The History of Fortification

In the wake of the bloody civil war that followed Finland's independence from Russia in 1917, the border between the two countries was established across the Karelian Isthmus, an area long fought over by Russia, Finland and Sweden in their attempts to dominate the northern tip of Europe. Neither the Soviets nor the Finnish were comfortable with such a divide, which provided an open route for a potential invader to Helsinki on the Finnish side, and was only 32km from the important military and industrial city of Petrograd in Russia. As such, both sides began an intensive period of fortification and defensive planning. As the Winter War broke out in November 1939, the complex and heavily defended Mannerheim Line suffered intense bombardment and armored assaults. The armistice of May 1940 saw Finland cede control of the entire Karelian Isthmus to the USSR however, and a propaganda war ensued; the Russians emphasizing the strength of the line, and the Finnish downplaying its importance, accentuating instead the heroism and bravery of the common Finnish soldier.

Napoleon's planned invasion of England at the start of the War of the Third Coalition, although never carried out, was a major influence on British naval strategy and fortification of the coast of south-east England. The first Army of England had gathered on the Channel coast in 1798, but an invasion of England was sidelined by Napoleon's concentration on campaigns in Egypt and Austria, and finally shelved by the 1802 Peace of Amiens. Preparations began again in earnest soon after the outbreak of war in 1803, and were finally called off in 1805.

The Maginot Line is the most famous fortification system of World War II, but in fact most European countries were busy building fortified defensive lines from the end of World War I until 1941, when the limitations of the French approach became obvious. In addition to the West European sources and contacts he drew upon for the popular Hitler's Blitzkrieg Campaigns, J.E. Kaufmann has now been able to use previously-unavailable East European archives to provide new material on the Soviet Stalin and Molotov Lines and the Czech Nachod-Ostrava defenses. A truly comprehensive account of all European fortifications of the World War II era is available now for the first time, supplemented by scores of remarkable technical drawings by Polish artist Robert M. Jurga.

In the wake of the bloody civil war that followed Finland's independence from Russia in 1917, the border between the two countries was established across the Karelian Isthmus, an area long fought over by Russia, Finland and Sweden in their attempts to dominate the northern tip of Europe. Neither the Soviets nor the Finnish were comfortable with such a divide, which provided an open route for a potential invader to Helsinki on the Finnish side, and was only 32km from the important military and industrial city of Petrograd in Russia. As such, both sides began an intensive period of fortification and defensive planning.