The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Phil:

Which is exactly what the French and British did. They were expecting a redo of the Schlieffen Plan, and sent their troops, not on the border with Belgium, but actually into Belgium. French and British troops were trapped far north of the Maginot Line, not behind it. Belgium is small, but there's still room enough to have uneven concentrations of troops as well as decisions as to where the best troops will go. The thing is the strongest part of the German attack was concentrated on the Ardennes Forest, which was considered a difficult barrier to cross. Which is why France had relatively small numbers of inexperienced and poorly trained troops to defend it. And so on.

The point is security always has a hole, and only human flexibility can truly compensate for it. The Maginot Line was emblematic of a lack of flexibility in thinking on the part of the French and British.

To use your analogy, yeah, the French locked the front door, but not to completely seal the house, but to force Germany go around to the back. Problem is yes, Germany jumped through the kitchen window, and were lucky not fall onto the stove.

Actually Erik, the sidebar is largely accurate description of 1940. You should really read the book to get the context. The Maginot Line itself did not fail. But the self-confidence that it engendered in the French and British caused a monstrous failure. The Line was intended to prevent an entry into France directly from Germany. It WAS impenetrable. It was INTENDED to force a German invasion through Belgium and the Netherlands.

But they didn't do that either, really. The main attack was north of the Maginot through the Ardennes, through Luxembourg and southern Belgium, hitting the Allies where they were at their weakest, with the result that the best units were stuck away from the action, in danger of being cut off from supplies, facing German armies that were merely fakes. The book makes the point that the massive failure was in reliance on the technology and reliance on preconceived notions of German war planning, going so far as to assert that if the French had even merely entertained the possibility of an attack through the Ardennes, Germany's goose would have been cooked, as the juke north by the Germans would likely have been seen for what it was. According to May, even so the Germans still had to get pretty lucky.

I think its not surprising. Hitchens has a more fundamental disagreement with Blumenthal than he does with Amis. Hitchens is merely counseling a friend: "don't blame me or the left because you didn't do enough history reading." But Blumenthal is a big Clinton supporter. Hitchens, well, Hitchen's "gift for savagery" you have you believe he thinks Bill is down there with Stalin

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