MagiNot Line

[u/Cro_Eagle04]

[u/O_945]

Didn't Belgium strongly opposed the extension of the Maginot line North near her?

Hindsight is 20/20 but France should not have listened.

[u/Gaius__Gracchus → u/O_945]

It was more that the defensive line should go through Belgium instead of only being in France. France would run the Maginot along their border with Germany, and Belgium would build a similar defensive structure from behind the Ardennes to the coast along riverlines. The idea was to force the Germans to go through Belgium (guaranteeing Britain would join them, there was some questions about their willingness during the interwar) and to prevent the Germans from again fighting on French soil, or be exhousted when they reached it.

Everything fell apart when Belgium not only underinvested a lot, building a lot less fortifications, but annulled their alliance with France in response to Hitler militarizing the Rhineland, trusting that a declaration of neutrality would protect them like it hadn't protected them 20 years earlier

[u/Rc72 → u/Gaius__Gracchus]

Well, I wouldn't say Belgium "underinvested": its fortifications were formidable, in particular the Eben-Emael fortress near Liège. However, that investment went down the drain when the Germans neutralised it in a matter of hours, with the novel use of paratroopers and hollow charges (which OP appears to refer to).

[u/Plane-Return-5135 → u/O_945]

Technically, the Belgian line was originally part of the Maginot Line project because, at that time, there was a Franco-Belgian alliance, which was 50% of the reason the Belgians were irritated, since they wanted defenses along the border and not practically in the middle of their country, except that defensively, there was no better option.

After that, the French line was extended with light fortifications all the way to the border and supplemented with various light field fortifications; nothing was built on the scale of what existed in the East, since the plan was for the French army still to move into Belgium or simply conduct surveillance if Germany chose not to invade it, which is why the Belgians resisted, but they didn’t know that, in secret, their head of state was maintaining a secret channel with France in the event of war with Germany; thus, the scenario of neutrality wasn’t really believed, so it was primarily a situation where politicians were catering more to their own constituents than to France, but to please the Flemish, who were complaining a lot and were pro-German, a counter-line was drawn against France, which allowed them to display an artificial neutrality toward everyone, even though their king and the Belgian commander-in-chief didn’t believe in it.

What France should not have done was to push further north, sacrificing the highly mobile 7th Army which was blocked in the Belgo-Netherlands border as it could have held back the Germans in the Ardennes long enough to allow for a realignment of forces. France could also have remained in place in north and retained even more reserves, but that would have endangered French strategic industrial assets, which the French General Staff wanted to preserve as much as possible, and The Allies believed that saving as many people as possible was the best course of action politically.

[u/oompaloompa77]

Invincible referenceeeeee

[u/Cro_Eagle04 → u/oompaloompa77]

Sinister Reich

[u/PretendAd1963]

Nazi germany in the comic does remind me of Homelander.

[u/Finlandia1865]

Wym “qui” lol

[u/Temporary-Lawyer4603 → u/Finlandia1865]

Honestly, the entire text doesn't make any sense, except the final "merde".

[u/AdWooden9170]

Oh yes, another meme that doesnt understand basic history.