As the Cold War ended, a resurgence in interest took place in France as many of the former fortifications the country spent so much time, money, and hope in keeping war away from the home door. The jury of historical writers seem a bit divided in opinions regarding whether the fortifications built between the late 1920 and 1930’s accomplished much. Forts have had a history of being very expensive and difficult to upgrade, keeping them current with the rapid advances in artillery.
FRENCH FORTS IN TIME
The French over the centuries seemed the ones who wrote the book on fortifications with the great engineers like Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban and his successor Louis de Cormontaigne during the late 17th and 18th centuries. In the latter part of the 19th century, in a reaction to losing the Franco-Prussian War, General Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières became, in 1873, secretary for a special committee to reorganize French border defenses. Later, 1874, he gained the directorship of the Military Engineers. His main charge was to oversee the construction of the border defense system stretching from Dunkerque to Nice. The defensive line became known as the Séré de Rivières system.
Séré’s forts defended well for the most part during World War 1. The forts had upgraded over the years from the 1880’s but need of guns in the field army and German aversion to directly attacking forts – they did so successfully against the few they faced – Liege, Mononviller, Maubege, plus Douamont and Vaux at Verdun – left the forts untested for the most part.
POSTWAR DIFFICULTIES
With the Great War in the rear-view window, French military authorities slowly began to decide how to defend the country in the future. Germany became neutered as an enemy in the immediate years following the war. That began to change with the withdrawal of French troops from the occupied Rhineland – and the shorter stay in the Ruhrgebiet 1923-1925 – in 1930.
manpower
The main difficulty facing the French military after the war was similar to what they faced before the war – manpower. With France falling behind Germany in regard to birthrate and the number of young men available for conscription, France changed the service term for those conscripted from two to three years in 1913. Following the end of the war, the birthrate dropped further with over a million Frenchmen dying in the war and many more suffering from wounds. The term of service dropped to 18 months on 1 April 1923 with a further reduction to one year in 1928. With Germany rebounding from its 1918 defeat and the continued shortfall in the manpower pool, the service term extended to two years on 16 March 1935.
106,000 men could serve as careerists in the French army. During the one-year service period, about 220,000 men became called up to train each year with half joining in every six months. While one of the 110,000 men units underwent basic training, the other served with the active army. The permanent army found itself with too many tasks to perform – man frontier forts, train conscripts, etc. – becoming a simple cadre for which a mobilized army built upon. The small permanent force drastically limited the ability of France to undertake limited actions within Europe.
RAMIFICATIONS
By 1933, the French army consisted of 320,000 men in France with only 226,000 deemed ready for active service – this meant these men had seen over six months of duty. This also meant that the French army was only slightly larger than the Weimar German army of 100,000 mandated by the Treaty of Versailles. The German army was, however, a long-serving army well-trained and professional.
Mobilization
With mobilization, each regular army division would break into three divisions, the regulars forming into cadres at the heart of the new units. This limited the ability of the French army at the outbreak of new hostilities. As Marshal Petain observed, the army was “unfit for beginning with a strategical offensive”. The tripling of active-duty divisions served to further dilute French options at the start of any war.
Manpower and a general lack of money to train those drafted made it difficult for the army to think in offensive terms. Armies tend to think in terms of the last war fought and France was no different. French doctrine thought in terms of defense first followed by the methodical battle. Control over the battlefield stayed with commanders behind the lines. Heavy emphasis lay on dominating the battlefield in terms of artillery power.
effects of the great war
During World War 1, German forces occupied much of the industrial and mineral base of the French republic both in the northwest – Lille – and in Lorraine. For possible future wars, French leaders decided to try and stop that from happening a second time. The defensive works that became the Maginot sited forward of the forts of Séré de Rivières. Not only new fortifications kept France better suited for any new long wars, but they also helped French mobilize their army and re-train her troops for the supposed long fight ahead.
