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.

* Maginot Line ( requires Flash )

* Maginot Line at War, 1940

The Maginot Line by Bryan J. Dickerson

* Maginot Line today

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

The French-fortified Maginot Line and the Allied forces in Belgium were circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region, mistakenly perceived by French planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.

The French began work on the Maginot line in this year, as a defense against a possible German attack, and on September 5 Briand presented a plan for the United States of Europe.

* February 17 – André Maginot, French politician ( d. 1932 )

* January 7 – Andre Maginot, French soldier and politician ( b. 1877 )

In response, the Supreme Allied Commander — French General Maurice Gamelin — initiated " Plan D " which relied heavily on the Maginot Line fortifications.

To his north Army Group B under General Fedor von Bock faced the Dutch and Belgian borders, while to his south Army Group C under General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb faced the French along the Maginot Line.

The plan, devised by Hitler, was essentially for a re-run of the invasion of 1914, with the main assault to come in the north, through Belgium and the Netherlands, then wheeling south to capture Paris, leaving the French Army anchored on the Maginot Line.

This battle allowed them to win the whole Battle of France as they not only bypassed the French fortification system, the Maginot Line, but it also enabled them to entrap the Allied Forces that were advancing east into Belgium, as part of the Allied Dyle Plan strategy.

At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local, minor skirmishes.

At the same time, French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks along the Maginot Line.

Emphasis was shifted to military efforts, the first major project being the Westwall ( known in English as the Siegfried Line ) built opposite the French Maginot Line and serving a similar purpose.

Schwerer Gustav was initially intended to be used for breaching the French Maginot Line of fortifications, but was not finished in time and ( as a sign of the times ) the Maginot Line was circumvented by rapid mechanized forces instead of breached in a head-on assault.

It broke the French front and allowed German armor, or " Panzer ", units to cut off the armies in the Maginot Line on 17 June.

* A French military leader tells the British that " a veritable forest of guns " over the Maginot Line will prevent the German Luftwaffe from intervening in a land war between France and Germany.

* The French assure General John Vereker, the British Chief of the General Staff, that they plan to reinforce their antiaircraft artillery in the Maginot Line to counter Germanys superior aircraft such that Germany " would require an unrealizable supremacy of machines to get over the antiaircraft defenses.

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.

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.

Due to the strength of the Maginot Line it was decided to avoid a direct attack and instead out flank it through the Low Countries utilizing the military doctrine of " blitzkrieg " ( Lightning war in English ) developed by Basil Liddell Hart, an English military theorist, and enhanced by Heinz Guderian, utilizing a combination of power and speed.

In early June 1940, after reaching the English Channel following the breakthrough in the Ardennes, the Panzergruppe Guderian was formed from the XIX Armeekorps, and thrust deep into France, cutting off the Maginot Line.

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 ).

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

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.

German forces primarily led by Erich von Manstein carried out the plan, and managed to slip numerous divisions past the Maginot Line to attack France.

The Maginot Line did achieve its political objective of ensuring that any German invasion had to go through Belgium ensuring that France would have Britain as a military ally.

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.

The Maginot Line succeeded in holding off the German attack.

Like the Maginot Line on the Franco-German border, the Metaxas Line was outflanked by German forces specifically when the Germans invaded Greece in April 1941 through Yugoslavia.

French units may not stack with British units-they may commit Ground Support to each other's attacks, as this flies over the German defenders, but not Defensive Air Support-nor may British units enter Paris nor the Maginot Line, but they may conduct joint attacks.

In March 1945 the U. S. 100th Infantry Division broke through the Maginot Line in the Bitche area and liberated the town, which had been occupied by German troops.