How did Belgians deliberately create a swamp to stop Germany? #history

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]How did a Belgian army deliberately create a swamp to stop the Germans in 1914? In the opening months of World War I, a massive German invasion force crushed its way through neutral Belgium.

[00:00:09]The surviving Belgian soldiers were backed into a tiny corner against the North Sea, leaving them with one last radical option. Under the cover of darkness, they deliberately opened the coastal locks at Newport, allowing the high tides of the ocean to pour directly inland. The freezing sea water flooded the low-lying plains, drowning the battlefield and turning the front lines into a miles wide impassible swamp. The Belgians had forged a permanent watery fortress. The unstoppable German advance instantly sank into the mud and the invasion was paralyzed for the next 4