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I'm not sure the description of the Magniot Line metaphor in the article is appropriate. In most cases, the context where it is used is for something like missile defence, where it might defend against the specific threat it was intended for but is easily evaded by a more flexible attacker. --Robert Merkel 07:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Are you sure that the Line was constructed in the wake of WW I?
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specified (help)Any interpretation of the Maginot Line has to take account of the catastrophic French loss. The Maginot Line was a component of a French strategy, which failed.
This is a poor analysis. During WWI, the Germans, utilizing a modified Schlieffen Plan attacked France through Belgium where four years of war ravaged Northeastern France. Between WWI and WWII France builds the Maginot line to defend the shared border with Germany knowing full well that Germany had attacked in the first war through Belgium. The French strategy was to secure the French Army's right flank with fewest number of soldiers and to actually fight the war in Belgium. The flaw in the French strategy wasn't the Maginot line, the line achieved its purpose, it compelled the Germans to flank it. Problem with the strategy was they didn't think the Germans were coming through the Ardennes.
It is a ridiculous bias to defend the Maginot Line as a qualified success, just because you have an antiquarian interest in it.
The Maginot Line was not "designed" to channel a German invasion thru the Ardennes. That was a surprise.
The German invasion of France in the first World War had come through Belgium, precisely because that's where the necessary rail network was. The Low Countries are a highway to France, offering no natural obstacles, and a good highway and rail network. The Germans would prefer Belgium and the Netherlands in all circumstances, to move very large armies; to think otherwise is silly.
Maybe, the Maginot Line could have been an element in a rational and successful French strategy for World War II, but this is history, not counterfactual fantasy.
The Maginot Line is rational, it anchored the French right flank. The French wanted the decisive battle to occur in Belgium, NOT France. The French KNEW the Germans came through Belgium in WWI; they knew the Maginot Line didn't defend the Franco-Belgian border; they KNEW the Germans would come through Belgium again and at the end of the day the Anglo-French army amassed against the Germans IN Belgium outnumbered the Germans. The blunder is in not covering the Ardennes; not in the Maginot Line.
It is perfectly sensible to point out that the Maginot Line could economize on the forces needed to defend France. To say that the Maginot Line made anything whatsoever "impossible" with regard to a German conquest of France, is unsupported. BruceW07 23:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
If France knew that Germany would attack through Belgium again, then why did they even bother to build the Maginot Line? Why would they need to funnel the Germans into the Low Countries if they were going to attack there anyway? The idea that the Maginot Line was a success is wishful thinking at best and historical revisionism at worst. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.176.99 (talk) 01:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the last comment. The article even backs this up with a cited statement saying 'The fortification system successfully dissuaded a direct attack. However, it was strategically ineffective, as the Germans did indeed invade Belgium, flanked the Maginot Line, and proceeded relatively unobstructed.' If the French wanted to funnel the Germans through the Belgium border than how did the Germans pass 'relatively unobstructed.' This whole idea of the Maginot Line being successful is total bias and unfounded. This article should talk more about the weakness of it since it was unsuccessful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.137.122 (talk) 05:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
The sources? The article is my source, that quote was from the article. Besides your basically agreeing with me anyway, it failed because there was a hole in the line. No one is arguing that the parts built were a failure, the whole fact that they didn't bother to build in that one section makes the line a failure. Since you just said that the line worked everywhere else why wouldn't they just make it through Belgium border as well? People on this discussion claim that it was not built there so the French could fight the Germans where they wanted them, but since that also failed the whole defense system is proved inadequate. I don't believe anyone has ever doubted that the line was successful where it was built, but merely that the line shouldn't have had a gap in it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.141.137.134 (talk) 00:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I would agree with most of what you wrote, Acroterion. I am not certain if this article should be saying the Maginot line was "stragetically ineffective". The Maginot Line was intended not to be broken, and indeed the Germans concluded that it could not be broken, which is why they went around it. Strategically speaking, the Maginot Line worked. It is just that the rest of the French strategy and tactics were rotten. However does not mean the Maginot line was "ineffective". That book by Keylor has interesting things to say about the subject, and I'll bring some more material in from Keylor's book in the near-future.--A.S. Brown (talk) 04:05, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Thinking of rewriting the leading sentence as follows:
The Maginot Line (French: Ligne Maginot, IPA: [liɲ maʒino]) was a line of concrete fortifications, weapon installations, and obstacles that France constructed during the 1930's. The line was a response to France's experience in World War I, was constructed during the run-up to World War II, and was named after the then French Minister of War, André Maginot. It was intended to fortify France against invasion from Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, although German forces ultimately found ways about it.
That final sentence might be replaced with the ultimate fate of the line, it becoming surrounded by German forces and ultimately surrendering at the order of Maxime Weygand.
Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter422 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Nevertheless, it proved strategically ineffective during the Battle of France. Instead of attacking directly, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries, bypassing the Line to the north. French and British officers had anticipated this: when Germany invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, they carried out plans to form an aggressive front that cut across Belgium and connected to the Maginot Line.
The article itself specifies that one of the points of the line was to "To push the enemy to circumvent it while passing by Switzerland or Belgium"; so how does the Germans doing what the French wanted, make - per the lede - the line strategically ineffective? This same point is addressed by RS such as Jackson, Julian (2003) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940; who also highlights the point of the line was to force the Germans to do what they did i.e. outflank it.
Yes, the line is open to criticism; but parts of this article seem to be placing unwarranted charges rather than discussing it in context with the true culprit: two decades of French military thinking, an inflexible strategy that expected a German repeat of the First World War, lacking the reinforcements to seal off a penetration of the Ardennes (a point, per Jackson, highlighted as early as 1938), and the weak social nature of the Third Republic at the time.66.77.160.179 (talk) 11:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
The article (which is unsourced in this respect) states: {{quotebox|*To avoid a surprise attack and to give the French an alarm
The French were not surprised, mobilized successfully, the line was used as the basis for the limited offensive into Germany, it deterred the main German assault being across the French border, and it forced the Germans to move around the barrier (the fact that the Germans hoodwinked the French in Benelux is not the lines fault). The lede, in this respect, contradicts the main body of the article.
Per RS, such as Jackson, Julian (2003), The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 pp. 30 ff. the point of the line was to deter a cross-border assault, funnel the main German attack around the barrier that would allow the best divisions of the French Army to engage it on foreign soil. Your retort "Agree it's purpose was to funnel the Germans to attack through Belgium, not through Lux and Ardennes. Thus, Fail" is just semantics. You agree with the purpose, yet call it achieving its purpose a fail. You have even reverted an attempt to reword it to avoid controversy, or to even match up with what the source and article states.66.77.160.179 (talk) 16:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
References
This article fails to describe what a failure the Maginot Line was. They were fighting the last war with their fortifications, expecting trench warfare like WWI, and failing to comprehend the new face of warfare characterized by mechanized mobile infantry, radio communications, improved weaponry, coordinated air support, strafing and bombardment. It reads like a whitewash by antiquarian French apologists trying to rewrite history and cover up the infamy and shame of the French panic, collapse and surrender to Germany in barely six weeks in the Battle of France and the subsequent collaborationist Vichy regime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.137.86 (talk) 16:22, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
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