Pillbox (military)A pillbox is a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, often camouflaged, normally equipped with loopholes through which defenders can fire weapons. It is in effect a trench firing step, hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades, and raised to improve the field of fire. The modern concrete pillbox originated on the Western Front of World War I, in the German Army in 1916. The origin of the term is disputed.
Siegfried LineThe Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall (= western bulwark), was a German defensive line built during the 1930s (started 1936) opposite the French Maginot Line. It stretched more than from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland. The line featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. From September 1944 to March 1945, the Siegfried Line was subjected to a large-scale Allied offensive.
FortificationA fortification is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin fortis ("strong") and facere ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified.
Maginot LineThe Maginot Line (Ligne Maginot, liɲ maʒino), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack. Consequently, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries in 1940, passing it to the north.
CasemateA casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle. When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" means a double city wall with the space between the walls separated into chambers, which could be filled up to better withstand battering rams in case of siege (see Antiquity: casemate wall). In its original early modern meaning, the term referred to a vaulted chamber in a fort, which may have been used for storage, accommodation, or artillery which could fire through an opening or embrasure.
Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945)The military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany began with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, continued with the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and by the end of 1944 extended to all parts of Czechoslovakia. Following the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938 and the Munich Agreement in September of that same year, Adolf Hitler annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The loss of the Sudetenland was detrimental to the defense of Czechoslovakia, as the extensive Czechoslovak border fortifications were also located in the same area.
SudetenlandThe Sudetenland (suːˈdeɪtənlænd , zuˈdeːtn̩ˌlant; Czech and Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state (first within the Duchy of Bohemia and later the Kingdom of Bohemia) both geographically and politically.
Munich AgreementThe Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and Fascist Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. The pact is also known in some areas as the Munich Betrayal (Mnichovská zrada; Mníchovská zrada), because of a previous 1924 alliance agreement and a 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic.
