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.

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 )

* Maginot Line at War, 1940

The Maginot Line by Bryan J. Dickerson

* Maginot Line today

It was André Maginot who finally convinced the government to invest in the scheme.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Note that this was not the case of the Maginot Line, designed to force the Germans to pass through Belgium and that has fully achieved its political and strategic role.

If a purely defensive position was taken the Maginot Line would be broken and that the British Army ( with anti-aircraft defence ) was only getting £ 277 million out of a total £ 2, 000 million spent on defence.

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.

The French lost their most capable formations in the encirclement, and they capitulated on 22 June 1940, after the capture of Paris on 14th, and the encirclement of the Maginot Line on 15 June.

Soon after, the 3rd Army came against Metz, part of the Maginot Line and one of the most heavily fortified cities in Western Europe.

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.

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.

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.

The Maginot Line succeeded in holding off the German attack.

In March 1936 Rheinmetall made a proposal for a super-heavy howitzer to attack the Maginot Line.

Besides Briand, André Maginot, Pierre-Étienne Flandin, Paul Reynaud, Laval brought in as his advisors, friends such as Maurice Foulon from Aubervilliers, and Pierre Cathala, whom he knew from his days in Bayonne and who had worked in Laval's Labour ministry.

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.

The Finns had funds and resources for only 101 concrete bunkers ; the equivalent length of the Maginot Line had 5, 800 of these structures, with railway connections between them.

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.

Work had already begun on Ouvrage Rimplas, which was in fact the first Maginot ouvrage to be built in either the northeast or southeast.

The latter had been designed specifically to defeat the Maginot Line, firing a 7 ton shell to a range of.

The Maginot Line was the result of these deliberations: the French originally allocated three billion francs for the project, but by 1935 seven billion had been spent.

At the start of the Campaign in the West in 1940, the 7th Army was part of General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb's Army Group C. On 14 June 1940, Army Group C attacked the Maginot Line after it had been cut off by armored units of the XXXXI Panzer Corps.

When the division pulled back to the Maginot Line in mid November, its strength had been reduced to around 4, 000 men ( of which about 1, 700 were infantry ) and 20 armoured vehicles.

In other media, Mauceri had a small role as the character Claude Maginot in 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

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.