Fort Eben-Emael: Geographic Pivot of the Western Front, 1940

Abstract

On 11 May 1940, Fort Eben-Emael, touted to be the strongest fort in the world and lynchpin in the Allied defensive system, fell to a small, highly trained force of German glider troops. The world was shocked by the mysterious and unorthodox attack that caused the fort to surrender after only 28 hours, thus opening a gap in the Allied line through which German panzers advanced: 10 days later the Belgians capitulated, and French forces along the Ardennes and Meuse River collapsed, precipitating the Allied debacle at Dunkirk. Thus, Eben-Emael was perhaps the geographic pivot of the Western Front. Fort Eben-Emael was built during the interwar period and carefully sited on an 80-meter high ridge of hard limestone south of Maastricht to protect key crossing points along the Meuse River. Recognizing the critical nature of this terrain, the Belgian Army constructed the fort to be immensely strong and impregnable – except from the air, a fatal flaw that the highly trained German force exploited. The fall of Eben-Emael was decisive because it opened a lethal gap in the Allied line, and it triggered the collapse of the Western Front. This paper will examine the geography Fort Eben-Emael and the German attack on the fort to demonstrate its importance to the strategic geometry of the Western Front and its significance as a geographic pivot during this decisive campaign.