FRENCH DEFENCES

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 July 1933, Page 4

FRENCH DEFENCES

INVASION-PROOF BARRIER

! “Each of Your Majesty’s garrisoned cities protects a province,” said General Vauban to King Louis XIV., “but Metz defends France.” These words are as true to-day as they were when spoken 300 years ago. Metz is the key city to France; it will be the Verdun*' of the next war, writes Pembroke Stephens in the “Daily Express.” I saw more French soldiers in Metz than I saw civilians. On the 50-mile drive to the border area I met only troops—bicycle patrols, cavalry, infantry, artillery—on the march. The soldiers were mere boys, for the most part, wearing steel helmets and the sky-blue uniform of France. An observation balloon rides in the sky over Metz, and at the strongly fortified Thionville, the outpost citadel of Metz, military aerodromes and scores of prettily painted military machines face east. New barracks are being built at Thionville to house the troops France is rushing to the frontier under the new scheme of army reform. France is leaving nothing to chance. The tragic memory of two wars, two invasions in 50 years, has taught her to be prepared. Between Metz and the German fron-

tier workmen are building bridges where there are no rivers and raising the railway levels where there is no danger from rain. This is in order that the country may be flooded and invaders drowned in time of war. The Metz region is the most vulnerable sector of the eastern front, and it is here that the most complicated and extensive fortifications ever constructed by man have been sunk into the ground.

CAMOUFLAGED DOORS Yet so clever has the construction been that there is nothing to show for all the millions of pounds, the years of work. The forts are not only invisible to the passers-by, they are invisible from the air as well. Not even an air photograph can betray the exact position of the French forts. They are entered by camouflaged doors at the back of hills hundreds of yards away from the little dip in the crest of the hill facing east, which permits machine-guns to sweep the valleys below. Gun crews sleep 150 ft underground in specially constructed concrete passages, secure from the heaviest shells. The passages are lighted by electricity and powerful electric searchlights arc housed underground in order to be brought to the surface and used immediately in the event of a sudden night attack.

Electric fans stand ready to suck out any poison gas which may penetrate into the shelters and replace the poisoned atmosphere with fresh air fanned in from special air channels hundreds of yards long.

The guns can be fired automatically by switches underground without the necessity of man being on the surface. The forts are built on no single plan, but differ in construction and distance from each other, with the changing nature of the ground. A distance as great as 10, 20 or even 30 miles separates the big gun emplacements, but only a mile or less separates the light artillery and ma-chine-gun nests. The forts have been so designed that hardly a yard of ground on a 200-mile front is safe from the sweep of fire. The peasants of Lorraine sleep well at night in spite of Hitler. They have confidence in the military genius of the generals who planned and built these forts. Many of these peasants tell me that they have no fear of Germany now that the forts are there.