DUTCH DEFENCES

Grey River Argus, 16 January 1940, Page 7

DUTCH DEFENCES

INUNDATIONS FROZEN. GERMAN BOATS REPORTED (Received January 15, 9.45 p.nt.) THE HAGUE. January 15. Holland’s defences are more complete than they were, last November Many areas are being kept permanently flooded. The icebound waterways have started to thaw. The inundations are unlikely to bear weight for a day or two. According to unconfirmed reports, the Germans have collected a fleet of barges and flat-bottomed boats for carrying machineguns and men. Two German spies -have been arrested. One was allegedly transmitting weather reports from a radio in a car. The other was endeavouring to procure large quantities of motoi tyres.

There has been a large round-up of foreigners in Amsterdam.

Holland’s Defences

What Art They ?

(By Stuart Emeny).

When Great Britain was threatened by a Napoleonic invasion a chain ,ol ivlartollo towers was built along our eastern and southern coast. The Dutch are to-day completing a similar line of small pill-box forts facing Germany along their eastern frontier. Some 40 of them have been bum. Equipped with artillery, anti-tank guns and machine-guns they command the main roads leading from the German frontier and the bridges across the rivers Maas and Yssei, which flow parallel to the frontrer. These strong points, .with their carefully worked out fields, of fire ana their underground ammunition dumps, are garrisoned day and night by a skeleton force of 8,000 greygreen Netherland troops, who live in newly-built barracks in the frontier towns.

The river 'bridges, are already charged with dynamite and can ne blown up at a few minutes’ notice. In this way Holland not only guards herself, but keeps her share of th. Watch on the Rhine. For the chain of pill-boxes is more than a purely national defence.. It is the logical conclusion of the Maginot Line and the Belgian fortifications, which stretch 500 miles from the. Alps to the Dutch border. It adds a further 200 miles- tQ the existing line of fortifications, ami completes the Great Wall of Europe —a wall of steel and concrete bristling with guns to give land protection to the Western democracies against Germany. The first move to remove any temptation that Hitler might have to attack through Holland came from Dutch citizens of the eastern provinces who looked across their frontier and saw. the Germans building barracks and new roads. Burgomasters of frontier towns petitioned the Dutch Government to give them protection. So Holland embarked on a rearmament programme—a Lilliputian affair compared with the arms programmes of the Great Powers. The Dutch Government decided that tne best they could do was to prepare against the dreaded surprise -attacK, and provide just enough tiresome fortifications to hold up an invader until outside help came from Belgium, France or Britain—for the Dutch cannot believe that Britain would allow Amsterdam and Rotterdam to fall into German hands.

Hence the line of pill-boxes. Twenty-five so-called Second Battallions of 35U men have been formed to man the defence line permanently. They are garrisoned in new barracks at Grave, Hedel, Housden, Deesburg, Zutphen, Zwelle, Ravenste.n Boxmeer and other towns, within a tew hours of an alarm a front line force of 70,000 would be at the frontier.

The annual number of conscripts has been increased, from 19,500 to 32,000, and their period of training has been lengthened from 51 months to 11 months, and it is estimated that out .of a total population of only 8,000,0 GU, Holland could on throw an army of over 1,000,000 men into the field.

In southern Holland, the River Maas forms .a natural defensive line along the border. But there is no such natural frontier in the north, so it is probable that the northern provinces would*be quickly overrun by an invader. If this happened the Dutch fortes would in all, Ukleihood, fall back on the River Yssel to form with the forces along the River Maas one straight defensive line from the south of Holland to Zuyder Zee. Dutch troops who might be too far north to join this line would escape across the northern causeway or ihe Zuyder Zee. In the eyent oX, the pillbox line breaking the Dutch wcsid retreat on Amsterdam and call on their oldest and most trusted ally—the sea.

The Dutch opened the dykes to tne sea against, the troops of Spain-in tne time of William the Silent, against the French when William of Orange ruled, and to-day the Dutch people are prepared if necessary to open them against the Germans. There are plans in existence which can be put into effect in thro* hours to blow up dvkes and sea walls to flood a wide belt of country from tne Zuyder Zee to the Belgian frontier. Behind this flood the Dutch forces would stand i n defen fw .of Amsterdam And a great deal more than that. ICE AS PROTECTION. AMSTERDAM, January 14. Holland’s first line of defence is now ice, instead of water. The Press publishes .an officially-inspired article, quoting expert opinion that the freeze will not mean that the country’s water defences are impaired. It is stated that the enemy would be unable to cross the ice in the face of a. withering fire from the entrenched army. The ice would not afford protection to attackers, especially as the Dutch have devised means for drawing water from under the ice, which is then unsupported.