The Maginot Line

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By Dustin Ferguson
"If you entrench yourself behindstrong
fortifications, you compel the enemyto seek a
solution elsewhere. CLAUSEWITZ
The Maginot Line
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The Maginot Line was built between 1929 and 1940.
It was built to protect France from her longtime
enemy, Germany, and to defend the traditional
invasion routes across her eastern frontier. The
Maginot Line was built to provide time for the
French army to mobilize and to make up for a
potentially disastrous shortfall of manpower
predicted for the late 1930s.
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These rails were sunk deep into the ground
to prevent tanks from breeching the perimeters of
the line. This anti-tank obstacle extended in
front of the works, from one end to another of
the strengthened system, therefore on hundreds of
kilometers. It stopped only in rare places
(forests, rivers, flooded zones, very broken
zones, etc).
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The Germans were able to overrun or capture
only a handful of the smaller Maginot forts and
none of the large ones. The majority of Maginot
Line defenders surrendered only after their
nation had done so first. Four years later, the
Maginot Line again was defeated. This time, the
U.S. Army overran and captured Maginot Line forts
from the Germans in a series of operations during
the fall of 1944 and the spring of 1945. Though
the U.S. Army had little difficulty with the
Maginot Line overall, several of the forts posed
a quite challenge to capture. Ultimately the U.S.
Army was able to overcome stiff German
resistance, difficult terrain and poor weather to
capture these several still formidable Maginot
Line forts.
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The Maginot Line fortifications had a major
weakness which the Germans were unable to
overcome electricity. Though they had some
electrical generating capabilities, the ouvrages
were heavily dependent upon outside sources for
the electricity necessary to operate their
complex machinery. Unfortunately for the Germans,
the outside generating facilities were located on
the wrong side of the line and there was not
enough time to run electricity from Germany.