The Maginot Line. A new history

Passmore, Kevin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3522-8577 2025. The Maginot Line. A new history. Yale University Press.

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Abstract

The Maginot Line was a marvel of 1930s engineering. The huge forts, up to eighty meters underground, contained hospitals, modern kitchens, telephone exchanges, and even electric trains. Kilometres of underground galleries led to casements hidden in the terrain, and turrets that rose from the ground to fire upon the enemy. The fortifications were invulnerable to the heaviest artillery and to chemical warfare. Despite this extensive preparation, France fell to Germany in a little under six weeks. Eight decades on, the Maginot Line is still remembered as an expensively misguided response to obvious danger. In this groundbreaking account, Kevin Passmore reevaluates the Maginot Line. He traces the controversies surrounding construction, the lives of the men who manned the forts, the impact on German-speaking inhabitants of the frontier, and the fight against espionage from within. Far from a backward step, the Maginot Line was an ambitious project of modernisation—one that was let down by strategic error and growing dissatisfaction with fortification.

Item Type:	Book - authored
Book Type:	Authored Book
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Yale University Press
ISBN:	9780300277043
Funders:	Leverhulme Trust / British Academy
Last Modified:	22 Jan 2026 11:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176691

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