The Collaborative International Dictionary
Maginot line \Maginot line\ prop. n. A line of fortifications built before World War II to protect France's eastern border.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fortifications built along the north and east borders of France before World War II, in which the French placed unreasonable confidence, named for André Maginot (1877-1932), French Minister of War in late 1920s, early 1930s.
Wikipedia
The Maginot Line (, ), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations that France constructed on the French side of its borders with Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg during the 1930s. The line did not extend through to the English Channel because the French military did not want to offend Belgium given its policy of neutrality. The line was a response to France's experience in World War I and was constructed during the run-up to World War II, shortly after the Locarno Conference that gave rise to a fanciful and optimistic "Locarno spirit".
The French established the fortification to give their army time to mobilize in the event of attack, and allow French forces to move into Belgium for a decisive confrontation with Germany. The success of static, defensive combat in World War I was a key influence on French thinking. French military experts extolled the Maginot Line as a work of genius, believing it would prevent any further invasions from the east.
The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack, including aerial bombings and tank fire, and had underground railways as a backup; it also had state-of-the-art living conditions for garrisoned troops, supplying air conditioning and eating areas for their comfort. Nevertheless, it proved strategically ineffective during the Battle of France. Instead of attacking directly, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries, bypassing the Line to the north. French and British officers had anticipated this: when Germany invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, they carried out plans to form an aggressive front that cut across Belgium and connected to the Maginot Line. However, the French line was weak near the Ardennes forest, a region whose rough terrain they considered unlikely for the Germans to traverse. The German Army took advantage of this weak point to split the French–British defensive front. The Allied forces to the north were forced to evacuate at Dunkirk, leaving the forces to the south unable to mount an effective resistance to the German invasion of France.
Usage examples of "maginot line".
Here was a moment of confrontation between America and England masked in a casual visit, in an offhand atmosphere, in a smoky, dim little room smelling of electric machinery, on a playground island deserted by the rich, facing the displaced Maginot Line guns.
The enemy's maximum effort, after they had reached the coast, had been directed against the French in the Rethel area, south of the Maginot Line, and in the extreme north against the Belgians.
Chapter 18, about the Maginot Line of France, had a similarly devious derivation.
But one of the things I had planned to explore therein got squeezed out, by processes similar to those described here, so I had no section featuring the Maginot Line.
They depended on their fancy Maginot Line to the east, and on the sanctity of the territory of Holland and Belgium to the north, buttressed by the British Expeditionary Force.
The Maginot Line was there now, and the blokes behind it were ready.
It had the Maginot Line, an imtrable fortress that could protect France against i^asion for a thousand years.
In fact, more than anything else the line was reminiscent of the French Maginot Line, also a thing of the 1930s.
They had spilled rivers of blood to win the first war, paid their taxes for twenty years, done what their politicians had demanded, built the Maginot Line, gone to war under prestigious generals.