| Show battle of lines brings first test of german french defense strategy world debates question of hour can either wall be conquered by ROBERT THIERS released by western newspaper union P PARIS ARIS underground ba battleships along the entire german french frontier are getting their thear first test under fire these days as military experts await the answer to greatest wartime question are the west wall and the maginot line really impregnable when frances early advance brought her armies flush sh against the great german wall formerly called the siegfried or limes line the invaders faced a truly dous offensive job viewer than man the me maginot line germanys germanas Germ anys ewer fortifications are nevertheless a hopeless maze of underground fortresses moats barbed wire entanglements entangle ments and tank infantry traps equal to anything the cunning french ever devised the west wall is not simply a wall ahead of it for several miles are auxiliary fortifications and behind it are slanting tank barriers interspersed with concealed pits in which tanks may be trapped the whole system ranges from 25 to 50 miles in depth swarming with antiaircraft anti aircraft em placements to drive off enemy bombers reich rushes construction no french officials know whether the west wall has been completed last year during the crisis preceding munich adolf hitler revealed men were working on it night and day A few days after the current war began nazi labor leader robert ley Is said to have wired field marshal hermann goering promising to rush the project to completion by contrast frances maginot line has been completed several years it was from the french that germany got the inspiration for the west wall which was not started until 1934 the maginot line was conceived in 1925 while andre maginot was minister of war originally planned to cover only the frontier area between belgium and the rhine it has since been expanded to protect the entire frontier from I 1 t A A 7 MAGINOT LINE older more scientifically constructed this thi series rles of underground battleships can probably be manned wit with less ss difficulty than the newer west wall photo shows officer office operating underground power plant in one of the fortresses the atlantic to switzerland both lines are really a series 0 of forts each with their own electric kitchen washrooms wash rooms water reservoirs ervo irs electric generators and storage rooms miles of underground narrow gage railroads carry men and ammunition the latter stored in giant reservoirs hundreds of feet underground seek to disprove theory it is an axiom among military men that no army can build a fortress so impregnable that no other army can take it yet each of these nations has built its first line 0 of defense with the idea of disproving the theory so bellare well wel lare are the forts concealed and so discouraging are the cunning obstacles placed in an invaders path that the defenders would nominally be expected to enjoy a wholesale slaughter while their enemies were attempting to find a strategic point ol of attack once the fortresses are reached they are invisible from a few yards distance the enemy must reckon with a bombproof shellproof opponent each part of the maginot defense system and probably of the west wall as well is arranged so that every other part can be covered even to the tops of turrets upon which attacking infantrymen might M ight leap to avoid the rifle and machine gun fire f ire from the embra it took the french army only 10 days from the declaration of war to pierce advance fortifications leading up to the siegfried line st at bruecken which probably meant a good deal evidently the Magin lot line was considered sate safe from flanking counter attacks attack 3 whereas the west wall was unfinished and therefore vulnerable but the west wall itself is no pushover many portions of it are protected first by a deep moat and barbed wire while gun em placements are concealed immediately behind if the maginot line Is truly safe from conquest france may make appreciable gains through the german wall without tear fear that its own frontiers will be violated but at what loss of life either line may be taken is guess |
