The Maginot Line was an engineering marvel of the 1930s. The huge fortifications, which lay up to eighty metres underground, housed hospitals, modern kitchens, telephone exchanges and even electric trains. Kilometres of underground passages led to casemates hidden in the terrain and towers that rose out of the ground to fire on the enemy. The fortifications were impregnable, even to the heaviest artillery and chemical warfare. Despite these extensive preparations, France fell to Germany in less than six weeks. Eight decades later, the Maginot Line is still remembered as an expensive and misguided response to an obvious danger. In this account, Kevin Passmore re-evaluates the Maginot Line. He traces the controversies surrounding its construction, describes the lives of the men who manned the fortifications, the impact on the German-speaking inhabitants of the border region, and the fight against espionage from within their own ranks. The Maginot Line was by no means a step backwards, but an ambitious modernisation project that was doomed to failure by strategic errors and growing dissatisfaction with the fortifications.
Author
Passmore, Kevin
Title
The Maginot Line
Details
English text, 22 bw-photos. 486 pages.
State
new
Subtitle
A New History
Yale University Press 47 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP Vereinigtes Königreich
