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We've been thinking about a little wander in a Maginot Line fort for a while now, indeed we visited Hackenberg, a privately owned museum fort, back in 2004 and enjoyed a ride round in the dark on the electric train. Anyhow after a bit of research we found this fort and decided it was worth a little look. Now you have to realise two things about Maginot Line forts... they were designed to keep OUT the enemy and as such they take a little bit of ingenuity to get in! And two? Well they're upwards of 30 meters below ground level, very wet, very dark and d*mned difficult to photograph! Have you ever managed to frame a shot in pitch black or light paint a tunnel almost 3/4 mile long? Well we tried and the results you will have to judge for yourself! 
The Maginot Line, named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy after World War I, their grand intention being to render their country impregnable against attack for evermore. Those fortifications which face Germany tend to be referred to as 'The Maginot Line' and the fortifications strung out across the Alps facing Italy tend to be known as 'The Alpine Line'.
The theory behind the construction of the fortifications was to give France time to mobilise whilst funnelling invading German forces into open land, the better to be engaged there in a war of movement. In the autumn of 1914 the opposing armies had fought to a standstill just short of Paris and then raced north west to the Belgian coast constantly attempting to outflank each other. The result was that by October 1914 a stalemate existed with the creation of a line of static trenches running all the way from the North Sea to the Swiss border, a stalemate which would not be broken until the British army employed radical new tactics following the German army's exhaustion after their so called 'Kaiserschlacht' spring offensive in March 1918.
The construction of the Maginot Line was intended to fulfil several purposes:
The line was without doubt an imposing obstacle to the potential progress of an invading army as can clearly be seen on this period photograph of one of the armoured 'cloches' which has been hit numerous times with some quite sizeable ordnance, and yet is still perfectly functional.
But paradoxically the theory that the massive strength and virtual impregnability of the fortification system would successfully dissuade an aggressor from invading France proved to be a huge strategic blunder. The Germans simply invaded through Belgium instead, exactly as they had done in 1914, flanking the Maginot Line in a matter of only a few days, whilst limited attacks mounted upon sections of the line led the French to believe that their master plan was actually working. What the French had singularly failed to appreciate was the speed and fire power of the modern German army who had learned valuable lessons from the British army's tactics after March 1918. Our radical new approach just 22 years earlier integrated every available facet of the war matérielle available to the generals of the time, and was referred to as 'All Arms' warfare. The Germans with characteristic flair, studied it, refined it and re-named it 'Blitzkrieg' which translates as 'lightning war'. Perversely the French had even had an early warning of what was to come in September, 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded and knocked out Poland in just 35 days.
André Maginot, a prominent politician before the outbreak of the Great War, had left the French government for the duration of the war and served as a soldier within a fort in the Verdun ring.
His experiences there were to greatly influence many aspects of the design and construction of the new line of forts, now known as "ouvrages", indeed many component parts of the Maginot Line were practically identical to their counterparts from almost half a century before. Other aspects differed radically though, for example the relatively crude Verdun fortress accommodation originally did not even have proper latrines where as the Maginot Line ouvrages had state-of-the-art living conditions for the garrison troops, including air conditioning with filters to extract poison gas, comfortable barrack blocks, modern ablutions and kitchens. There were even underground railways to facilitate the movement of ammunition and men the considerable distances around within the massive subterranean labyrinths.
The rather fanciful illustrations shown below were only two of the many which appeared in the press of the time. But artist's impressions they undoubtedly were for the very simple reason that the real details of the line were a closely guarded military secret.
Propaganda is an important part of the dubious and often highly mendacious 'art' of warfare; after all, if you can convince your enemy that your weapons are far more formidable than they might actually prove to be in reality by 'leaking' valuable 'information' via the world press, and if you do it convincingly enough, then you can steal a march. Nothing is new, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein attempted to put the frighteners on the coalition forces before the first Gulf war by similar means. The illustration shown on the right is very similar to an illustration in a book I bought from a friend at the age of 11 in my first year of secondary school which sparked my interest in the Maginot Line and would lead ultimately to my even greater interest in the earlier fortifications situated around the city of Verdun.
Even though these fanciful illustrations were a long way away from the reality of the ouvrages in the line, for example there were few multi-level forts constructed except for a handful in the Alpine part of the line, it doesn't take a quantum leap of imagination to realise just how large, complex and labour intensive they actually were to build, especially when you multiply the effort and cost by the huge number of ouvrages in the line. Another odd concept in many of the illustrations can be seen clearly in one of the illustrations - the reality is that most of the ouvrages were constructed to a very linear plan rather than compacted into a small footprint as seen here.
