Today, there is a term used for a barrier or strategy that employs a false sense of security.1That is, the Maginot Line. It can be found in common writing and speech, but in reality, the realMaginot Line was just that. A barrier which provided a false sense of security. The Frenchweren’t aware of that though, and it wasn’t built on false pretenses, just to please the public. Itwas built with defense in mind, the French specialty. The engineering was next level, and aremarkable defeat within its own right. But overall, it was a failure of drastic proportions.The namesake for the Maginot Line comes from Andre Magniot, born in 1877. At only33 years old, Andre Maginot was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies, and eventuallybecame the undersecretary of war.2As the First World War broke out, Maginot left his politicalcareer to enlist in the French Army. Firsthand, Maginot experienced the horrors of trenchwarfare, and was severely injured which resulted in his discharge.3He returned to politics, thistime with a new motivation. Fortify the borders of France and lock Germany out.Maginot’s campaigning worked, and the French began construction of this fortifiedborder in 1929.
