister of War

* André Maginot – Minister of War

* André Maginot – Minister of War

In English, Siegfried line more commonly refers to the similar World War II defensive line, built during the 1930s, opposite the French Maginot Line, which served a corresponding purpose.

Released during the Phoney War, the film may have alluded to France's Maginot Line.

On May 10 the Phoney War ended with a sweeping German invasion of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and French Third Republic that bypassed French fortifications along the Maginot Line.