Whatever their design though they were massively expensive to build, maintain and run, and as a consequence the French government had to divert funding from every other area of military expenditure with the inevitable result that the French armed forces became effectively the poorest in Europe suffering dramatically right across the board. This of course would have a dramatic effect upon their ability to fight effectively beyond the limits of the line. The responsibility for design and implementation of the work was given to an organisation known as CORF (Commission d'Organisation des Régions Fortifiées) and construction began in 1930. By the completion of the initial phases in 1939 it had cost in excess of three billion French francs. The strongest part of the line stretched from Switzerland to Luxembourg, and a second much lighter section was built in 1934 to continue the line across to the coast at the Strait of Dover. The line did not cover the area eventually chosen by the Germans for their invasion of France, through the Belgian Ardennes forest, due to the fact that the heavily wooded and mountainous countryside in this area was considered by the French to be impassable to armoured vehicles and thus an attack was regarded as impossible through this area.
Sadly they were very, very wrong.
After the Second World War the line was repaired and extensively modified in order to present a barrier to the Soviet Union if a new war were to break out. With France's acquisition of it's own nuclear deterrent in 1960 the line became an expensive white elephant and so it began to be progressively abandoned with the exception of a few of the larger ouvrages which were converted to nuclear attack proof command centres. When France withdrew its commitment from NATO in 1966 almost the entire line was abandoned with many of the ouvrages being auctioned off to the public or simply left to decay.
The ouvrage we visited is a gros (large) ouvrage which saw limited action, coming under direct attack in late June, 1940. It surrendered to German forces on the 27th. June. Some of the fortresses within the line were occupied by the German army and saw action against American forces under General Patton in 1944 but this one was not one of them.
It was completed at a cost of 88 million francs by the contractor Monod of Paris. Designed from the outset as a gros ouvrage with casemate-mounted 75mm guns, a second build phase was planned during which additional 75mm and 135mm gun turret blocks were to be installed. By the late 1930s though the financial resources for the expansion had been allocated elsewhere so the extra turret blocks were never built. There are more than 1,200 metres of underground tunnels connecting the two entry blocks, one for munitions. one for personnel, to the internal structures and the fighting blocks, at an average depth of 30 metres. An 'M1' type magazine, arranged with parallel galleries connected by cross galleries, is located close to the ammunition entrance, whilst the underground barracks, usine (power house) and utility areas are located just beyond the personnel entry. The gallery system was served by a narrow-gauge (60 cm) railway that was connected externally to the regional military railway system for the re-supply of the line forts just a few kilometres to the rear. Several stations along the gallery system, located in wider sections of the main gallery, permitted trains to pass.
The ouvrage was armed as follows:
So first off then, a little bit of history of the Maginot Line.
The Maginot Line, named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy after World War I, their grand intention being to render their country impregnable against attack for evermore. Those fortifications which face Germany tend to be referred to as 'The Maginot Line' and the fortifications strung out across the Alps facing Italy tend to be known as 'The Alpine Line'.
The theory behind the construction of the fortifications was to give France time to mobilise whilst funnelling invading German forces into open land, the better to be engaged there in a war of movement. In the autumn of 1914 the opposing armies had fought to a standstill just short of Paris and then raced north west to the Belgian coast constantly attempting to outflank each other. The result was that by October 1914 a stalemate existed with the creation of a line of static trenches running all the way from the North Sea to the Swiss border, a stalemate which would not be broken until the British army employed radical new tactics following the German army's exhaustion after their so called 'Kaiserschlacht' spring offensive in March 1918.
The construction of the Maginot Line was intended to fulfil several purposes:
- To avoid a surprise attack and to raise the alarm.
- To provide time for the mobilisation of the French Army (which took between 2 and 3 weeks).
- To save manpower (France had a population of 39 million, Germany 70 million.
- To protect the Departments of Alsace and Lorraine which had been returned to France after the post Great War Treaty of Versailles.
- To be used as a base from which to mount a counter-offensive.
- To force an invading enemy to go the long way round the line and thus violate the neutrality of either Switzerland or Belgium.
- To occupy the enemy whilst the French army could be brought up to reinforce the line.
- To demonstrate a none aggressive posture.
- To compel the British as signatories to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality to help France if Belgium was invaded again as it had been in 1914.
The line was without doubt an imposing obstacle to the potential progress of an invading army as can clearly be seen on this period photograph of one of the armoured 'cloches' which has been hit numerous times with some quite sizeable ordnance, and yet is still perfectly functional.