The opposite of new thought happened in 1914 when France sent her army onto the offensive as soon as troops mobilized. The thought then was a war would be short and decided in the first weeks. Treaty obligations with Russia also placed France on an offensive footing in the first month. In the end, the offensives went nowhere with troops sent forward ending up retreating after initial clashes, buying time, giving ground as reserves mobilized behind.
Forts as a Remedy
After 1918, French leaders decided they could not afford to give ground like in 1914. In another long war, they simply could not afford to give up the valuable lands of the frontier. But what kind of line of fortifications was the initial question. Men like Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Marshal Philippe Pétain and Marshal Jeffrey Joffre all went back and forth. Foch noted French armies had defended by maneuvering armies in the past. Joffre, agreeing, said France seemed “doomed to defeat for seeking to establish a new wall of China”. Pétain sided with those who sought a continuous line of forts along the frontier, but he also realized the need for mobility.
By the mid-1920’s, fortifications, at least in the vulnerable northeast, figured into French plans. Going forward further, the idea of defensive depth needed tackling. The late 19th century lines offered a bit of depth with city fortresses – actually rings of forts surrounding cities like Verdun, Belfort, Toul and Epinal. The idea of a “prepared battlefield” became bandied about – small forts from which troops could sally out from. The cost of a lot of small forts and the number of men needed to man them convinced Pétain to change his mind somewhat on the need for small forts.
UNDERGROUND
He did argue against forts above ground, like the forts of Séré de Rivières. In their place, fortifications should go underground with tunnels connecting to turrets, bunkers, fighting positions all placed close to the border. Defensive depth sacrificed because of the need to protect the vital regions from invasion. On 12 October 1927, the Superior Council of War adopted Pétain’s position. The cost for the much more extravagant forts turned out much costlier than ideas for a prepared battlefield.
Location of the Line
What became the Maginot Line, named not for the designer of the fortification system but for the political leader, André Maginot, who succeeded in procuring the funds for such a system from the French Assembly. The fortified front consisted of heavy forts – gros ouverage – in the region between the Meuse and Moselle Rivers and again around the Lauter River in the far northeast corner of the country. The frontier south along the Rhine and west of Montmédy featured defenses much lighter in nature.
By building the expensive line in the northeast, the army could economize its forces sending the bulk of the army to begin along the long northern border with Belgium. The absence of suitable terrain – flat as opposed to the hills of Alsace-Lorraine – and high-water tables meant the forts of the northeast could not be built in the north. Also, the peacetime problems of a huge construction project in the middle of France’s most important industrial zones would cause have deleterious effects on industry.
the long north frontier
Building forts on the Belgium border also sent the wrong message to that country and its desire to defend itself in view of the lack of possible French interest in helping. So, the French army decided if hostilities occurred, they would send a large force into central Belgium, though not to go on the offensive. Their role was to establish defensive lines to meet the enemy behind. Even if a decisive battle was to occur, it would not happen in France, but Belgium.
The area of the Ardennes from just east of Sedan to the north along the Meuse south of Givet was considered defensible enough without fortifications due to the rugged nature of the topography. French command figured even if the Germans tried to push through in this region, it would take at least nine days which would be plenty of time to amass reserves to stop them. In the miscalculation of the war from the French perspective, the Germans took only three days to push three motorized corps through the Ardennes.
MAGINOT FORTS
Petit Ouvrage
On the northeastern front, the Maginot consisted of 22 gros ouvrages and another 31 petit ouvrages. Artillery usually was based inside the larger forts. Petit ouvrages were more numerous and considerably smaller. These smaller forts consisted of three blocks connected underground by tunnels. Two of the blocks were infantry casements and the third was an infantry turret block.
The casement blocks had a firing chamber with embrasures for a twin machine gun and either another machine gun or an anti-tank gun. There were GFM cloches – Guetteur et Fusil-Mitrailleur or lookout and machine gunner position in a fixed, non-retractable iron-protected bell – popping up from below serving both as observation posts and providing close-by defense, as well.
