The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 124
124 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Marshall, their first Commander in Chief during the war. They had gone to the trouble of providing a menu card for each guest which had hand-painted on it his country's map, mine had India and Dick's had Australia. We passed our cards round, which were signed by those present. When we got to the British headquarters I got Lord Gort also to sign my card. We were then taken to the Maginot Line, where we lunched with the commander of one of the forts, deep down in the bowels of the earth. The equipment of these forts was, for that time, truly wonderful. The artillery pieces were so heavy and powerful that ammunition was fed into each gun by an electric automatic arrangement. In addition to the forts there was a broad strip of other types of defences and constructions running all the way. In the Maginot fort, at the end of the lunch, the commander decorated each of us with the Maginot badge. King George VI later went over to the front and he was also decorated with that badge. On it was inscribed the slogan "On ne passe pas," "They shall not pass," but they did pass; they passed around the Maginot Line and flew over it. Sir Findlater Stewart, who had been for a number of years Permanent Under Secretary of State for India and who was a very good friend of mine, was at that time working in Norfolk House in St. James's Square in the war organization and war planning. He reminded me afterwards that when I came back from our visit to the front, he asked me what my impressions were. According to him, among other things, I told him that there were two factors that had struck me very forcibly in regard to the Maginot Line: One was that starting from the Swiss- French-German border, the Line came right up to the French-Belgium border, and stopped short there. It was not carried on to the Coast. What was there to prevent the Germans from coming around it, by advancing as they had done in the First World War, through Belgium? Sir Findlater said, “What is the second thing?” I told him, “What is to stop them from flying over it?” His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester was at that time one of the staff officers of Lord Gort. The day that we spent looking at things at and around the British headquarters, he motored about with us, and each of us in turn was accorded the honour of sitting with him in his car for an hour or so. I am unable to recall that during the time I was with him His Royal Highness made any observation of any kind at all. It was