This occured to me recently-why wasnt the Hundenburg Line being destroyed by allied shelling or aerial assault before it was completed-
out of range?
Poor aircraft recconaissance? Even disguised there would have been lots ow workers about and the cement waggons to ing and fro ing
Poor examination of POWs?
We were preoccupied with the Somme? The Germans were more than busy on all fronts so why was the line built so well in such a short time Yes I know they used POW labour but not that much surely.
Why did we play their game and move into their empty positions and back in range of their Hindenburg organised gunfire.
Surely it would have been better for many reasons not to play the game. Let them think it had been a complete waste of time.
Its the same with the build up of troops generally- why werent they being attacked by heavy shellfire or aircraft as on the Somme or in the German build up in 1918. This smacks of inefficiency to me.

As for moving up after the German withdrawal - we really had no choice. The Germans just had to defend what they'd already captured, but the Allies had to stay on the offensive. It would have been practically impossible to launch an attack on the Hindenburg line if we'd been miles away. Not to mention the French/Belgian political angle - it was more territory 'recaptured'

Neil.

I think that aerial reconnaisance in that time was not as good as now...and the hindenburg line was a distance from the front...I think it would be dangerous for reconnaisance aircraft to fly this far...
And would it have been cost effective to bomb the works? I think that is a very difficult task...
In WWII the allies knew that germany was building the atlantic wall, they had complete dominion in the air, they could have bombed the works from ships, and nothing or almost nothing was done...don't really know why, but i think it was to difficult...
pascal

Hi I think that we had pretty good photo coverage of the front despite the Fokker scourge and German domination in 1917
French planes were sortieing (is this a word?) and bombing German cities early on (hence the War on the unoccupied cities) the Zeppelin sheds were raided and the railway supply lines too.
Did prisoners maybe not think it (H Line) was worth saying anything about?
Is it really true the pill boxes were made with Dutch imported Blue Circle cement from UK or is this just legend?