For the infantry turret blocks – same size as the casement blocks – eclipsing turrets were used meaning only the slight dome of the top of the turret exposed when the turret was not firing. Walls and roof of the turret gained 30 cm cast steel armor. The turrets, likewise, became buried inside concrete blocks sloped to further hide the turrets whose roofs blended into the slope of the 2.5-meter-thick concrete aprons.
Turret Blocks
Most turret blocks in the PO’s mounted twin 7.5mm machine guns, but some mixed turrets found a role as well, including a single 25mm antitank gun in between two machine guns. Some of the turrets featured short-range breech loading 50mm mortars for close-in defense.
Some turrets came out of the turrets of the former Séré de Rivières’ forts – Mougin turrets. The 75mm guns were removed with the turrets armed similarly to the other turret blocks of the PO’s.
Turrets extended one floor beneath the firing floor. Below was machinery for raising and lowering the turret – lever and counterweights – and for rotation. Ammunition, air filtration equipment and other equipment also found down here. On the firing floor, periscopes next to the weaponry provided views into the fields of fire above. Observation cloches – GFM – were also provided to peer into the distance, as well as, to provide another point for close-in defense of the block.
Support Blocks
Inside the interconnecting tunnels were barracks for the soldiers, kitchens, power plants, etc. A PO design was to function isolated from the world for up to a month or so. Normally, four officers and 100 to 150 men manned a PO.
The blocks normal set-up in a triangle allowing infantry blocks on either side to cover each other’s flanks. The turret block regularly became placed in between and slightly forward the other two. The blocks separated from each other by 50 to 150 meters depending upon the local terrain. Surrounding the entire PO were anti-tank rails and bared wire. In a few cases, a PO could have a separate entrance block though most of the time one of the infantry blocks doubled as an entry point while the other became an emergency exit.
In a few cases, two or three blocks combined into one large two-storied block with firing chambers above – in five cases, these special PO’s also used 81mm mortars firing from below. These PO’s did not have tunnels with all need enclosed in the large combat block.
Gros Ouvrage
The large forts – Gros Ouvrage or GO– of the northeast formed the heart of the Maginot Line. Here, the artillery batteries of the Line set up. Large and complex, the forts manned by 500 to 1,000 men. Each GO consisted of several various combat blocks grouped together to form a main line of resistance and a support area 500 to 800 meters behind. The complex was entirely under 20 meters of ground or more except for one or two entrance blocks. Underground tunnels with narrow-gauge rail lines connected the blocks together. From the ground outside, very little was present to give away the presence of the large forts except for small observation cloches and the top of artillery eclipsed turrets.
Combat blocks included the same blocks found in the PO’s, both infantry blocks and infantry turrets to provide close-in defense. Often these blocks were located on the flanks of the GO or blocking possible infantry advances towards the fort. Artillery blocks consisted of two-stories like the infantry. Within the blocks were either a single artillery turret or a casement block with two to three guns firing out of embrasures of the casement.
Guns of the GO
Artillery used in the GO’s included 75mm guns, 135mm howitzers and 81mm mortars. The barrels shortened in each case so as not to protrude from their firing points. The short barrels meant no purpose for the field only specifically for the forts. 81mm mortars ranged out to 3.2 kilometers and mainly saw uses for close-in defense. The 135mm howitzers had a range of 5.7 kilometers, again making them mainly a defensive weapon. With the 75mm guns with normal length barrels, they could reach out to 12 kilometers. The range dropped to 9 kilometers with short-barreled guns. These were the main offensive weapons a fort could utilize.
Most artillery fired out from turrets. Looking like enlarged versions of the infantry turrets, the artillery turrets did not protrude as high when firing. Walls and roofs comprised of 30 to 35 cm thick steel. Each turret held two weapons. Howitzers and the 75mm guns both were muzzle-pivoting to minimize the size of the gun ports in the turret. Movable platforms within the turret for the loaders enabled them to overcome problems with reloading the gun at different levels of elevation and depression occurring from the muzzle pivot positioning. Ammunition hoists also could deliver ammunition to the loaders at different levels depending upon the loading platform height.
other blocks inside the go‘s
Machinery for the turret was in the lower story along with air filtering equipment and limited gun crew accommodations. Also, like in the infantry blocks, a couple of observation cloches were included which also served for in-close defense.
