France and The Low Countries
From the middle of the 19th century until 1914 the fortress city of Antwerp was the official National Redoubt of Antwerp in Belgium, and until 1940, the "Fortress Holland" was that of the Netherlands, although in neither case did the "redoubt" prove defensible — even though the same area of Holland proper did manage to stop the advances of the French troops in the Rampjaar 1672, providing the Dutch with much-needed time to eventually gain the upper hand. In 1940 Brittany was briefly considered as such in the last stages of the Fall of France, but again proved impractical.
Read more about this topic: National Redoubt
Famous quotes containing the words france and, france and/or countries:
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
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“Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)