SIEGFRIED LINE’S WEAKNESSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23946, 23 October 1939, Page 8

SIEGFRIED LINE’S WEAKNESSES

“NOT IMPREGNABLE” (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON. Sept. 15. The Siegfi'ied Line is not an “impregnable barrier,” but merely a “ very powerful network of concrete fortifications," according to a writer in the Nation Beige (quoted by Reuter from Brussels). Pointing out that the line had to be constructed on mass-production lines at great speed, he continues: In consequence, there have been innumerable mistakes and faults—construction of fortifications along the Rhine in areas liable to floods, use of inferior concrete, which compelled the Germans to make repairs this spring under the eyes of the French, and so on. The great majority of the works are necessarily relatively light. The propaganda films designed to show the “ colossal ” character of the fortifications reveal that they consist mainly of casemates sticking well out of the ground, incapable of resisting heavy artillery shells for long, and with guns capable of shooting in only one direction. in many places, to save time, they have not bothered to place the casements at patiently studied and chpsen sites, but have constructed them in a series at fixed intervals (three for every 300 metres, for example) without considering their field of fire. Thus instances are quoted of casemates with hillocks in front of them which block half the view. . Really buried ‘‘forts,’ as in the Maginot Line, are not only infrequent, but for the most part very remote from the frontiers. . . The zone comprising the Saar territory and the Luxemburg frontier is notoriously fortified in a very superficial manner. It follows that the Siegfried Line as far as one can tell, is less a real “line” than a network of fortifications and strategic points, rapidly laid down, often at excessive distances from one another in a depth of six miles Such a system necessarily nas its weak points —works which it is not impossible to destroy by bombardment and the collapse of which would involve that of the whole line. (Germany seems, as a matter of fact, to have anticipated this by constructing as many successive lines as possible.) It thus in no way constitutes an impregnable barrier but only a very nowerful network of concrete fortifications Fortifications of the same type have iust been carried by the Germans in Poland—at Graudenz for example—bv “infiltrations" in the words of the communique The writer concludes that this system leaves the field open for manoeuvring, for superiority of artillery and for night fighting and it has not yet been demonstrated that shattering losses need be suffered in assaulting it, as would be the case, for example, with the Maginot Line.