Artillery casements enjoyed only 45-degree fields of fire as opposed to the 360 degrees with turrets. The main fire direction oriented along the main line of resistance to catch an enemy on his flank. Their role was to support other blocks. They could bring fire down upon those blocks if the enemy succeeded in gaining them.
Blocks were built on reverse slopes or on artificial mounds. Some blocks had emergency exits while all surrounded by anti-tank defenses, barbed wire fields with ditches in front of exposed areas of the casement blocks. Each block connected with each other through tunnels.
Each block included a command post, ammunition magazine and accommodation for the block commander. Command posts were responsible for computing ranges for the guns to fire at – elevation and fire direction. Fire commands went to the separate guns from the block command by use of a system like those found on ships to relay information between the bridge and engine rooms.
Air pressure and filtration
The artillery blocks could obtain air from the outside, but normally, air became filtered from inside at the tunnel level with the pressure inside the blocks slightly over pressurized to keep out possible poison gases and to push out exhaust from the firing of their own guns.
Spent cartridges dropped down special chutes for collection below. Ceiling-mounted trolley hoists moved ammunition rounds inside the blocks, rounds kept in large metal cages holding around 50 shells. Observation blocks looked like turret blocks without the turrets. Cloches – armored bulbs sticking barely out of the ground – lie at the optimal point to observe the fire of the guns as well as potential avenues of enemy advance towards the fort. Occasionally, the best sites for these blocks were outside of the combat blocks. All blocks could isolate from the rest of the system with armored airlocks normally in the closed position.
Within the 22 GO’s, there were only 189 artillery tubes or 8.5 per GO. The high rate of fire of the weapons, especially the 75mm guns, made up for the difference. One 75mm turret – two guns – became the equal to two 75mm field batteries – or eight guns. The number of combat blocks, their shape, size, and distribution all varied depending upon need and terrain. The two largest GO’s had two separate areas of combat blocks.
Command and Support Blocks
Command for the GO set up at the tunnel level and split into GO command, artillery command and infantry command. These posts normally lay near an observation block. Next to the ouvrage command, was always a central telephone exchange with sleeping rooms for officers on duty. Each GO was part of an area artillery group to enable information on coordination of common firing targets or targets possible out of reach of one GO but not another. Field telephone lines were buried. Radio was used to supplement but reception was always a problem since antennae could easily be damaged by the enemy.
A few hundred meters to the rear of the combat blocks was the support area. This area further divided into the fort’s main magazine and accommodation area.
Moving around in the Fort
Transportation of equipment and ammunition took place on a narrow-gauge railway with electric engines. In the accommodation areas there were storerooms, washing rooms, a hospital, kitchens, latrines, and barracks. A GO, like the PO’s, by design could survive self-sufficiently for a month or more. Electric lights and heating were provided from the power station. Power came from buried cables bringing power in from the national grid, but diesel-powered generators could also provide power if needed. Ouvrages also interconnected power wise, so one could provide power to another if called upon. Magazines lay separately and fitted with massive blast doors which could close quickly in the case of an emergency.
Entrance Blocks
Entrance blocks provided entry into the GO near the support areas. Most ouvrages had two entrance blocks as strongly protected as the combat blocks. They were armed similar to what was found in infantry blocks. The narrow-gauge trains in some cases could exit the blocks to bring back supplies to the fort. At other times, entrances were big enough to allow trucks to directly enter and unload their goods directly onto the railcars inside.
Interval Casements
Not only were there ouvrages along the Line, but many more isolated machine gun casements filled in gaps in between the large forts. Manned by up to 30 men, the casements featured reinforced concrete structures about 15-20 meters in length. Like the forts, these interval casements were two-storied, oriented to fire into the flank of an oncoming enemy. Some interval casements had two firing chambers in which case they fired in opposite directions. These little forts were sited to support each other and sometimes connected with each other by means of a tunnel.
