What was the Maginot line?

Question

What was the Maginot line?

Answer 1

The Maginot Line named after French minister of defense André Maginot) was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defenses, which France constructed along its borders supposedly to protect itself from Germany during W W I I

Answer 2

It was the reason the n**i's had to detour through Belgium before they invaded France.

The French put millions of francs into a defensive wall and had a false sense of security because of their impenetrable wall. The n**i's just went around it. One of History's sorriest, saddest and stupidest mistakes. If they had a halfway effective defense, perhaps something mobile, it would have changed the course of the whole war. There never would have been a vichy Regime, the Jews in France wouldn't have been shipped to concentration camps and D-Day never would have happened because the allies would have already had a decent foothold on the continent. Also, part of the n**i's plan was to use their blitzkrieg on Belgium, take over France and leave enough troops to keep control. Then to rush the rest of their troops (thanks to the trains) over to the eastern front to stop any Russian advancement. It was necessary for the German's two front war to have any chance that France fall quickly. If they hadn't fallen and the German's had to fight a truly two front land war I bet the war would have been over much more quickly as well. And then there would never have been the conference at Yalta where Churchill and FDR gave Stalin the eastern bloc countries, effectively putting those people in communist slavery and oppression for the next forty plus years and leading to the deaths of so many millions at the hands of Stalin.

It really is pointless to think about what-ifs though. Perhaps without the Maginot line things would have been worse (is that possible?). But still it is one of the big mistakes in history that I know of.

Below is a link to a blog devoted to an old magazine called Modern Mechanix. Specifically the page is a scan from a 1934 issue regarding the Maginot line.

Answer 3

It was a line of defense that was supposed to protect the French against invasions by an adversary especially Germany .