MAGINOT LINE FILMED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 12

MAGINOT LINE FILMED

FORTRESS DEFENCES fßy Air Mail—Own Correspondent! LONDON, 24th November. The French are making no mystery of their famous Maginot Line. Not only 1 as a Belgian engineer, with official permission, been allowed to publish a minute description of its wonders, but now these fortifications have been filmed for cinema consumption. It must be a deadly blow to enterprising and expectant foreign Secret Service agents! The French frontier fortifications. extending for many square miles over a 125-mile front, cost £150.000.000. and got their name from M. Andre Maginot, who was War Minister when they were constructed. They stretch from Flanders to the Swiss frontiers, and arc of steel and concrete, cunningly planned to give constant fire support from position to position, and with an impregnable underground garrison. The notion that fortress defence is useless against modern siege guns, deduced from the way Liege and Namur crumpled up under the German Jack Johnsons, is quite erroneous. Verdun’s forts, after incredible bombardment. were still structurally sound But strategically the Maginot Line rather limits France to non-aggressive operations.