Armament and Construction
Armored embrasure held either a twin 7.5mm drum-fed machine gun – there were 1,500 such guns on the Maginot of which 85% were placed in interval casements – or a 37mm or 47mm anti-tank gun could also be used. The machine gun was on a hinge and could be swung aside if the anti-tank gun was needed.
Walls and roofs were over two meters thick of reinforced concrete – good for enemy fire up to 240mm. Walls not subject to enemy fire were only a meter thick. External walls were protected by earth or ditches were dug in front to make it difficult for an enemy to directly attack the casements and to provide a place for chipped concrete to aggregate in order not to block the firing embrasures. On the flanks of the ditches, embrasures for 7.5mm automatic rifles were placed and special grenade launchers also added to ditch defenses.
Main cog in the defensive Scheme
Interval casements accessed through an armored door at the rear. Here was another ditch with a removable bridge. Entries featured embrasures for automatic rifles – sometimes an additional embrasure inside the entry provided more protection if the enemy got through the main door. Steel cloches placed on the roofs of the casements gave opportunities to observe the enemy and for close-in defense. The cloches could also mount twin machine guns, automatic rifles or even 25mm anti-tank guns.
The whole casement was surrounded by barbed-wire fields and anti-tank ditches or steel rails stuck vertically into the ground. Armored searchlights illuminated the scene at night.
Accommodation, food, water, ammunition, and a generator for electric power were also included for the casements. The air was filtered and again, overpressure kept poison gases out as well as fumes from their own weapons.
Altogether, there were 360 interval casements built for the line – including 19 in Corsica. An additional 17 observation posts and 81 troop shelters became included in the construction bill.
Construction
Building of the Maginot Line began in 1930. Included were 100 kilometers of tunnels, 1.5 million cubic meters of reinforced concrete, 12 million cubic meters of earthworks, 150,000 tons of steel and 450 kilometers of roads and railways. Most of the construction was complete by 1935 though modifications continued up to June 1940. The total cost of the project came to 5 billion francs – almost the same in today’s US dollars, more than twice what the originally budget.
MAGINOT AT WAR
France hoped to build up the idea of the Maginot Line being an impenetrable fortress. However, Germany was aware of the realities of the line, both plus and minus. Some of their knowledge came from traditional spy craft, but other wisdom came from procuring information from contractors who built the Line. For example, the Maginot fort at Sainte-Agnes, according to the official website, was built by the Italian contracting firm Spada, though other sites say the fort’s builder was Borie of Paris. Possibly Spada was a subcontractor. Either way, with potential enemies helping to build your forts, you can pretty well guess that layout was pretty well known by Axis military leaders.
But knowing what you are up against does not mean you have to put your head in a noose. The French did not expect a German attack through the Line. They expected a repeat of 1914 with German armies pouring through central Belgium, a tactic they had somewhat prepared for. That was what the Germans expected to do themselves until winter came along playing havoc with potential Teutonic timetables. After having a set of plans for their upcoming offensive fall into Allied hands in January 1940, the Germans went to Plan B, the armored thrust through the Ardennes, the lightly defended middle of the Allied line.
phoney war is over
After some Scandinavian digressions, German attacked in the west 10 May 1940. The revised plan worked perfectly. The bulk of the French army went north into central Belgium – some units trying to rush further north to the Netherlands to help the hard-pressed Dutch – and along with them, most of the entire British force sent over to Europe. The armored thrust cut across the Meuse at Sedan and points north opening a hole in the middle of the French line. Engaged by other German forces in central Belgium, the main army was slow to respond to the disaster unfolding. Panzers pushed quickly to the English Channel cutting off the bulk of Allied forces in Belgium. 300,000 Allied soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk to England, but losses in men and especially materiel were worse.
