Evening star., 1939-11-27
Maginot Line Likened
To Fantasy From Pen
Of Verne or Wells
Gibbs Is Struck by Vast
Extent of Underworld
Of Tunnels and Machines
By SIR PHILIP GIBBS.

Army IN the held l am Stlll Stlrred |
by an unforgettable impression of
the enormous strength of the Magi- /
not Line, that fantastic underworld |
which might have been invented |
by the imagination of Jules Verne |
or H. G. Wells, and by the life and |
character of the French soldiers |
who hold it.
One of our own officers who was
with me said to me last night that |
nothing he had read about the
Maginot Line had conveyed the |
least notion to him of what it was
like and that everything he had |
seen was unexpected. That shows
how poor words are to convey pic
ture that is beyond all ones previous
experience and the Maginot Line
is like that. For it is difficult to
describe series of earthworks un-
der the hills of France and quite
invisible from above, that stretch
from Luxembourg to Switzerland,
have in their depths all the mechan-
ism of immovable battleships.
Dynamos, gun turrets. electric lifts
for men and ammunition and great
guns moving at the touch of wheel
or a button as smoothly and silently
as the springs of watch-comblned
with the strength and length OF a
chain of fortresses under the earth,
with endless passages, chambers and
roads, with concrete holes and mar
raw-guage railways, kitchens, dining
rooms. barracks and hospitals.
Sense of Another World.
Does that convey anything? l
doubt it. One has to walk through
one of these systems for many Kill
ometerS, one has to smell and see
and hear in these underground wells.
One has to talk with the men and
touch the mechanisms in their steel
chambers, look far down the vista
of tunnels, going for many kill
ometers from one section to an
other when innumerable points OF
light are Pickering out for brief
moments of darkness I listened to
the tramp of men. French soldiers
marching at handpace before and
behind me. There was a faint,
mousey smell and I was aware of
q strange vibration.
For a moment I had a sense of
losing touch with this human
world of ours and of walking in
some other plane of life, yet the
French soldiers who hold the Mag
inot Line get used to it and like it.
1T is not bad life down here
said one young officer to me. Il
have been here for two months and
I only 60 on top now and then for
a spell of fresh air. After few
months one begins to feel the need
Of sunlight, but the air is condi-
toned by artificial means and the
men keep quite fit"
French soldiers have a touch of
the child in them and give human,
playful touch even to the steel walls
and concrete forts. l noticed two
shrubs growing in pots at the en-
trance to one of the fortress sys-
TENS just as though it were bunga-
low in a Surrey village. instead of
the steel door of an underground
castle. Here also were two white
rabbits which they are keeping as
pets of the garrison. But there is
sinister sign of rabbit hutch
which I happen to know. 1t meant
used for testing the atmosphere for
any gas that might come over the
hills one day.
Monster Gun Described.
Inside and outside the Maginot
Line from Luxembourg to the Swiss
,rl,
lurking in secret places to make
hell on earth-such a hell as we
once knew at Ypres and Paschen-
dele, across the Belgium frontier,
and in that mo mans land of de-
serted village and silent woods,
from 2 to 10 kilometers wide,
between the French and the Ger
mans. I saw many of these en-
placements artifcially concealed
and the French soldiers showed me
these monsters and explained their
range and mechanism. One of them
was sensational in size and power
OF destruction.
do you see any guns hereabouts?"
I was asked. l could see nothing but
a muddy track. dark wood and a
rising hill. But suddenly without a
sound, within a few yards of where
I stood I saw the barrels of such a
gun as one might dream of. It is
enormously long and it rose slowly
to an angle of 10 degrees. And as
the French soldier has something
OF the child in him one of them was
sitting on the end of the tube and
laughing as he clung to this steel
seesaw. But it would be no laugh
ing matter if it opened fire. 1t
throws shell of half a ton which
travels IS miles and takes two min
utes on its journey and which, in
one second, would destroy a church
or blow hamlet off the map. The
French gunners in charge of it asked
me to climb up the steel ladder and
see its workings and from a great
height looked through its breach
down its immense tube to the far
horizon where the Germans live.
Not yet has it opened fire during
this war Many other guns have
been utterly silent since this war
started
We have seen enough to know
that if Germany attacks there will
be such roar of guns and such an