204: About that Maginot Thing

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The French had this cool thing called the Maginot Line, what has been happening there? Come check out my keynote speech on the topic of Deception in February 2025: https://intelligentspeechonline.com/ Coupon Code: SECOND

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Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 204 - The Fall of France - What about that Maginot Thing? This week a big thank you goes out to Grady for their support of the podcast by becoming a member, members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episodes plus special member episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. The Maginot Line occupies an interesting place within the overall history of the German invasion of France in 1940. It was built during the interwar years to act as a force multiplier for the French defenders, to make up for the demographic, geographic, and industrial challenges that the French knew that they would face in a war with Germany. I have a whole episode about this topic, episode 61, go check it out. Then when the German invasion actually started, the Germans did exactly what the French expected them to do, they went around the Maginot Line to the north. Now, of course the Germans did not go as far north as the French expected, going through the Ardennes instead of through central Belgium, but they did go around the Maginot Line like they were supposed to. The complete disasters that then beset the French army have been well covered over the last few months of this podcast, and the collapse of French resistance left all of the forces still manning the Maginot defenses in an interesting position. They had been specially trained and prepared to occupy the defenses, and to defend them against any possible German attack, but then those German attacks did not come. As things fell apart north and east of Paris troops were pulled out of the Line with the interval troops pulled out and turned into field divisions for use elsewhere, a measure essentially mandated by the frantic search for more French soldiers to replace those lost earlier in the campaign. For the most part these were not the troops that actually manned the forts and prepared positions, the gros and petit ouvrages, but instead the troops that were positioned between them to prevent German infiltration attacks. While repositioning these troops was felt to be necessary, it also introduced a fatal weakness into the defenses, and so orders were also sent out to sabotage and abandon all of the Maginot fortifications, but then another order was sent out that the defenders should defend to the limits of their abilities to tie up as many German troops as possible. The result of this last order was that the Maginot defenders would continue fighting, longer than any other units in France. Even after the signing of the armistice, their resistance continued, in some cases until June 25th, which is when the Ouvrage du Fermont would give the final order to cease fire.

Speaking of the Ouvrage du Fermont, it would be one of the areas that would see serious action during the opening days of the German attack. The ouvrage was positioned near the northern reaches of the Maginot defenses, and was only about 60 kilometers southeast of Sedan where Guderian would cross the Meuse. Du Fermont was similar to some of the other gros, or great, ouvrages of the Maginot line in that it was a distributed fortification. This meant that it was built out of a series of different types of blocks, or self contained underground units. In the case of du Fermont there were 7 blocks. The combat blocks were located on the northern side of the fortification, the direction that the Germans were expected to attack from. These would be either artillery or infantry blocks, with the artillery blocks featuring artillery guns inside of retractable turrets while the infantry blocks would have machine guns. The entrances into these blocks were located almost a kilometer away, then there was a long tunnel that men and supplies had to move through to arrive at the combat areas. Of course as much as possible of these fortifications were below ground, with primarily only the tops of the retractable turrets and then some fixed observation and weapon cupolas above ground. The central fortifications were supported by a series of casemates, that were more distributed and were not connected to the main fortifications by underground tunnels, and the only way to move men in and out of them was above ground. The artillery guns at Fermont were positioned and instructed to support defenses closer to the German border, specifically the troops that were defending the areas around the city of Longwy. One of the challenges present on this sector of the Maginot Line is that it was not really done during the 1930s. Sure there were strong defenses like those at Fermont, but there had been a lot of conversations in the 1930s about how best these could be supported. In 1930 Petain would make the decision that the previous plan would be abandoned, a plan which would have seen a whole series of ouvrages created around Longwy. And instead of these ouvrages there would instead just be a few blockhouses and other concrete emplacements. In theory, these could be supported by the the artillery positioned at Fermont. Both sides knew that these positions would be important because if the French maintained control of Longwy they would be able to prevent the use of the road and rail networks in the area which would restrict the ability of the Germans to move supplies north and west. The attacks would begin on May 11th, disrupting the well practiced rhythm of the defenders that had been in place since the start of the war. The fighting would continue throughout the day, with the troops of the German 17th Infantry Division unable to make real progress directly into Longwy, however they could begin to surround the town. In the morning of the 12th they would finally come within the range of the guns at Fermont and they would open fire almost immediately. This firing would continue off and on for the next day. Due to the growing German pressure, the French commander of this sector of the front, General Condé made the decision to abandon the forward positions around Longwy and to instead pull his forces back to the main line of resistance closer to Fermont and the other ouvrages of the Line. The Germans, accomplishing their objective of taking Longwy, ended their efforts before really testing the Maginot defenses.

Further to the north and west they would test the Maginot defenses near another Ouvrage, named Ouvrage de la Ferte. La Ferte was a petit ouvrage, or a small fortification, made up of only 2 blocks and a garrison of under 100 men. The two blocks were then connected by a deep underground gallery that was reachable via a lengthy series of stairs below both of the combat blocks. On May 13th the German 71st Infantry division would move into position to assault la Ferte, staying just out of range of its guns while they prepared for the assault. These German troops had been specially trained for attacking fortifications and were provided with special shaped charges which had been designed specifically to deal with the Maginot fortifications. They had even been tested on similar positions that had been built in Czechoslovakia, in the areas that had been ceded to Germany due to the Munich agreement. The various guns in La Ferte would begin firing anytime that the German forces were within range, but over the following days the Germans pushed around La Ferte to capture nearby objectives and hills. These attacks really highlighted the weakness present in all of the Maginot defenses, they were only as strong as the men between, or in the intervals of, the ouvrages, because once those interval troops were pushed back the Germans would have much more freedom to close in and damage the ouvrage. This is exactly what would happen at La Ferte, because even though the guns there fired on the Germans as much as possible, and they were joined by nearby fortifications like those of Ouvrage Chesnois, the guns themselves could not drive back the Germans. There were also design issues with La Ferte that exacerbated this problem, most importantly a lack of mortars within the defenses which created a lot of dead ground around the ouvrage where its guns could not fire. This allowed the Germans to actually take much of the above ground area and allowed for reasonably free movement, even though they were at time fired on by the artillery from Chesnois. There was little that the men inside of La Ferte could do as the Germans destroyed one gun after another, either through direct artillery fire or through the shaped charges. Eventually Block 2 was completely incapacitated. Late on the 18th Block 1 would also be put out of action and the commander of the ouvrage, Lieutenant Bourguignon would request permission to abandon the defenses. These requests were denied, with his commander General Aymé believing that Maginot positions should never been abandoned. The request was one of the last pieces of communication to come from the ouvrage, and all contact would be lost over the night of the 18th. What happened within the ouvrage after Block 2 and then Block 1 were put out of action would only become known after the Germans were able to secure the surrounding areas and then enter the fortifications in the last days of May, it took them so long because of the build up of gases within the fortifications during the fighting. When Block 2 had been assaulted, fires had started in both Blocks, and the smoke from those fires combined with smoke shells and smoke bombs that the Germans used to conceal their movements. This, combined with German fire, forced the occupants of the blocks into the gallery below, and there they were trapped, without proper ventilation as the levels of carbon monoxide grew. Eventually it overwhelmed their gas masks and everyone suffocated, a sad slow death. Earlier this year I had the privilege of visiting the ouvrage, and I highly recommend it if you are in the area. They have restored some of the areas, but others remain much as they were in 1940. We spent a few hours touring the site and the things that really stuck out to me were just how large the AM turret was, this was the turret that was knocked off its mountings by German explosives, if you just search for the ouvrage de la ferte online the image will probably be the first one. The other thing was how far down the gallery was below the combat blocks, and how claustrophobic it was in those tunnels, and that was even with proper ventilation and proper lighting! My own personal belief is that it is impossible for the vast majority of people to really understand how someone may have felt in such extreme conditions like those experienced by the brave French soldiers of La Ferte on the night of May 18th, stuck below ground, in the dark and damp conditions with little that they could do. There is nothing that has happened in my life that allows me to even glimpse for a moment how that must have felt, the fear and the despair. And oddly enough, when I was at de la Ferte, walking through those tunnels, instead of feeling closer to the experiences of those French soldiers, I felt further away. Because I just had to pop up the 150 steps back to the free air, and then off to a boulangerie for a delicious lunch, they would never leave those tunnels, they had been sent to defend France, and they had done so until their last breath, 30 meters below Ouvrage de la Ferte.

While there were a few exceptions like the fighting around Du Fermont and La Firte, the vast majority of the Maginot Line would not be directly assaulted by the Germans during their initial attacks. Instead, the German Army Group C would be positioned along its length mostly just to keep watch and ensure that the French did not try to attack out of their lines, and also to pose some level of threat so that the French would hesitate to pull too many troops out of the defenses to send them north where the primary German attack was occurring. On the French side the Maginot Sector was commanded by General Pretelat, and when the German attack started he would be able to call on 30 divisions for its defense. The majority of these divisions were interval troops, those positioned between the various Maginot fixed fortifications with the goal of preventing any kind of German infiltration attack. From the moment that the Germans crossed the border the number of troops available to Pretelat would begin to decline, until by May 26th he was down to just 10 total division, 6 of which were classified as B class divisions and then two were Polish divisions. Nobody questioned the fighting spirit of the Poles, but their equipment and overall organization meant that their combat power as a unit was questionable. On that same day Pretelat and Weygand would meet in person, and they would discuss what should be done about the Maginot Line. It had not yet been seriously attacked, but the French situation in the north had continued to deteriorate. By May 26th the Germans had reached the North Sea and had trapped the troops in Belgium and Northern France, and Weygand would frantically throwing together units to build a defensive line against the Somme. If the Maginot Line was abandoned the overall length of the French line would be shortened, perhaps freeing up some troops for a reserve. This was the path that Pretelate advocated for, due to fears that with so many of his units already removed from their positions throughout the Maginot sector those within the fixed fortifications were just sitting ducks and served no real purpose. Weygand was quite hesitant to abandon the Maginot defenses for what were in reality somewhat reasonable reasons. If the French abandoned the Maginot Line without really fighting for it, the blow to French morale, both in the army and throughout France would have been hard to bear. It had been built up as the greatest series of defenses the world had ever known, the anchor and rock upon which the enemies of France would break. To then just abandon it, while its defenders and its defenses remained for the most part untried and unconquered was hard to bear. This was also the period where Weygand had banked the entirety of France’s survival on the ability of the French army to hold the line on the Somme and the Aisne, and if those defenses did hold then holding onto the Maginot positions would be invaluable in the long war to come. Pretelat was still concerned about what would happen if the Germans broke the line on the Somme and Aisne, as they in fact would, but Weygand simply informed Pretelat that if that happened then France would have to request and armistice so it did not matter anyway. With this line of thinking being little comfort, Pretelat would meet with General Huntziger of the French Second Army positioned immediately to the north and west of the Maginot Line. They would try to coordinate what to do in case of the line of the Aisne being broken, but in the event it would not be possible for Huntziger to conform to these plans, and instead after the German’s crossed the Aisne and the Second Army began to pull back the far northern Maginot defenses became uncovered and were instantly in danger of being surrounded and destroyed.

On June 12th many of the interval troops along the northern stretches of the Maginot Line began their retreat due to Weygand sending out the general retreat order. They would execute a plan that Pretelat had put in place over the previous day in preparation for the retreat. Along with interval troops some of the defenders of the Maginot fortifications would also join the retreat, although for many casemates and ouvrages at least a few men would be left behind to continue to fire occassionally to mask the retreat from the Germans. The goal of these skeleton crews was also to disable the fortifications as much as possible before they were then abandoned, which would happen in stages between June 14 and 17. However, most of these final orders were not carried out, and few of the defenses would be actually destroyed or even abandoned at all. And instead the men inside of them continued to fight on until the armistice. Even though the French were falling apart on almost every other part of the front, within the defenses the fortress crews remained firing until the end of the fighting, inflicting casualties on German forces until the very end. But the end did come and eventually the defenders would surrender to the German forces, although for the vast majority of the defenses this surrender was not caused by a German assault but instead due to the wider French surrender. The crews of the Maginot defenses then became prisoners of war, and the ouvrages and casemates became glorified storage sheds for the Germans, with some of the moveable weapons transitioned to the German defenses of the Atlantic Wall.

When trying to evaluate the performance of the Maginot Line there are a few things that have to be considered. The first is that it was not designed to be an impenetrable shield, but instead to simply make it a pain for the Germans to attack into France so that they would attack further north where the French army would be waiting for them. It did that, but the fighting in the north was a complete disaster, in ways that no French planner would have anticipated when the Maginot line was being designed and built. The common joke that I have seen is that one of the Maginot Line’s faults is that it was only built to fire one way, and of course it was! If the line itself was surrounded then France was already lost, and that is exactly what would happen in 1940. And while individual casemates and ouvrages could be defeated and destroyed, like what was seen as de la Ferte, even those smaller defenses that were taken by the Germans took time and effort to assault and silence. The larger and stronger fortifications were never taken until the war was already lost, and it allowed the French army to defend the entirety of its German border with a small fraction of the forces that would have been required otherwise, validating one of the core reasons for its construction, to conserve manpower. The Maginot Line was not perfect, it had its problems which at times would be taken advantage of by the Germans, but as a whole it did not fail due to those problems. Instead the Maginot line failed because the entirety of the French military failed in unexpected and spectacular ways after the German invasion, which would force Weygand to abandon not just northern France but also the Maginot Line, and it would cause French leaders to pursue a path of surrender, a path that will be the topic of next episode.