The Dutch Water Line


Today I've been reading about The Dutch Water Line - interesting to see that effectively the Dutch managed, through massive engineering, to use their system of dykes to turn almost their entire country into a heavily fortified citadel. Also interesting to note that in WW2 the Germans basically then just flew over the water and bombed them anyway, forcing surrender. But still the Dutch held onto the idea and rebuilt a new version to ward off the Russians, who, luckily for the Dutch, never decided to try it out.

4 comments:

Gareth Williams said...

One of the reasons traditionally put forward for the success of the Dutch Revolt against their Spanish Hapsburg masters in the 16th century was the flooding of the dykes making the place easily defensible. So they have a bit of a track record there.

worm said...

I need to learn more about the Hapsburgs - my dad is obsessed with them and keeps giving me books about various important sounding seiges and whatnot, but I have yet to actually read a word about them!

Brit said...

So many books, so little time. I do suspect that 90% of nonfiction books can be well summarised in a couple of sentences or a blog post. Another great benefit of bloggery.

worm said...

very true words Brit, especially regarding history books, as they do normally require a lot of concentration and extended periods of time to complete! My shelves are currently groaning under the weight of all sorts of hardback history books that I'm too scared to start