Some of the soldiers pulled off the beaches at Dunkirk returned shortly to continue the fight with the remaining French army and some remaining 140,000 British troops fighting further to the south of the Somme. They held the Germans at first, before the dams burst again. 10 June Paris became declared an open city and on 14 June fell to the Germans – the same day the British decided to pull all remaining troops back to England.
attack on the maginot
A few attempts had attempted against Maginot forts – Ferme-Cheppy and Fermont – before this to no effect except for German casualties.
In this final act of the drama, Operation Tiger launched 15 June down the Saare valley. French forces in the Alsace and reserves behind the Maginot Line had been stripped away to man newer French lines in the west to try and make up for the May losses. Heavily outnumbered, the forts held out against seven divisions and 1,000 artillery tubes. Only 88mm guns had enough penetrating power to perforate the French armor and there were only 16 of those guns available.
The Fortified Sector of the Saare represented a big weak link for the Line. Forts along this sector were late in building. The small neighboring province of Saarland was part of the German Empire before World War 1. France occupied the coal region following 1918. They were still there as the Line began to build up in the early 1930’s. A plebiscite finally held in 1935 brought the area back into Germany and France had more building to do.
But only interval casements, blockhouses and one petit ouvrage defended in this area. The sector also featured the Aquatic Sector of the Maginot, consisting of areas to flood in order to swamp invasion threats.
german success
The German attack initially achieved slight gains for serious costs. Colonel General Erwin von Wizleben considered calling off the offensive but then gained knowledge of a large planned withdrawal by the hard-pressed French – the withdrawal of troops needed in the battles undergoing in western France. Pushing on, the French gave ground and German forces gained the rear of the lone PO in the sector at Haut-Poirier. Surrounding the PO, they attacked the fort – three blocks – concentrating on Block 3. The other two blocks could not help due to terrain restrictions. With no supporting artillery and withdrawal of French forces to the south, the PO surrendered on 21 June.
Future German General Friedrich von Mellethin served as chief of staff with the 197th Infantry Division. After the war, he wrote in his book Panzer Battles how unimpressed he was with the myth of the impregnable French line, “It may be of interest to point out that the Maginot defenses were breached in a few hours by normal infantry attack, without any tank support whatever. … a large number of positions had not been sited for all-round defense and were easy to attack from the blind side,,,”
Of course, he found himself involved in attacking the Line at a point without the big artillery forts. The big fortress of Schoenenbourg on the Lauter front in the far northeast fired almost 16,000 75mm rounds at attacking German infantry. The fort was the most heavily shelled of all Maginot forts, but the armor held out.
an ending already written
Farther to the south along the Rhine, defenses relied on lightly defended interval casements and a series of small blockhouses along the river. Five more German divisions crossed the Rhine near Colmar pushing the two defending French division into the Vosges Mountains on 17 June. At the same time, XIX Corps under the command of General Heinz Guderian – he had led the panzers smashing through earlier at Sedan – cut through the French defenses on the west side of the Maginot Line aiming to cut the Line off from the rest of France. They reached the Swiss border on June 17 and the die was cast.
Of the 58 main forts of the Line, ten fell – all PO’s – during the battles. The GO’s survived though most men on the Line surrendered 25 June. A few continued to fight with the last fort giving up on 10 July only after a request from the former French commander in the northeast, General Alphonse Georges.
SUCCESS OR FAILURE?
Many have gone in each direction as to the value of the Maginot Line. Tactically, the forts held up well in combat. Strategically, they gave the French army plenty of time to mobilize – fully train is another question. The forts encouraged the Germans to repeat 1914, something the French were hoping to be better ready for this time. The fact that they were not had nothing to do with the forts or construction of the Line.
Tactically, the forts used a lot of manpower – almost 20% of the army stayed on the Line defending as Belgium was overrun. That said, a good chunk of those men would have remained on the front where the Line was anyway. There were plenty of German soldiers on the opposite side of the line. More men probably would not have mattered at Sedan. It was how the men there were used. And how they were trained (or not) that mattered.
