Prelude In January 1923, after
Weimar Germany defaulted on
reparations, the French Premier,
Raymond Poincaré, sent French troops to occupy the
Ruhr. During the (Ruhr struggle) between the Germans and the French that lasted until September 1923, Britain condemned the
Occupation of the Ruhr. A period of sustained
Francophobia broke out in Britain, with Poincaré being vilified in Britain as a bully, punishing Germany with unreasonable reparations demands. The British—who openly championed the German position on reparations—applied intense economic pressure on France to change its policies towards Germany. At a conference in London in 1924 to settle the Franco-German crisis caused by the , the British Prime Minister,
Ramsay MacDonald, persuaded the French Premier,
Édouard Herriot, to make concessions to Germany. The British diplomat, Sir
Eric Phipps, who attended the conference, commented afterwards that The London Conference was for the French 'man in the street' one long Calvary as he saw M. Herriot abandoning one by one the cherished possessions of French preponderance on the Reparations Commission, the right of sanctions in the event of German default, the economic occupation of the Ruhr, the French–Belgian railway and finally, the military occupation of the Ruhr within a year. The great conclusion that was drawn in Paris after the and the 1924 London Conference was that France could not make unilateral military moves to uphold
Versailles as British hostility to such moves was too dangerous to the republic. Beyond that, the French were well aware of the contribution of Britain and its dominions to the victory of 1918. French leaders believed they needed Britain's help to win another war; the French must appease the British. From 1871, 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 prevail.
Allied Control Commission In 1926,
The Manchester Guardian ran an
exposé showing the had been developing military technology forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles in the
Soviet Union. The secret German–Soviet cooperation started in 1921. The German statement following
The Manchester Guardians article that Germany did not feel bound by the terms of Versailles and would violate them as much as possible gave much offence in France. 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". When the Control Commission was dissolved, the commissioners in their final report issued a condemnation, that Germany had never sought to abide by Part V and the had been engaging in covert rearmament all through the 1920s. Under the Treaty of Versailles, France was to occupy the Rhineland region of Germany until 1935. Still, the last French troops left the Rhineland in June 1930 in exchange for Germany accepting the
Young Plan. As long as the French occupied the Rhineland, it served as a type of collateral under which the French would annexe the Rhineland in the event of Germany breaching any of the articles of the treaty, such as rearmament; this threat was powerful enough to deter German governments all through the 1920s from attempting any overt violation of Part V. 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. A variant of the Foch plan had been used by Poincaré in 1923 when he ordered the French occupation of the Ruhr.
French planning 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. 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. Given that Germany had engaged in
covert rearmament with the co-operation of the Soviet Union starting in 1921 (a fact that had become public knowledge in 1926) and that every German government had gone out of its way to insist on the moral invalidity of Versailles, claiming it was based upon the so-called (war guilt lie) that Germany started the war in 1914, the French had little faith that the Germans would willingly allow the Rhineland's demilitarised status to continue forever, and believed that at some time in the future, Germany would rearm in violation of Versailles, reintroduce conscription and remilitarise the Rhineland. The decision to build the Maginot Line in 1929 was a tacit French admission that without the Rhineland as collateral, Germany was soon going to rearm and that the terms of Part V had a limited lifespan.
