Why Btonze Age?

[Thumpalumpacus]

This would force the Germans to commit most of the German army to attach the French frontier while allowing the French army to hold back the main body of its army and concentrate it as a powerful strategic reserve able to meet any German break through from a position of relative strength, and also able to deliver a attack in greater strength than what the Germans can field as their own reserve.

Where the French failed was it didn't extend the maginot line to the north sea.  So instead of being able to hold its main army back as a strategic reserve, it had to commit it far forward early on to plug the gap, thus allowing the Germans to bypass it and encircle it.  

Well, they weren't encircled, but split in two. And the fact is that fortifications make travel difficult both ways -- digging in on all avenues means that you can't strike out at the enemy necessarily at the opportune place and time.

The Maginot Line was built to channelize an invasion to the flank which had easiest "allied" access -- allied in quotes because the French GHQ had in mind the idea to fight the battle on non-French soil as much as possible, and that meant Belgium, which was neutral. Had the Maginot Line been extended to the channel, the sally-ports for any offensive could well have been turned around. But with no sally-ports, a French offensive could well have fought not only the naturally-sloppy terrain, but human obstruction as well.

I think the real flaw in the plan was advancing to the Dyle line without attending to the weakness in the Ardennes. The Allies made essentially the same mistake in 1944, too.

So don't think that, even with all of its faults, the French army really was that hapless or hopeless as popular history paints it.   All of French army's problems were not enough to have cause it to lose the battle of France.  Only a last miute change of plans by the Germans, due to a major fuck up by the Germans, that cost the French the battle.

I think another big factor that often goes unnoticed in this sort of discussion is the morale of the French army. After seeing a score of governments in the intervening 22 years, the French fighting man, doughty though he might be, had a real reason to question how much support he might receive from the political organs of his government. That's not an appeal to the French-surrender caricature, but simply understanding that if the guy on the front lines doesn't believe the home front is behind him, he may well be less-inclined to fight it out -- a point we Americans learnt in Vietnam.