But paradoxically the theory that the massive strength and virtual impregnability of the fortification system would successfully dissuade an aggressor from invading France proved to be a huge strategic blunder. The Germans simply invaded through Belgium instead, exactly as they had done in 1914, flanking the Maginot Line in a matter of only a few days, whilst limited attacks mounted upon sections of the line led the French to believe that their master plan was actually working. What the French had singularly failed to appreciate was the speed and fire power of the modern German army who had learned valuable lessons from the British army's tactics after March 1918. Our radical new approach just 22 years earlier integrated every available facet of the war matérielle available to the generals of the time, and was referred to as 'All Arms' warfare. The Germans with characteristic flair, studied it, refined it and re-named it 'Blitzkrieg' which translates as 'lightning war'. Perversely the French had even had an early warning of what was to come in September, 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded and knocked out Poland in just 35 days.
André Maginot, a prominent politician before the outbreak of the Great War, had left the French government for the duration of the war and served as a soldier within a fort in the Verdun ring.
His experiences there were to greatly influence many aspects of the design and construction of the new line of forts, now known as "ouvrages", indeed many component parts of the Maginot Line were practically identical to their counterparts from almost half a century before. Other aspects differed radically though, for example the relatively crude Verdun fortress accommodation originally did not even have proper latrines where as the Maginot Line ouvrages had state-of-the-art living conditions for the garrison troops, including air conditioning with filters to extract poison gas, comfortable barrack blocks, modern ablutions and kitchens. There were even underground railways to facilitate the movement of ammunition and men the considerable distances around within the massive subterranean labyrinths.
The rather fanciful illustrations shown below were only two of the many which appeared in the press of the time. But artist's impressions they undoubtedly were for the very simple reason that the real details of the line were a closely guarded military secret.
Propaganda is an important part of the dubious and often highly mendacious 'art' of warfare; after all, if you can convince your enemy that your weapons are far more formidable than they might actually prove to be in reality by 'leaking' valuable 'information' via the world press, and if you do it convincingly enough, then you can steal a march. Nothing is new, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein attempted to put the frighteners on the coalition forces before the first Gulf war by similar means. The illustration shown on the right is very similar to an illustration in a book I bought from a friend at the age of 11 in my first year of secondary school which sparked my interest in the Maginot Line and would lead ultimately to my even greater interest in the earlier fortifications situated around the city of Verdun.
Click the image below to visit our Verdun fortifications website...
Even though these fanciful illustrations were a long way away from the reality of the ouvrages in the line, for example there were few multi-level forts constructed except for a handful in the Alpine part of the line, it doesn't take a quantum leap of imagination to realise just how large, complex and labour intensive they actually were to build, especially when you multiply the effort and cost by the huge number of ouvrages in the line. Another odd concept in many of the illustrations can be seen clearly in one of the illustrations - the reality is that most of the ouvrages were constructed to a very linear plan rather than compacted into a small footprint as seen here.
Whatever their design though they were massively expensive to build, maintain and run, and as a consequence the French government had to divert funding from every other area of military expenditure with the inevitable result that the French armed forces became effectively the poorest in Europe suffering dramatically right across the board. This of course would have a dramatic effect upon their ability to fight effectively beyond the limits of the line. The responsibility for design and implementation of the work was given to an organisation known as CORF (Commission d'Organisation des Régions Fortifiées) and construction began in 1930. By the completion of the initial phases in 1939 it had cost in excess of three billion French francs. The strongest part of the line stretched from Switzerland to Luxembourg, and a second much lighter section was built in 1934 to continue the line across to the coast at the Strait of Dover. The line did not cover the area eventually chosen by the Germans for their invasion of France, through the Belgian Ardennes forest, due to the fact that the heavily wooded and mountainous countryside in this area was considered by the French to be impassable to armoured vehicles and thus an attack was regarded as impossible through this area.
Sadly they were very, very wrong.
After the Second World War the line was repaired and extensively modified in order to present a barrier to the Soviet Union if a new war were to break out. With France's acquisition of it's own nuclear deterrent in 1960 the line became an expensive white elephant and so it began to be progressively abandoned with the exception of a few of the larger ouvrages which were converted to nuclear attack proof command centres. When France withdrew its commitment from NATO in 1966 almost the entire line was abandoned with many of the ouvrages being auctioned off to the public or simply left to decay.
The ouvrage we visited is a gros (large) ouvrage which saw limited action, coming under direct attack in late June, 1940. It surrendered to German forces on the 27th. June. Some of the fortresses within the line were occupied by the German army and saw action against American forces under General Patton in 1944 but this one was not one of them.
