The Maginot Line

Abstract

IN THE war of I870-7I the Prussian system, based on the principle of the nation-in-arms, triumphed over the professional army of the Second Empire. After Sedan, France found herself without troops because Napoleon III did not believe in reserves. The Government of National Resistance tried to raise new armies by ordering the levee en masse, which had been so successful in I793. The attempt, carried out with great determination, led to only more disasters. Capitulatioiy was inevitable. After these bitter lessons France adopted the organization which had proved so superior in the war. The Prussian system rested on a comparatively small standing army with large reserves. Napoleon III, on the other hand, had preferred permanent troops, because, better indoctrinated in blind obedience to their master, they could be relied upon in a political crisis, whereas men recalled from civilian life might change sides. As he used to say, it was unwise to put a gun on the shoulder of every revolutionary. In the legislation of the Third Republic the main question was how long the men should be under training in the active army before being released to the reserve. Soon a great cleavage arose on this issue between radicals and conservatives, between Left and Right. The conservatives advocated long service because, just as Napoleon, they held that it produced soldiers better imbued with military spirit. The Left wished the reduction of the burdens of the service, maintaining that the men need not be kept for years under the drill-sergeants, wasting their lives in unsanitary barracks. Good citizens would become excellent soldiers without any mechanical discipline if there was a good cause to fight for. Defense of a free democratic fatherland would be one. During the Dreyfus affair the conflicting views on army organization produced a tension bordering on civil war. The officers of the active army were denounced as a reactionary clique, hostile to the republic and democratic progress. The government of the Bloc des Gauches proposed a radical reform which would abolish the permanent army-the armee de caserne, as they called it-and build up a new organization where civic spirit and democratic ideals would dominate instead of blind discipline and class interests. The reform was enacted by the law of I905, which reduced the term of service to two years. The rightist parties continued to fight against the measure but without result until the general staff launched a surprise attack. At the height of the first Morocco crisis General Frangois de Negrier declared that the eastern defenses, since I870 a very touchy point, were in a deplorable condition. Violent political agitation, which undermined discipline, and the reduction of the term of service, which made the couverture (the special troops stationed on the German frontier) numerically too weak to protect mobilization, he said, had brought about that condition. Negrier was inspector of the eastern fortifications and spoke with authority. His revelations caused consternation in the public and in the gov-