When Belgium gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1830, it inherited four lines of Napoleonic forts called the Wellington Barrier that the state could not and did not want to maintain. The forts faced France, a nation that Belgium had fought for its independence alongside. The dismantling of the Wellington Barrier forts began in 1839, but after the Revolutions of 1848 and the establishment of the Second French Empire in 1851, Belgium faced the possibility of invasion by France. Belgian leaders sought a new defensive strategy and struggled with popular anti-military sentiment or opposing commercial interests regarding existing forts, but settled by 1859 on a plan championed by Belgian general . Beginning in 1847, Chazal called for Antwerp to be fortified and expanded into the National Redoubt as a fallback stronghold for the Belgian Army. The task of constructing the National Redoubt was given to a protégé of Chazal, Captain Henri Alexis Brialmont. Brialmont completed the National Redoubt in 1868, but technological advancements in artillery and another change in the geopolitical landscape of Europe again rendered Belgium's defensive strategy inadequate.