German economy After 1918, the German economy was twice as large as that of France; Germany had a population of 70 million compared to France's 40 million, and the
French economy was hobbled by the need to reconstruct the enormous damage of World War I, while German territory had seen little fighting. French military chiefs were dubious about their ability to win another war against Germany without allies, especially an offensive war. French leaders knew that the victory of 1918 had been achieved because Russia, the British Empire and the United States were allies in the war and that the French would have been defeated on their own. With the United States isolationist and Britain stoutly refusing to make the "continental commitment" to defend France on the same scale as in World War I, the prospects of Anglo-American assistance in another war with Germany appeared to be doubtful at best. Versailles did not call for military sanctions in the event of the German military reoccupying the Rhineland or breaking Part V, while Locarno committed Britain and Italy to come to French aid in the event of a "flagrant violation" of the Rhineland's demilitarised status, it did not define what a "flagrant violation" would be. The British and Italian governments refused in diplomatic talks to define "flagrant violation", which led the French to place little hope in Anglo–Italian help if German military forces should reoccupy the Rhineland. Given the diplomatic situation in the late 1920s, the ''
Quai d'Orsay'' (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 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. Although the alliances with Belgium,
Poland,
Czechoslovakia,
Romania and
Yugoslavia were appreciated in Paris, it was widely understood that this was no compensation for the absence of Britain and the United States. The French military was especially insistent that the population disparity made an offensive war of manoeuvre and swift advances suicidal, as there would always be far more German divisions; a defensive strategy was needed to counter Germany. The French assumption was always that Germany would not go to war without conscription, which would allow the German Army to take advantage of the
Reichs numerical superiority. Without the natural defensive barrier provided by the
Rhine River, French generals argued that France needed a new defensive barrier made of concrete and steel to replace it. The power of properly dug-in defensive trenches had been amply demonstrated during World War I, when a few soldiers manning a single machine gun post could kill hundreds of the enemy in the open and therefore building a massive defensive line with subterranean concrete shelters was the most rational use of French manpower. The American historian, William Keylor, wrote that in the diplomatic conditions of 1929 and likely trends – with the United States
isolationist and Britain unwilling to make the "continental commitment" – the decision to build the Maginot Line was not irrational and stupid but a sensible response to the problems that would be created by the coming French withdrawal from the Rhineland in 1930. Part of the rationale for the Maginot Line stemmed from the severe French losses during the First World War and their effect on the French population. The drop in the birth rate during and after the war, resulting in a national shortage of young men, created an "echo" effect on the generation that provided the French conscript army in the mid-1930s. Faced with a manpower shortage, French planners had to rely more on older and less fit
reservists, who would take longer to mobilise and would diminish French industry because they would leave their jobs. Static defensive positions were therefore intended to delay a German invasion and to economise on men by defending an area with fewer and less mobile forces. 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. In contrast, 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. Reflecting memories of World War I, the French General Staff had developed the concept of
la puissance du feu ("the power of fire"), the power of
artillery dug in and sheltered by concrete and steel, to inflict devastating losses on an attacking force.
Long war strategy French planning for war with Germany was always based on the assumption that the war would be , a long attritional war, in which the superior economic resources of the Allies would gradually grind the Germans down. The fact that the
Wehrmacht embraced the strategy of
Bewegungskrieg (war of manoeuvre) with the vision of swift wars in which Germany would win quickly via a knockout blow was a testament to the fundamental soundness of the concept of . Germany had the largest economy in Europe but lacked many of the raw materials necessary for a modern industrial economy, making the
Reich vulnerable to blockade and the ability to feed its population. The strategy called for the French to halt the expected German offensive, denying the Germans a swift victory; afterwards, there would be an attrition struggle; once the Germans were exhausted, France would begin an offensive to win the war. The Maginot Line was intended to block the main German blow if it should come via eastern France and divert it through Belgium, where French forces would meet and stop the Germans. The Germans were expected to fight costly offensives, whose failures would sap the strength of the
Reich, while the French waged a
total war, mobilising the resources of France, its empire and allies. Besides the demographic reasons, a defensive strategy served the needs of French diplomacy towards Great Britain. The French imported a third of their
coal from Britain and 32 per cent of all imports through French ports were carried by British ships. Of French trade, 35 per cent was with the
British Empire and the majority of the
tin,
rubber,
jute,
wool and
manganese used by France came from the British Empire. About 55 per cent of overseas imports arrived in France via the Channel ports of
Calais,
Le Havre,
Cherbourg,
Boulogne,
Dieppe,
Saint-Malo and
Dunkirk. Germany had to import most of its iron, rubber,
oil,
bauxite, copper and
nickel, making
naval blockade a devastating weapon against the
German economy. For economic reasons, the success of the strategy of
la guerre de longue durée would at the very least require Britain to maintain a
benevolent neutrality, preferably to enter the war as an ally as British sea power could protect French imports while depriving Germany of hers. 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 Maginot Line Studies made by the General Staff in 1919 were reported to the (CSG, Supreme War Council) in 1920 and a commission of 1922, chaired by Marshal
Joseph Joffre reported in December 1925, in favour of centres of resistance built in peacetime, not a continuous fortified front. From 17 December 1926 to 12 October 1927, the Frontier Defence Commission reported to the CSG that fortifications should be built from Metz to Thionville and Longwy, to protect the
Moselle Valley and the mineral resources and industry of Lorraine. The area around the
Lauter, the most north-eastern part of the common border with Germany, should be fortified as an obvious invasion route but there was no need to fortify the Rhine, because of the Vosges mountains further west and the small number of railways on the German side.
