Show battle of lines brings first test of german french defense strategy I 1 horld ivorid debates question of N hour ca can n either wall be conquered by ROBERT THIERS released Ite leased by western newspaper union U nion P ARIS 11 underground battleships tle ships along the entire perman erman french frontier are retting etting their first test under ire re these days as military ex lberts erts await the answer to ireat cst wartime question are tie ie west wall and the maginot ine ne really ITEM y pregnable impregnable am i when frances early alance brought her armies IV against the great german wall formerly called rehe nie siegfried or limes line bhae invaders faced a truly stupendous offensive job newer than the maginot maginot line germanys germanas Germ anys fortifications are nevertheless nev erth eless a hopeless laze iaze of underground fortresses coats barbed wire entanglements entangle ments nd tank infantry traps equal to any hing the cunn cunning ing french ever de ased the west wall is not simply a rall all ahead of it for several miles te ire auxiliary fortifications and be ind it are slanting tank larriera jarriers larri jarri ers interspersed with concealed I 1 its fits in which w ich tanks may be trapped he e who whole c e system ranges from 25 lo 10 0 o 50 miles in depth swarming with binti aati aiti aircraft em placements to drive liff iff enemy bombers reich keich rushes construction no french officials know whether he e west wall has been completed last year during the crisis preceding munich adolf hitler revealed 90 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 goer 4 V N J v al q sl 4 f r as 4 X ae LINE older more scientifically constructed this series of underground battleships can probably be manned with less dif difficulty than the beiver west wall photo shows officer operating underground under round power plant in one of the fortresses ing 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 the atlantic to switzerland both lines are really a series of forts each with their own electric kitchen washrooms wash rooms water reservoirs ervo irs electric generators and storage rooms seek to disprove theory it is an axiom among military men that no army can build a fort ress so impregnable that no other army can take it yet each of these nations has built its first line of defense with the idea of disproving the theory so well are the forts concealed andio discouraging are the cunning obstacles placed in an in invaders path that the defenders would nominally be expected to enjoy a wholesale slaughter while their enemies were attempting to find a strategic point of attack once the fortresses are reached they are invisible from a few yards distance the enemy must reckon with a bombproof sheU shellproof proof 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 leap |