German General von Mellethin, involved in the successful German breach of the Maginot Line in the Saare region, for one, was not impressed with the French defenses, “The Maginot Line lacked depth, and taken as a whole the position was far inferior to many defensive positions developed later in the war. … as far as the Maginot Line was concerned the fortifications had only a moderate local value.” Of course, while his division did capture one of only PO‘s to fall as a result of direct action, their attack was directed at one of the weakest points in the Line.
STRATEGICALLY
Strategically, money spent on the Line – and there was a lot – could have been used in other areas. Maybe, but it still boiled down to a general manpower problem, basic doctrinal problems within the French army and miscalculations galore on the part of the French commander Maurice Gamelin and his staff. In 1914, men still walked, and the French got time to recover. In 1940, they walked still, but also rode in trucks and tanks moved a lot farther and quicker than in 1918.
On the Italian front, the Maginot Line was a complete success. Nowhere did Italians threaten the Maginot forts. In fact, it was the big Italian artillery fort atop Mount Chaberton that French artillery silenced. One small blockhouse on the east edge of Menton proved enough – with the support of surrounding Maginot forts – to keep the Italians at bay on the Mediterranean. Only the French surrender due to events further north, finally opened the door for Italy.
VISITING THE MAGINOT TODAY
Following the war, the French army returned to man the line. With nuclear warfare on the table, the Line – like the earlier forts of Vauban and Séré de Rivières – became archaic, misdated pieces of history. A couple of larger GO’s became turned into command centers though today only Ouvrage Hochwald and Ouvrage Mont Agel – standing above Monaco on the Mediterranean – remain as such in service as air force defense control centers. Much of the Line became abandoned and only in recent years have some of the forts spruced up for tourist visits.
The trick to visiting the forts is finding out the schedules. Far from all are open; most are only open in summer; many have unique schedules since many rely on volunteers to show off the forts. Schoenenbourg and Hackenberg immediately stand out as Maginot forts to explore. These both restored magnificently giving a visitor a unique and fairly complete view at how the fort developed and their use.
GROS OUVRAGE SCHOENENBOURG
Schoenenbourg is one of the easier forts to visit. A trip to the fort sets the stage for all the other forts – variations on a theme. Normally, the GOs had more than one entrance. This is the case here. Tourists enter through the Munitions Entry Block with rails running directly into the fort.
Note the defense embrasures which held machine guns and anti-tank cannons. Beyond these, you wander directly into the Support Areas – power generator room, hospital, barracks, latrines, kitchens, command posts and telephone exchanges.
A long walk – over a kilometer – takes you to the combat blocks. Here are the 75mm guns with collected cartridges below. Machine gun turrets and an 81mm howitzer made up the armament in other some of the blocks.
After walking in the tunnels, drive east from the parking lot to turn left on local highway D264 – direction Wissembourg. At the next roundabout – about 0.75 kilometers – turn left again onto D76 – direction Cleebourg. Take the first unmarked road to the left – the main road veers off a bit to the right – and park a few meters up this road. From here, walk straight ahead to visit the tops of the combat blocks of Schoenenbourg.
From the ground, it is easy to miss the fort, so close to the ground lie the turrets. If you keep driving past on D76, you see only grassy knobs with a couple small metal cloches sticking up from the various turrets of the combat blocks.
The view from atop the blocks is far-reaching to the north and northeast. Support from the next GO lies only as far as the first Vosges highlands to the west. Here, the turrets of the next GO – Hochwald – lies hidden from normal view.
SPECIAL CASE OF HOCHWALD
Hochwald is not open, still a part of the overall French defense system. This gros ouverage is one of the most impressive lying deep underneath the Vosges Mountains. Two areas of combat blocks – one on the east side and one on the west – remain separated above ground by over 200 vertical meters and two horizontal kilometers of mountain.
The underground facilities inside the Hochwald lie buried so deep, the French Air Force maintains a command center safe even from nuclear weapons.