Belfort was near the
Swiss frontier and partly protected by the Rhine but there was an avenue of invasion to the west, which should be protected. The commission gave emphasis to defence against a surprise attack, with the limited objective of capturing the
Metz and Lauter areas. The commission recommended that priority be given to protecting the resources and industries of Lorraine that were vital for the French economy and would become more important for a war economy. The nature of fixed defences was debated during the 1920s, with advocates of the offensive use of fortifications, deep or shallow defences and centralised and decentralised designs. On 12 October 1927, the CSG adopted the system recommended by Pétain, of large and elaborately fortified defences from Metz to
Thionville and
Longwy, at Lauter and Belfort, on the north-east frontier, with covered infantry positions between the main fortifications.
André Maginot, the
Minister of War (1922–1924, 1929–1930 and 1931–1932) became the driving force for obtaining the money to fortify the north-eastern frontier, sufficient to resist a German invasion for three weeks, to give time for the French army to mobilise. Work began in 1929 on the (Metz Fortified Region) through the Moselle valley to the
Nied at
Teting-sur-Nied, then the , east of
Hagenau from Bitche to the Rhine, the extension of the Metz region to
Longuyon and the Lauter river region from Bitche to the
Sarre (Saar) at
Wittring. Requirements for the fortifications were natural cover, sites nearby for observation posts, the minimum of dead ground, a maximum
arc of fire, ground suitable for anti-tank obstacles and infantry positions and ground on which paved roads could be built, to eliminate wheel marks. were to be built near the frontier as permanently garrisoned works, whose men would alert the army, blow bridges and erect roadblocks, for which materials were dumped. About back were concrete with permanent garrisons armed with intended to delay an attacker so that buried casemates and (fortresses) further back could be manned. Artificial obstacles of 4 to 6 rows of upright railway line, -long set in concrete and of random depth and covered by barbed wire. A barbed wire obstruction further back covered a field of anti-tank mines overlooked by twin machine-guns and anti-tank guns in casemates. The casemates were distributed in series and were the only defensive works along the Rhine; on other stretches, casemates were interspersed with , every . Interval Troops of infantry, gunners, engineers and mechanised light cavalry with field artillery, could manoeuvre between the fortifications, advancing to defend casemate approaches to relieve outposts or retiring to protect fortress entrances; the troops provided continuity, depth and mobility to the static defences. 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). The main construction was largely completed by 1939, at the cost of around 3 billion French francs (around 3.9 billion US dollars). The line stretched from Switzerland to Luxembourg and a much lighter extension was extended to the Strait of Dover after 1934. 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. The location of this attack, chosen because of the location 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).
Features The specification of the defences was very high, with extensive and connected bunker complexes for thousands of men; there were 45 main
forts (
grands ouvrages) at intervals of , 97 smaller forts (
petits ouvrages) and 352
casemates between, with over of
tunnels. Artillery was coordinated with protective measures to ensure that one fort could support the next in line by bombarding it directly without harm. 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. However, after France had failed to counter the German
Remilitarization of the Rhineland, Belgium—thinking that France was not a reliable ally—abrogated the treaty in 1936 and declared
neutrality. France quickly extended the Maginot Line along the Franco-Belgian border, but not to the standard of the rest of the line. As the
water table in this region is high, there was the danger of underground passages flooding, which the architects knew would be difficult and expensive to overcome. In 1939
US Army officer
Kenneth Nichols visited the Metz sector, where he was impressed by the formidable formations which he thought the Germans would have to outflank by driving through Belgium. In discussion with General Brousseau, the commander of the Metz sector and other officers, the general outlined the French problem in extending the line to the sea in that placing the line along the Belgian-German border required the agreement of Belgium, but putting the line along the French-Belgian border relinquished Belgium to the Germans. Another complication was Holland, and the various governments never resolved their problems. in the
Alps. The
Decauville 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 to 1940, accompanied by general improvements all along the line. The final line was strongest around the industrial regions of Metz, Lauter and
Alsace, while other areas were, in comparison, only weakly guarded.
