It'slovely outside, snowy, but I'v hurt my back and can hardly move an inch, so I'm using some old pictures.
In my district are four of these fortresses. The are part of the so called 'Dutch waterboundary'. In the 17th and 18th century a line of fortresses was build around the major cities. The idea was to flood the rest of the Netherlands when in war, so the enemy could not advance to the most important cities, and defend those cities with these waterfortresses. In the 19th century, when this fortress was build, when we were under Napoleonic rule, the line was strengthened with new fortresses. This whole idea, flooding almost all the country except the big cities in the west, was rather ludicrous and never used.
