ABSTRACT
Few military projects have had as much opprobrium heaped on them as has the Maginot Line. For those who like their history crudely deterministic, the fortifications that France built between the wars and named after André Maginot —war minister when the decision was made for their construction-were responsible for French defeat in 1940. Accused of fostering an insidious, corrosive ‘Maginot mentality’, the Maginot Line stands widely condemned. It has been charged with leaving France supine and immobile in 1940, lulled into a false sense of security and as paralysed as a rabbit caught in the glare from a car’s headlights. For authors of such a mind, no further inquiry need be pursued into the French defeat. They have their explanation: France unwisely relied on the Maginot Line and so France fell.
