Reference no: EM13929332

Case Study to read and questions to answer:

The Maginot Line was built between 1929 and 1940 to protect France from her longtime enemy, Germany, and to defend the traditional invasion routes across France's eastern frontier. It was built to provide time for the French army to mobilize and to make up for a potentially disastrous shortfall of manpower that was predicted for the late 1930s. Most of all, it was built to provide a place behind which the French army could hide, a so-called Great Wall of France where the nation could feel secure in a doctrine that would become known as the Maginot mentality. The World War II German invasion plan of 1940 was designed to deal with the line. A decoy force sat opposite the line while a second army group cut through the Low Countries of Belgium and The Netherlands, as well as through the Ardennes Forest, which lay north of the main French defenses, thus bypassing the Maginot Line and going around it. The Germans were able to avoid assaulting the Maginot Line directly. Attacking from May 10, the German forces were well into France within 5 days, and they continued to advance until May 24, when they stopped near Dunkirk. By early June, the German forces had cut the line off from the rest of France, and the French government was preparing for surrender. This famous story highlights several of the principles found in the chapter, the most notable one being defense in depth.

What other defenses could the French have deployed to protect their entire border? What other principles did the French violate that led to such catastrophic results?