History
The fort was constructed between 1869 and 1871 to serve as part of the New Dutch Waterline. Originally built completely out of brick and mortar, with just one main battery guarding the Rhine, it was upgraded significantly during 1885-1895. The main battery was completely rebuilt, with armour and concrete, while two additional armoured batteries were added and the roof of the fort was reinforced with concrete. The fort had strategic significance in that it guarded the Pannerden Canal, which supplied the water for the inundations of the New Dutch Waterline and could potentially be used as a route towards the main line of defence, but the fort saw little active service. In World War I the Netherlands remained neutral, although the fort was manned as part of a general mobilisation. In World War II on May 10, 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands, the fort was first bypassed and then surrounded. On May 11, cut off from the rest of the Dutch army, the commander of the fort surrendered under threat of artillery bombardment and air attack. Most of the fort was subsequently stripped of all useful materials and after 1945 the building fell into disuse.
Read more about this topic: Fort Pannerden
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)