The Maginot Line

[PainRack]

[quote="Sidewinder]
Okay, let me rephrase that: the French learned the wrong lessons from WWI, i.e., trying to avoid the nastiness of trench warfare by digging better entrenchments (the Germans learned the right lessons, i.e., using blitzkrieg to avoid that nastiness). That doesn't excuse the Belgians' stupidity ("Let France station soldiers on Belgian soil? Perish the thought! Oh, they don't want the Germans to attack them through our country AGAIN? Too bad! Oh, the Germans would fuck up our country on their way to fuck up the French AGAIN? Gee, I was so indignant over the idea of letting the French violate Belgian neutrality, that I didn't think, 'What if the Germans violate our neutrality?'").[/quote]
Errr..... The Belgians learnt the correct lesson from WW1. That namely, letting the French fight it out on Belgium soil would be disastrous for Belgium and not advantageous at all.
The problem was that she was stuck between two great powers and couldn't negotiate her way out of either.

[Big Orange]

Osprey's The Maginot Line is recommended and can be found on Amazon.co.uk (and I agree the Maginot Line was a decent defensive line in of itself and not the sole reason for France's fall).

Also I wonder why the French allowed the Ardens be open to attack when elite motorized German forces could pass clean through, but could easily be stopped in a bottleneck if the French and British moved their best units there? And it is silly how the Americans fell for the same trick just four years later in the Battle of the Bulge.

The early Allied airpower being poorly uttilized and Britain squandering the strategic potential of what was then the most motorized army per capita on the planet were perhaps the biggest issues that assisted German victory.

[TC Pilot]

I seem to recall the Allies deemed the Ardennes impassable to armoured units, so only bothered guarding it with their worst troops while they sent the bulk of their forces into Belgium to block the expected German invasion route.

[Isolder74]

I seem to recall the Allies deemed the Ardennes impassable to armoured units, so only bothered guarding it with their worst troops while they sent the bulk of their forces into Belgium to block the expected German invasion route.

Well it was the middle of winter and their own tanks were having a hard time getting around the place.

[TC Pilot]

I thought it was fairly obvious (the whole "Send army into Belgium to block the German invasion") I was talking about the Allies a la 1940.