André Maginot was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 civil servant, soldier, and Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

. He is undoubtedly best known for his advocacy for the string of forts that would be known as the Maginot Line

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, in light of its experience in World War I,...

.

Early years, to World War I

Maginot was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, but spent a part of his youth in Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...

, the region where later on the line of fortifications that he advocated would be constructed. After taking the civil service exam, in 1897 Maginot began his career in the French bureaucracy, where he would serve for the rest of his life. He worked as the assistant of the Governor-General in Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

 until 1910, when he resigned and began his political career. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies of France

Chamber of Deputies was the name given to several parliamentary bodies in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:* 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the Lower chamber of the French Parliament, elected by census suffrage.*...

 that year and served as Under-Secretary of State for War just prior to the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in 1914.

When the war began, Maginot decided to serve in the army and he was posted along the Lorraine front. In November 1914, Maginot (by now promoted to sergeant for his "coolness and courage") was wounded in the leg near Verdun

Verdun

Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...

 (he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life). For extreme valor, he was awarded the Medaille Militaire

Médaille militaire

The Médaille militaire is a decoration of the French Republic which was first instituted in 1852.-History:The creator of the médaille was the emperor Napoléon III, who may have taken his inspiration in a medal issued by his father, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland...

, France's highest military award. He was also a fencer

Fencing

Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...

.

Development of the "Maginot Line"

After World War I, Maginot returned to the Chamber of Deputies and served efficiently in a number of government posts, including Minister of Overseas France (20 March 1917 - 12 September 1917, 11 November 1928 - 3 November 1929 ), Minister of Pensions starting in 1920 and then Minister of War (1922–1924, 1929–1930, 1931–1932). He expressed concern that the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

 did not leave France with sufficient security. He continually pushed for more funds for defense and grew more distrustful of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 during a period when few in France wanted to think about the possibility of another war.

Maginot came to advocate building a series of defensive fortifications along France's border with Germany that would include a combination of field positions and permanent concrete forts. He was no doubt influenced in this decision by his observations of successful fortifications employed at Verdun in World War I. He was also probably influenced by the destruction of his home in Revigny-sur-Ornain, which made him determined to prevent Lorraine from ever being invaded again.

In 1926 Maginot was successful in getting the government to allocate money to build several experimental sections of the defensive line. But it was 1929 that would be the pivotal year for the fixed defenses that would come to be known as the Maginot Line. During the debate that year on the 1930 budget, André Maginot lobbied very heavily for the money needed to construct the enormous line of fortifications. He was finally able to persuade Parliament to allocate 3.3 billion francs for the project (the upper house voted 274 to 26 in favor of the project a few days later).

Work on the project progressed rapidly. Maginot visited a work site in October 1930 and expressed satisfaction with the work. He was especially pleased with the work in Lorraine, site of his family's home and where he spent his childhood, and fought for more funding for construction in that area. Though Maginot was the main proponent for the project, most of the actual designs for the Maginot line were the work of Paul Painlevé

Paul Painlevé

Paul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....

, Maginot's successor as Minister of War.
André Maginot never saw the line completed; he became ill in December 1931 and died in Paris on 7 January 1932 of typhoid fever

Typhoid fever

Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...

. He was mourned throughout France and it was only after his death that the line of defenses which he advocated came to bear his name. However, in the end the line was ineffectual for its intended purpose. In World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Germany was able to circumvent the line by passing its Panzers through hills and marshlands which had been impenetrable to tanks when Maginot made his recommendations. A monument in memory of André Maginot was dedicated near Verdun in September 1966.

Quote

"We could hardly dream of building a kind of Great Wall of France, which would in any case be far too costly. Instead we have foreseen powerful but flexible means of organizing defense, based on the dual principle of taking full advantage of the terrain and establishing a continuous line of fire everywhere."—10 December 1929

External links

• A biography of Maginot (Archived 2009-10-25)