The Amazing Defences of the Fortress of Bourtange | Defending Europe | National Geographic UK

Fort Bourtange was constructed in the late 1500s near Groningen, The Netherlands. Its star fortress shape and use of marshlands and water saw it hold out against brutal sieges in the Eighty Years' War and the Franco-Dutch war in the 1670s. Invading armies carrying heavy artillery and supplies were slowed down by boggy terrain; they were then targeted with cannons and artillery from the defenders inside the fort.

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