Word: maginot
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Land. All down the 250-mile Maginot Line, heavy guns started talking at dawn Monday. By nightfall of the first day the French were believed to have launched two high-powered flanking attacks, one at the "Burgundy Gate" or "Belfort Gap" just above the Swiss border, another into the Moselle valley just below Luxembourg. Masses of mobile troops were ready for infiltration maneuvers, to penetrate between gaps in the West Wall which, unlike the Maginot Line, is rather a series of sunken forts with tank traps and interlocking underground tunnels, than a continuous defense bastion. First "contact...
...Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet from vacation in the country, closeted himself once more with his generals. To M. Bonnet he gave the job of checking with France's allies, letting them know that this time France meant business. To his generals he gave the word to man the Maginot Line...
...north and east Paris railroad stations were jammed with scores of thousands of young men, averaging in age about 25 years, some in khaki, some in the old horizon blue, most in civilian clothes with their extra socks and keepsakes in bundles. Uniforms awaited them at the Maginot Line...
...succession. Pilot Youell knew antiaircraft fire when he saw it. He checked his position: near Strasbourg, France. Pouring on the coal to 10,000 feet, swerving from his course, he radioed Strasbourg airfield to find out if war had begun. "Very sorry," came the answer. "You were near the Maginot Line prohibited area and we did not recognize you. Was our shooting good?" Obviously...
German strategy is necessarily to attack on one front and stand on the defensive on the other. In 1914 the Germans chose to fight first in the west, failed there, then concentrated on winning a victory in the east before turning to the west again. Now faced with the Maginot Line and the modern French army, Germany may reverse her former plan, strike first in the east, giving her airfleet the job of hanging her western enemies...