Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 130

behind France’s decision to construct the Maginot Line
and its deleterious effect on military readiness; how the
Maginot Line undermined France’s deterrence strategy, leading to a reliance on passive defense; and the
fundamental reasons why the German offensive was
decisive—it was not because the Germans simply drove
around the Maginot Line. The second part examines
how the sophistic arguments behind the Maginot Line
have resurfaced in promoting ASB and the consequences if it is elevated to a national security strategy.

France’s Security Challenge in the
Interwar Years
Victory in World War I did not negate the fundamental security challenges facing France vis-à-vis
Germany. Germany’s industrial capacity, wealth, and
population exceeded France’s substantially. Whereas
Germany avoided the ravages of war, France suffered
horrendous damage. It was clear that without some
militating modifiers, Germany would defeat France in
a future war.
The Versailles Treaty established the first set of
modifiers to keep Germany in a debilitated state:

German payment of reparations, limits on its military forces, German territorial losses, and Allied
occupation of the Rhineland. Another set of modifiers included French alliances with the new states
of Czechoslovakia and Poland, backed up perhaps
by Russia, to threaten the heart of Germany in the
event of war with France. The last modifier was the
Maginot Line, begun in 1930.
Named after André Maginot, the French minister
of war, the fortified line was intended to run from
the Swiss border to the English Channel. While expensive, its cost would be offset by a reduced standing army. Conceptually, the small standing army
occupying the ultra-modern Maginot Line would
shield France during the initial phase of a conflict
while military and industrial mobilization for a long
war took place. The pièce de résistance of the Maginot
Line was the promise of a cheap victory. Once the
German army had bled itself white attacking the fortified line, the French army would launch a counteroffensive, crushing the remaining German forces and
marching into Berlin. In light of these circumstances, Germany would be deterred from attacking France

(Photo by Denis Helfer, Wikimedia Commons)

A tank sits upon a hilltop display 22 March 2006 at the Casemate d’Esch (built in 1931), once part of the Fortified Sector of Hagenau,
a section of the Maginot Line. It is now an artifact on display at the Ouvrage Schoenenburg Museum run by the Alsace Association of
Friends of the Maginot Line.
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March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW