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EVERYTHING'S FINE ON THE MAGINOT LINE
History’s "Magnificent Blunder" in Alsace
One
of the world’s great - really bad ideas of military history was
the Maginot Line. After the brutal experience of WWI ideas where offered
for the defense of France against Germany’s next attempt at pan-European
real estate development. A system of fixed dug-in defensive battlements
named for France's Minister of Veteran Affairs and WWI veteran himself,
Andre Maginot, was built along the French-German border from Belgium
through
the Alsace-Lorraine region to the west of the Rhine (see Simserhof
Fortress).
Bunkers with machine guns and underground tunnels faced the Rhine River
crossings
to stop
the next
German march,
with construction
finally completed in 1935, just in time for Germany's Nazi war machine
build up.
Unfortunately,
when the German expansion plans were offered, a half a decade later,
fixed position trench warfare which was the state of trhe art in WWI,
was a thing of the past and the German armored Wehrmacht drove through
the
line in the Ardennes
(see Liege
Defense Fort de Battice) and simply bypassed the uselessly
clever system. In WWII battles were fought in the area on the march to
the Rhine
River
at the end of the war. These monuments to bad planning can still be found
and are worth a visit while
in the
Eastern
region of France. The Maginot Line monument and museum
at Hatten is
a 20 minute drive
from Strasbourg and 30 minutes from Baden-Baden in Germany’s Black
Forest region across the river. These forts actually remained in use
up until the 1960's, though with not much action. There is also a private
military museum nearby with military vehicles mostly from later military
bases and a few airplanes (curiously now without
an airport). The Maginot Line also inspired a little anti-war ditty
about
the fruitlessness of armed conflict - "everything’s fine on
the Maginot Line". For another great failed idea in mechanized
fortifications in Alsace (see Kaiser
Wilhelm's Fort at Mutzig) © Bargain
Travel Europe
Find best hotel and travel deals in Alsace at TripAdvisor
World
War I sights in Europe
Belleu
Wood/Marne Memorial
Battlefields
of the Somme
Flanders
Fields Belgium in WWI
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articles are copyrighted and the sole property of Bargain Travel
Europe and WLPV, LLC. and may not be copied or reprinted without
permission.
See Also
CHATEAU
HAUT-KOENIGSBOURG
King’s Fairy Tale Castle in Alsace Wine Region
WINE ROAD OF NORTHERN ALSACE
OO-SO
DELICIOUS STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL
FORT
BATTICE - LIEGE DEFENSE LINE 1940
GERMANY'S
BLACK FOREST
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