The Maginot Line symbolizes decadence and incompetence. Is that accurate? Everybody wanted to apply the lessons of The Great War, but nobody agreed on what those lessons were. // Manned fortresses, machine gun garrisons, barbed wire fences, trenches, bunkers, and underground complexes stretched along the western French border from Italy and Switzerland in the south to Belgium and Luxembourg in the North. But the strongest and most continuously fortified stretch was in Alsace-Lorraine, butting against Germany. // Construction began in 1929. At the time, France was collecting war reparations from an unarmed Germany. There was plenty of debate about how to spend military funds. Many officers and generals wanted to stock up on tanks, aircraft, and ships. Many government administrators wanted to reinforce global colonial territories. Many diplomats wanted to support Poland and Czechoslovakia. Many civilians wanted more peace and unity among Europeans. Defensive forts won the argument. And by 1935, Hitler began rearming Germany; the march toward war was on; it looked to be a good call. // Taking only a few days, German forces marched through the Ardennes forests in Belgium in 1940 and pushed into France through gaps in a lightly fortified region. Within weeks, Paris surrendered to the Third Reich, and all troops were ordered to give up their weapons. Most border soldiers also gave up their freedom, becoming POWs. The Nazis stripped the fortresses and used the material toward the war against their many enemies. // It can be argued that the Maginot Line was underfunded. Today, some of the infrastructure still exists — as does the pejorative metaphor.