synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

the {Maginot Line}. De Gaulle understood that this defeatist strategy was
pre-calculated to have precisely the effect that it was intended to have. It
meant that France would hold behind the Line waiting, as he said, "for the
blockade to wear the enemy down and the pressure of the free world to drive
him [Hitler] to collapse."
"{To my mind," wrote de Gaulle, "such an orientation was as
dangerous as could be. I considered that, from the strategic point of
view, it handed the initiative over to the enemy, lock, stock, and barrel.
From the political point of view, I believe that by proclaiming our
intention to keep our armies at the frontier, Germany was being egged
on to act against the weak, who were from that moment, isolated: the
Sarre, the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States,
Poland, and so on; that Russia was being discouraged from forming any
bond with us; and that Italy was being assured that, whatever she might
do, we would not impose any limit to her malevolence. Lastly, from the
moral point of view, it seemed to me deplorable to make the country
believe that war, if it came, ought to consist, for it, in fighting as little as
possible.}" {Charles de Gaulle: the Complete Memoirs}, Carroll and Graf
Publishers, Inc. New York, 1998, p.8.)
De Gaulle had made this extraordinary forecast in 1933 during time
he was writing his book on {The Army of the Future}. Indeed, the refusal of
the High Command to break with their old axioms, reflected in the highly
publicized Maginot Line defense, represented a green light for Hitler to
invade Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and then hit France through
Belgium, thus by-passing the Maginot Line!
In 1934, de Gaulle published a book entitled, {Vers l'Armee de
metier} ({The Army of the Future}, English Edition published in 1940). In
that book, de Gaulle showed how dangerous the above strategy was. De
Gaulle cites various predecessors, namely, German General Von Seeckt, and
Italian General Douhet, as well as the "Maximum Plan" which had been
advocated at Geneva by Paul Boncour in 1932, and which proposed placing
under the League of Nations, a professional force which would have at its
disposal all the tanks and all of the aircrafts of Europe, and thus would be
responsible for maintaining collective security.
In October 1933, Hitler broke with the League of Nations, and took
the strategic idea for himself. In 1934-1935, the Reich launched the most
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