It was completed at a cost of 88 million francs by the contractor Monod of Paris. Designed from the outset as a gros ouvrage with casemate-mounted 75mm guns, a second build phase was planned during which additional 75mm and 135mm gun turret blocks were to be installed. By the late 1930s though the financial resources for the expansion had been allocated elsewhere so the extra turret blocks were never built. There are more than 1,200 metres of underground tunnels connecting the two entry blocks, one for munitions. one for personnel, to the internal structures and the fighting blocks, at an average depth of 30 metres. An 'M1' type magazine, arranged with parallel galleries connected by cross galleries, is located close to the ammunition entrance, whilst the underground barracks, usine (power house) and utility areas are located just beyond the personnel entry. The gallery system was served by a narrow-gauge (60 cm) railway that was connected externally to the regional military railway system for the re-supply of the line forts just a few kilometres to the rear. Several stations along the gallery system, located in wider sections of the main gallery, permitted trains to pass.
The ouvrage was armed as follows:
- Ammunition entrance: two automatic rifle cloches (GFM), one machine gun/anti-tank embrasure (JM/AC47).
- Personnel entrance: one GFM cloche, one grenade launcher cloche, one JM/AC47 embrasure
- Block 1: Infantry block with two machine gun cloches (JM) and one GFM cloche.
- Block 2: Infantry block with one machine-gun turret, one GFM cloche, one JM cloche and one periscope cloche (VDP).
- Block 3: Infantry block with one machine-gun turret and one GFM cloche.
- Block 4: Artillery block with one 81mm mortar turret, one JM embrasure, one JM/AC47 embrasure and one GFM cloche.
- Block 5: Artillery block with three 75mm gun embrasures, two GFM cloches and one LG cloche/grenade launcher cloche (LG).
- Block 6: Artillery block with three 75mm gun embrasures and two GFM cloches.
Le photographie sous terrain...
There is very little visible above the surface and these forts are hard to find despite their enormous size.
The munitions entrance of the fort.
There is a staircase running alongside the lift shaft down into the fort - 148 steps if my memory serves me correctly!
The lift down at fort floor level by the ammunition entrance.
The ammunition entrance was protected inside the fort at the bottom of the lift by a machine gun in an armoured crenel.
60cm railway trucks carried ammo from the lift into the M1 magazine a short distance away.
The magazine is almost a mile from the fighting blocks so the railway was very important.
The railway had several "sidings" where electruic locomotives could pass.
This is the siding adjacent to the magazine and you can see why light painting was so difficult down here now!
M1 Magazine cell and blast door. Beyond the door is a further blast wall.
Blast door.
In addition to the accom and working areas and the main "gare" (railway tunnel) there are numerous narrow service tunnels.
We are a few hundred yards beyond the ammunition entrance now and have entered the 'Usine' (power and services area).
Four desiel powered generators provided electricity for the fort with two running and two in reserve.
This is the power distribution system in the Usine.
Only one deisel engine remains now. Owners of the private museum forts regularly pillage the abandoned forts for spare parts and artifacts.
Just outside the Usine in the Gare now where these huge gauges must have given the engineers at a glance information about how things were running.
Gates could be closed on the barrack block corridors to slow down the enemy if they had penetrated the fort.
The fort had filters on all air intakes to remove poison gas. Pure air was pumped around the fort to maintain pressure above ambient at the surface so that gas would not get in to the interior.
This is just one of the many ventilation systems we saw.
A barrack block bunk room which would originally have had three tier bubk beds attached to the walls.
It would have been very familiar to a Verdun veteran!
Zinc galvanised urinals - a vast improvement on Verdun's buckets pre 1917!
The second workshop and it's lathe.
Back in the gare now and this signage translates roughly as: "You are here and here is 135 meters from the personnel entrance".
The Gare...
The second of the two blast doors on the tunnel leading off to the access level of fighting 'Bloc' 5.
At the magazine and shell handling area below the access shaft up into Bloc 5.
Note the monorail overhead shell handling system.
De-railed 60cm ammunition trolleys in the shell handling area.
The shaft sump at the bottom of the shell lift up to Bloc 5 is quite badly flooded.
At the top of the same lift 248 steps later! We are 30 metres or so higher up now and just below the surface on the lower (command and control) level of the bloc.
The business end of the fort minus it's 75cm guns now.
This bloc held 3 fast firing guns which were a later variant of those used at Verdun.
The entire block is very similar to the Bourges Casemates all over Verdun.
Leaving the Bloc access tunnel through the huge blast doors.
Almost at the end of the gare now and approaching the locomotive garage almost as far into the fort as it's possible to go at nearly a mile from the ammunition entrance.
There is an electric loco stored in the garage sitting over a deep inspection pit.
The inspection pit is flooded! I fell in the inspection pit... *sighs
Time to head back along the gare and leave for the surface.
Almost outside again and we found this! It's hard to be sure exactly what it is but it looks like it may have been a breach loading mortar of about 135mm calibre.
We were totally kn*ck*r*d but we had to have a little wander at the surface to see the business end of the fort up close.
This is a GM cloche we was used for observation and the mounting of machine guns.
This is the double 85mm breach loading mortar emplacement in Bloc 4.
Bloc 5 is situated deep in a very dark and heavily overgrown wood.
This is the bloc we had ascended inside the fort and very similar to the 'Bourges Casemates' around Verdun.
Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed this report as much as we did 'researching' it!
The munitions entrance of the fort.
There is a staircase running alongside the lift shaft down into the fort - 148 steps if my memory serves me correctly!
The lift down at fort floor level by the ammunition entrance.
The ammunition entrance was protected inside the fort at the bottom of the lift by a machine gun in an armoured crenel.
60cm railway trucks carried ammo from the lift into the M1 magazine a short distance away.
The magazine is almost a mile from the fighting blocks so the railway was very important.
The railway had several "sidings" where electruic locomotives could pass.
This is the siding adjacent to the magazine and you can see why light painting was so difficult down here now!
M1 Magazine cell and blast door. Beyond the door is a further blast wall.
Blast door.
In addition to the accom and working areas and the main "gare" (railway tunnel) there are numerous narrow service tunnels.
We are a few hundred yards beyond the ammunition entrance now and have entered the 'Usine' (power and services area).
Four desiel powered generators provided electricity for the fort with two running and two in reserve.
This is the power distribution system in the Usine.
Only one deisel engine remains now. Owners of the private museum forts regularly pillage the abandoned forts for spare parts and artifacts.
Just outside the Usine in the Gare now where these huge gauges must have given the engineers at a glance information about how things were running.
Gates could be closed on the barrack block corridors to slow down the enemy if they had penetrated the fort.
The fort had filters on all air intakes to remove poison gas. Pure air was pumped around the fort to maintain pressure above ambient at the surface so that gas would not get in to the interior.
This is just one of the many ventilation systems we saw.
A barrack block bunk room which would originally have had three tier bubk beds attached to the walls.
It would have been very familiar to a Verdun veteran!
Zinc galvanised urinals - a vast improvement on Verdun's buckets pre 1917!
The second workshop and it's lathe.
Back in the gare now and this signage translates roughly as: "You are here and here is 135 meters from the personnel entrance".
The Gare...
The second of the two blast doors on the tunnel leading off to the access level of fighting 'Bloc' 5.
At the magazine and shell handling area below the access shaft up into Bloc 5.
Note the monorail overhead shell handling system.
De-railed 60cm ammunition trolleys in the shell handling area.
The shaft sump at the bottom of the shell lift up to Bloc 5 is quite badly flooded.
At the top of the same lift 248 steps later! We are 30 metres or so higher up now and just below the surface on the lower (command and control) level of the bloc.
The business end of the fort minus it's 75cm guns now.
This bloc held 3 fast firing guns which were a later variant of those used at Verdun.
The entire block is very similar to the Bourges Casemates all over Verdun.
Leaving the Bloc access tunnel through the huge blast doors.
Almost at the end of the gare now and approaching the locomotive garage almost as far into the fort as it's possible to go at nearly a mile from the ammunition entrance.
There is an electric loco stored in the garage sitting over a deep inspection pit.
The inspection pit is flooded! I fell in the inspection pit... *sighs
Time to head back along the gare and leave for the surface.
Almost outside again and we found this! It's hard to be sure exactly what it is but it looks like it may have been a breach loading mortar of about 135mm calibre.
We were totally kn*ck*r*d but we had to have a little wander at the surface to see the business end of the fort up close.
This is a GM cloche we was used for observation and the mounting of machine guns.
This is the double 85mm breach loading mortar emplacement in Bloc 4.
Bloc 5 is situated deep in a very dark and heavily overgrown wood.
This is the bloc we had ascended inside the fort and very similar to the 'Bourges Casemates' around Verdun.
Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed this report as much as we did 'researching' it! 
Cheers Rich.
