page_title: Battle of Fort Eben-Emael
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Fort Eben-Emael / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: The Belgian fortress Eben-Emael. Retractable armored turret with two 75mm rapid-fire guns with 8km ranges. Nederlands: Eben-Emael, Koepel Zuid of Bloc VEspañol: Eben-Emael, cúpula sur, situada sobre el techo del Bloc V. Torre retráctil armada con dos cañones de 75mm de tiro rápido y 8km de alcance.
context_page_description: The Battle of Fort Eben-Emael was a battle between Belgian and German forces that took place between 10 May and 11 May 1940, and was part of the Battle of Belgium and Fall Gelb, the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. An assault force of German paratroopers, Fallschirmjäger, was tasked with assaulting and capturing Fort Eben-Emael, a Belgian fortress whose strategic position and strong artillery emplacements dominated several important bridges over the Albert Canal. These carried roads which led into the Belgian heartland and were what the German forces intended to use to advance. As some of the German airborne forces assaulted the fortress and disabled the garrison and the artillery pieces inside it, others simultaneously captured three bridges over the Canal. Having disabled the fortress, the airborne troops were then ordered to protect the bridges against Belgian counter-attacks until they linked up with ground forces from the German 18th Army.
  The battle was a strategic victory for the German forces, with the airborne troops landing on top of the fortress with gliders and using explosives and flamethrowers to disable the outer defences of the fortress.
context_section_description: On 10 May 1940, Germany launched Fall Gelb (i.e., the "Plan Yellow"), an invasion of the Low Countries. By attacking through the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium, the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht believed that German forces could outflank the Maginot Line and then advance through southern Belgium and into northern France, cutting off the British Expeditionary Force and a large part of the French forces and forcing the French government to surrender. To gain access to northern France, German forces would have to defeat the armed forces of the Low Countries and either bypass or neutralize several defensive positions, primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands. Some of these defensive positions were only lightly defended and intended more as delaying positions than true defensive lines designed to stop an enemy attack.
  However, some defences were of a more permanent nature, possessed considerable fortifications and were garrisoned by significant numbers of troops. The Grebbe-Peel Line in the Netherlands, which stretched from the southern shore of the Zuiderzee to the Belgian border near Weert, had many fortifications combined with natural obstacles, such as marsh-lands and the Geld Valley, which could easily be flooded to impede an attack. The main Belgian defensive line, the K-W Line (also known as the Dyle or Dijl Line), along the River Dyle, protected the port of Antwerp and the Belgian capital, Brussels. Between the K-W Line and the border was a delaying line along the Albert Canal. This delaying line was protected by forward positions manned by troops, except in a single area where the canal ran close to the Dutch border, which was known as the "Maastricht Appendix" due to the proximity of the Dutch city of Maastricht. There the Belgian military could not build forward positions due to the proximity of the border, and instead assigned an infantry division to guard the three bridges over the canal in the area, a brigade being assigned to each bridge. The bridges were defended by blockhouses equipped with machine-guns. Artillery support was provided by Fort Eben-Emael, whose artillery pieces covered two of the bridges.
  The German High Command became aware of the defensive plan, which called for Belgian forces to briefly hold the delaying positions along the Albert Canal and then retreat to link up with British and French forces on the K-W Line. The Germans developed a strategy that would disrupt this plan, by seizing the three bridges in the "Maastricht Appendix", as well as other bridges in Belgium and the Netherlands. This would allow their own forces to breach the defensive positions and advance into the Netherlands.
caption: A retractable gun turret at Fort Eben-Emael
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