Au Contact: French Infantry Tactics in the Maginot Line Advance Posts During the Phoney War, 4 September 1939 to 10 May 1940

Historians’ preoccupation with explaining why France lost the Battle of France in May and June 1940 obscures worthwhile histories that are not relevant to the outcome. Generalisation from the battle on the Meuse, where elite German units faced poor French forces, exaggerates the superiority of German troops’ mission-oriented tactics relative to the top-down ‘methodical’ tactics of the French. This article shows that French infantry tactics were the object of permanent politicised controversy, and that in the course of patrolling and skirmishing in the no-man’s-land between French and German fortifications, the French substantially modified their tactics and organisation.