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia also feared Hitler and began building its own defences. As an ally of France, they got advice on the Maginot design and applied it to
Czechoslovak border fortifications. The design of the casemates is similar to the ones found in the southern part of the Maginot Line, and photographs of them are often confused with Maginot forts. 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 , Alsace), showing signs of German testing of explosives inside some fortresses between 1942 and 1944 The World War II
German invasion plan of 1940 (
Sichelschnitt) was designed to deal with the line. A decoy force sat opposite the line while a second Army Group cut through the
Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as through the Ardennes, which lay north of the main French defences. Thus the Germans were able to avoid a direct assault on the Maginot Line by violating the neutrality of Belgium, Luxembourg and
the Netherlands. Attacking on 10 May,
German forces were well into France within five days and they continued to advance until 24 May, when they stopped near
Dunkirk. During the advance to the
English Channel, the Germans overran France's border defence with Belgium and several Maginot Forts in the
Maubeuge area whilst the
Luftwaffe simply flew over it. On 19 May, the
German 16th Army captured the isolated
petit ouvrage La Ferté (south-east of
Sedan) after conducting a deliberate assault by
combat engineers backed up by
heavy artillery, taking the fortifications in only four days. The entire French crew of 107 soldiers was killed during the action. 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 Avold and
Saarbrücken. The Germans then broke through the fortification line as defending French forces retreated southward. In the following days, infantry divisions of the 1st Army attacked fortifications on each side of the penetration, capturing four petits ouvrages. The 1st Army also conducted two attacks against the Maginot Line further to the east in northern Alsace. One attack broke through a weak section of the line in the
Vosges Mountains, but the French defenders stopped a second attack near
Wissembourg. On 15 June, infantry divisions of the
German 7th Army attacked across the Rhine River in Operation "Small Bear", deeply penetrating the defences and capturing the cities of
Colmar and
Strasbourg. By early June, the German forces had cut off the line from the rest of France, and the
French government was making overtures for an
armistice, which was signed on 22 June in
Compiègne. As the line was surrounded, the German Army attacked a few ouvrages from the rear but was unsuccessful in capturing any significant fortifications. The main fortifications of the line were still mostly intact, many commanders were prepared to hold out, and the
Italian advance had been contained. 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 department in
Grand Est, and some German units had been supplemented with
flamethrower tanks in anticipation of this possibility. In January 1945 von Luck with the 21st Panzer Division was tasked with cutting through the old Maginot Line defences and severing Allied links with Strasbourg as part of Operation Nordwind. He was told there were no plans available of the Line but that it was "barely manned and constituted no obstacle". However they came up against fierce resistance and concentrated American artillery fire. They had to withdraw on 6 January 1945 and again after another attack on 8 January, although they drove a "tiny wedge" into the Line.
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 French re-manned the line and undertook some modifications. With the advent of
French nuclear weapons in the early 1960s, the line became an expensive
anachronism. Some of the larger
ouvrages were converted to command centres. 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. A number of old fortifications have been turned into various operations like
wine cellars, and
mushroom farms, with varying degrees of success. Besides that, a few private houses are built atop some blockhouses. in
Alsace (north-east), taken from combat unit number 5 of the fortress
ouvrage Four-à-Chaux 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.
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 Airbase. 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. Saltzman provided
art director Syd Cain with a tour of the complex. Still, Cain said that the location would be challenging to light and film inside and that artificial sets could be constructed at the studios for a fraction of the cost. The idea was shelved. == Postwar assessment ==