Dutch Water Defence Lines and New Dutch Water Line. - Weesp

The Dutch Water Defence Lines was a defensive line located 15 to 20 kilometers around the center of Amsterdam. The Waterlinie is 135 kilometers long, contains 45 forts and took from 1880 to 1920 to construct. In 1996, the Dutch Water Defence Lines was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The New Dutch Water Defense Lines consists mainly of areas that can be flooded. It is too deep for infantry and too shallow for boats. It was an impregnable fortress from about 1815 to 1940. It protected Holland from enemy troops. When war threatened, soldiers could flood wide strips of land from Muiden to the Biesbosch, making Holland inaccessible. At strategic positions, the enemy encountered forts, castles and casemates (spaces covered against enemy fire and equipped with an embrasure for the arrangement of a firearm; initially part of a fortification, later freestanding). The Water Line was used three times during threats of war: in 1870 (Franco-German War), during 1914-1918 (World War I) and in 1939-1940 (on the eve of World War II). By then, the inundation system proved woefully outdated; the Germans simply flew over it.

Today, the open Line Landscape is the largest National Monument in the Netherlands and also nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.