DUTCH WOULD FIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23616, 28 March 1940, Page 12

DUTCH WOULD FIGHT

FRONTIER GAP CLOSED IMPROVED FORTIFICATIONS [from OUR OWN correspondent] LONDON, March 5 "Holland is ready to defend her territory to the very end," M. Henry Van Pleffens, the Dutch Foreign .Minister, declared to a correspondent a few days ago. Referring to recent reports in the foreign press suggesting the contrary, he said: "1 must once more declare in the most emphatic terms that Holland's integrity cannot be violated with impunity, and that any attack against lier will meet with the most obstinate and dogged resistance, regardless of the direction from which it may come." This interview was given on the eve of the correspondent's departure on a three-day tour through Holland's defences as the guest of the Dutch High Command. "/This trip was a revelation to mo, who visited the Dutch defences only three months ago," says the correspondent. "While secrets cannot be revealed, .1 can safely state that the most important progress I witnessed was the rapid and clever carrying out of fortification works, which now extend to the very southern end of the country. "Last autumn there was a wide gap between the Dutch and Belgian fortification system which encouraged the belief in some quarters that the Germans might try to push through to reach the mouths of the Mans and Scheldt rivers to obtain submarine and aerial bases. This gap is now closed. I feel that an attack on either Belgium or Holland singly has been made almost impossible. The conclusion of the defence works right up to the, Belgian border has now sealed the fate of both Beliriuin and Holland finally together. "The severe winter has not impaired Holland's water defences. T saw huge areas of inundated territory frozen, hut the Dutch were euttinc: channels into this ice. in which tanks and soldiers would disappear like Pharaoh's troops in the Red Sea."