Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 131

AIR-SEA BATTLE

and, should deterrence fail, defeated in an uneven war
of attrition.
Along with the Czech-Polish-Soviet Alliance and
Versailles Treaty, the Maginot Line created a strong
sense of security for France, and here the seeds of a
hollow military were sown.
A flurry of successive French governments
continually retrenched defense expenditures—lowering readiness, slashing modernization, and further
reducing the size of the army. At the time, policy
decisions were based on the logic of the moment
and implemented incrementally. The losses in
World War I caused a drop in the birthrate, resulting in a deficit in the number of available conscripts
in the 1930s. Economic, political, and labor upheavals compelled successive French governments
to devote fewer resources to defense expenditures.
Accordingly, cost overruns in fortification construction and diminished defense spending delayed the
planned completion of the Maginot Line.
Likewise, the French army received even less attention, but the government clung to the hope that
once completed, the Maginot Line would obviate
the need for high military readiness. Despite the
fact that the French army retained a small core of
professional soldiers, the larger part had rotted from
disuse, and no amount of effort dedicated to mobilization would suffice to turn about this state of
affairs quickly.

The Rising German Threat
As the 1930s unfolded, it bears reminding that
France did not have the benefit of hindsight regarding
Hitler’s intentions. To many French officials, Bolshevism
was a greater threat, so using Russia to balance against
Germany struck them as unsavory. Restoration of the
German empire occurred incrementally, slowly dismantling the restrictions of the Versailles Qɕ