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The Maginot Line

By: Dustin Ferguson. "If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy to seek a solution elsewhere.“ CLAUSEWITZ. The Maginot Line.

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The Maginot Line

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  1. By: Dustin Ferguson "If you entrench yourself behindstrong fortifications, you compel the enemyto seek a solution elsewhere.“ CLAUSEWITZ The Maginot Line

  2. The Maginot Line was built between 1929 and 1940. It was built to protect France from her longtime enemy, Germany, and to defend the traditional invasion routes across her eastern frontier. The Maginot Line was built to provide time for the French army to mobilize and to make up for a potentially disastrous shortfall of manpower predicted for the late 1930s.

  3. These rails were sunk deep into the ground to prevent tanks from breeching the perimeters of the line. This anti-tank obstacle extended in front of the works, from one end to another of the strengthened system, therefore on hundreds of kilometers. It stopped only in rare places (forests, rivers, flooded zones, very broken zones, etc…).

  4. The Germans were able to overrun or capture only a handful of the smaller Maginot forts and none of the large ones. The majority of Maginot Line defenders surrendered only after their nation had done so first. Four years later, the Maginot Line again was defeated. This time, the U.S. Army overran and captured Maginot Line forts from the Germans in a series of operations during the fall of 1944 and the spring of 1945. Though the U.S. Army had little difficulty with the Maginot Line overall, several of the forts posed a quite challenge to capture. Ultimately the U.S. Army was able to overcome stiff German resistance, difficult terrain and poor weather to capture these several still formidable Maginot Line forts.

  5. The Maginot Line fortifications had a major weakness which the Germans were unable to overcome: electricity. Though they had some electrical generating capabilities, the ouvrages were heavily dependent upon outside sources for the electricity necessary to operate their complex machinery. Unfortunately for the Germans, the outside generating facilities were located on the wrong side of the line and there was not enough time to run electricity from Germany.

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