OTHER FORTS OF THE NORTHEAST
But the big two are far from the only Maginot forts you can visit. Other forts from the northeast to north include GO Four-à-Chaux not far from Schoenenbourg located above Lembach in the Vosges Mountains (daily tours every day from 1 May to 30 September in English, French and German – see the website for times) with six blocks. One surviving interval casement exists along the Rhine near Colmar at Marckolsheim Sud demonstrative of the Rhine interval casements.
FARTHER WEST
The weak link of the Saare comes next before the Maginot becomes significantly stronger blocking the industrial areas along the Moselle River. The defense here consisted of flooding large areas along the Saare River and its tributaries.
With the Vosges subsided to the west, more forts pick up the pace.
GO Simserhof has tours of the caserne and magazine area, though not the combat blocks. PO Rohrbach – Fort Casso – can be visited while nearby PO Welschof can be hiked to. One of the casements of PO Haut-Poirier can also be visited – Casement de Wittring.
DEFENDERS OF THIONVILLE
In the Fortified Sector of Falquemont, PO Bambesch is open while the surface of PO Einseling is open – lower levels flooded.
Next fortified sector was Boulay and here are a couple of the larger GO’s open for visitors – both Hackenberg and Michelsberg. Volunteers at Hackenberg have opened one of the former combat blocks to visitors on tours. Michelsberg (open 1 April to 30 September Saturdays at 1430 – Friday and Sunday added from 15 June to 31 August; October to March open to groups by appointment) with five combat blocks. PO Bousse is maintained by local volunteers and opens at 1430 on Sundays. It is the only one of eleven PO forts in the sector open. The volunteer group gain their name from the frescoes painted inside the fort.
Within the Fortified Sector of Thionville, several GO’s are still on French Army grounds and are not open. Near the nuclear plant at Cattenom, several forts – GO Galgenberg, GO Kobenbusch, PO Bois Karre, PO Sentzich, and PO Oberheide are under the care of a local group. Several of tunnels suffer flooding from the cooling waters of the nuclear works. Trails developed visit above-ground sections of the various forts and interval casements. Nearby to the west is one of the largest PO’s of the Line, PO Immerhof. Its four blocks are open from April to November.
In the neighboring Fortified Sector of the Crusnes, GO Fremont is the one remaining large ouvrage open to visits. PO Bois-du-Four is the only one of four petit ovurages in the sector open for visits. Note that all of the former German forts near Thionville remain – D’Illange and Guentrange, but Koenigsmacker remains under the control of the French Army and is not open.
WEST TO THE LAST OF THE OUVRAGES
Further west in the Fortified Sector of Montmédy, the forts became smaller. PO Chesnois and PO Velosnes are open for visits above ground. PO La Ferté is the only fort visitable in its entirety. There were four PO’s in the Fortified Sector of Maubeuge but only the PO de la Salmagne is sometimes open for visits in the summer.
Further exploration on Google Earth or Maps can show you many of the other over 700 Maginot bunkers. Many remain unmarked on the map but the turrets and observation cloches as well as bunkers still show up if you know where to look.
BEYOND
Looking past the many websites noted above, several books detail the events of the Maginot Line, the French defeat in 1940 and the events leading to that defeat in great detail. For the English monoglot, Robert Doughty, a former head of the West Point history department and a retired American Army colonel gives us several excellent volumes to start in understanding the French Army before World War 2: The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–39 and The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940. He also wrote about French experiences in World War 1 – Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War.
The J.E. and H.W. Kaufmann husband and wife team have produced many fine books detailing fortifications around the world. With particular regard to the Maginot Line, start with Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in WWII. They have also written The Maginot Line: History and Guide and an earlier book The Maginot Line: None Shall Pass. Osprey Publications so far has attacked the Maginot with three volumes: The Maginot Line: 1928 – 1945, Maginot Line 1940: Battle on the French Frontier (Campaigns), and Maginot Line Gun Turrets: And French Gun Turret Development 1880-1940 (New Vanguard).