MAGINOT LINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1939, Page 7

MAGINOT LINE

FRANCE’S SHOCK ABSORBER A VAST DEFENCE SYSTEM. LONG CHAIN OF FORTS. The Maginot Line consists of a chain of forts and blockhouses. The first section constructed was from Longuyon, opposite Luxembourg, to the Vosges, and the line was subsequently extended along the Rhine to the Swiss frontier. and later again was carried along the Belgian frontier to beyond Lille. Liddell Hart, in his latest book, “The Defence of Britain,” says that the line is-intended to gain time rather than as an impregnable barrier—as a shock absorber to cover the process of mobilisation.

The fortifications were designed in the light of experience .in 1914-18, for though in 1915, after the rapid fall of the Belgian and Russian fortresses, the French Command lost faith in their own fixed fortifications, the stability of Fort Douamont and Fort Vaux —taken by the Germans ahd recaptured by the French eight months later —gave evidence of the power of steel and concrete to withstand heavy bombardment. . TESTED WITH GUN FIRE. For the building of the Maginot Line materials were tested by howitzer fire, and the cover is thick enough to withstand the impact of three shells striking at the same point. Protection against gas is given bj' maintaining an • atmosphere pressure inside the forts slightly higher than that outside. The gun control is somewhat similar to that in naval practice. Gunners do not see their targets, but lay their guns by following pointers on a series of dials, controlled by an officer in a heavily armoured observation post. The details of lire control are very complex. Communication within and, , between the forts is by telephone, along duplicated lines, each of which is covered by more than 20 feet of con • crete; the main telephone exchange is 150 feet below the surface. A network of underground galleries connects the casements with the living' quarters, magazines, and power stations, which are also deeply buried. The galleries are divided into “attacktight” compartments by armour-plat-ed doors, covered by interior gun chambers, so that even if the enemy penetrate into a fort they can still be . prevented from capturing the whole of it except by a piecemeal process. ' CHAIN OF BLOCKHOUSES. The intervals between the forts are filled with a chain of blockhouses, each with a group of about a dozen men, armed with machine and anti-tank guns, and expected to be capable of holding out for three days. The blockhouse garrisons are usually provided with a separate shelter, linked to it by a covered passage. Garrison units vary according to the sectors in which they are stationed, and, after trench warfare practice, spend 15 days in the line and 15 out.

"The inherent strength of this great concrete barrier,” says Liddell Hart, “and the development of similar fortifications to reinforce the natural barrier of the Alps along the Franco-Ital-ian frontier, gives the French Army a •much higher strength for defence than is conveyed by any numerical reckoning of its forces, and it also enables a higher proportion of these forces to be kept mobile,, for reinforcing any sector against which an enemy many concentrate his effort. When account is taken of the power of modern defence, the limited length of the Franco-Gei • man frontier in relation to the size of the French Army, and the strength of the fortifications there, it is not easy to imagine that any assault upon it could have much chance of success.”