GREAT FORTRESS CHAIN

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4011, 4 August 1931, Page 7

GREAT FORTRESS CHAIN

FRANCE AND HER EASTERN FRONT France has suddenly decided to embark on one of the most spectacular schemes of military strategy ever conceived m Europe. At an estimated cost of £20,000,000 she lias begun to throw an impregnable line of fortifications across her eastern frontiers, stretching from the English Channel to the Mediterranean. The French military authorities estimate that, it will take rive years to complete their plan, and that 10,000 workmen will be employed. The disposition of the new line ol fortifications leaves no doubt that France is preparing lor the eventuality of another invasion of -Lorraine, and for a possible war with Italy.

The line from Dunkirk to Luxemburg will for the time being be only lightly fortified, as another hostile incursion through Belgium is not anticipated. On this front new floodgates arc being erected for the inundation of the extreme north. Along the rest ol the line the scheme is based on a chain of small forts and concrete dugouts, which will he supplemented by “ flying fortifications,”

Those are a new conception of defence. and consist of a great steel structure on wheels, working in cooperation with tanks, tractors, and all the apparatus for hurriedly constructing concrete trenches, machine gnn emplacements, and erecting barbedwire entanglements.

Franco’s most sensitive spot is along the Saar front from Luxemburg to the Rhine. Through this corridor, flanked on the right by the Vosges, she has been four times invaded in the past 120 years.

Along tills "200-imlo lino the now works will roach their maximum offensive and defensive strength. Nothing like it has ever been done before in the history of war. The- line will be a formidable rampart of steel and concrete, honeycombed below the ground with an intricate system of tunnels, railroads, md shelters driven into the bowels oi every hill and mountain. At intervals monster fortresses to carry heavy artillery and including ; loiters, magazines, and subterranean issages, are being raised. 1 i;o fortress at Uociuvald is in man.', respects like Gibraltar. It consists oi i fonn.dabJc ring of 2-50 acres of steel i.id concrete enc.rciing a wooded lull. ,nd it will cost €1,000,000 Sappers rho aie bu.ld.ng il have named it ■ rhe G.ant's Castle.”

I he Sw.ss frontier is to he left wholly iiipioloctcd, but from Lake Geneva to Nice, wnere France meets Italy, a new ( id significant scheme of defence i> ,o.ng hurriedly mobilised. Here nature has already provided .oimidable defences, but there are ten neaelies in the mountain wall from .Mont Blanc to the Mediterranean. French strategists insist that these shall bo fortified. Six of the passes, which do not lead id strategic points, are to be mined and filled with high explosive for the iaj)id destruction of the roads and bridges. The other four breaches, which lead to tlie coveted objective of Nice, will be strongly barred with a network ot trenches, “ pill-boxes,” and gun emplacements. The authors of the scheme are -Marshal Fetain, General Debency, and General Weygand, the present commander of the French Army.