Reduit

<h2 id="national-reduit">National Reduit</h2>

<p class="note">See also: <a href="/facts/National_redoubt/Be8p5knb">National redoubt</a></p>
<p>In English the term <a href="/facts/National_redoubt/Be8p5knb">National redoubt</a> is fairly commonly used. A <a href="/facts/Redoubt/nDFnrdy7">redoubt</a> is an outlying fortification, so its use to describe the <a href="/facts/Alpine_Fortress/HU1rcWIf">Nazis' National Redoubt</a> in the German and Austrian <a href="/facts/Alps/Q3zdQId4">Alps</a> is an accurate description.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> However another term that is sometimes used in English and more frequently used in French is "national reduit" (<i>réduit national</i>) to describe the holding of the centre of a country while abandoning outlying territory.
</p><p>Examples of this usage are:
</p>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/National_Redoubt_(Belgium)/J135JUm9">National Redoubt</a> (<a href="/facts/French_language/qe1DnaQh">French</a>: <i>Réduit national</i>), a ring of forts built around <a href="/facts/Antwerp/v3Rwa1Mu">Antwerp</a> built between 1859 and 1914, was to be Belgium's national redoubt.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/National_Redoubt_(Switzerland)/5LEpSXev">National Redoubt</a> (<a href="/facts/French_language/qe1DnaQh">French</a>: <i>Réduit national</i>, <a href="/facts/German_language/oWaQIDA8">German</a>: <i>Schweizer Réduit</i>) was a strategy by which the Swiss would first seek to hold an invading army on the border. If that failed, the army would launch a delaying war, allowing the bulk of the Swiss forces to withdraw to a defensible perimeter in the <a href="/facts/Swiss_Alps/4oUJF4jo">Swiss Alps</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a></li>
<li>Réduit des Flandres, during the <a href="/facts/Battle_of_France/mqqL078G">Battle of France</a> of the <a href="/facts/Second_World_War/2efV5L1U">Second World War</a>, around the <a href="/facts/Channel_ports/gC2A3qVm">Channel ports</a> of <a href="/facts/Boulogne/jmQ3W7kJ">Boulogne</a>, <a href="/facts/Calais/DaM9yzWq">Calais</a> and <a href="/facts/Dunkirk/MYzumqPp">Dunkirk</a>.</li>
<li>Réduit Breton, also during the Battle of France in a later phase, in the <a href="/facts/Peninsula/vnqBFUvp">peninsula</a> of <a href="/facts/Brittany/XvquwmIg">Brittany</a>.</li></ul>
<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.fort.ch">Fortifications open to the public as museums</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Oxford English Dictionary, reduit "2. A keep or stronghold into which a garrison may retreat if the outworks are taken, thereby prolonging the defence of the place". <a href="/wiki/Garrison" target="_blank">/wiki/Garrison</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>"reduit, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford University Press. November 2010 [September 2009]. Retrieved 3 March 2011.. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1904.
1948 Times 31 Dec. 3/3 "The obsolete conception of a national reduit has been abandoned in favour of an extra-territorial base established in the Belgian Congo".
2003 Macpherson Amer. Intelligence War-time London vi. 177  "As for the Reduit (or Redoubt), this was the rumoured area for 'a last-ditch stand' in the Bavarian, Austrian and Italian Alps".
 <a href="http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/160532" target="_blank">http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/160532</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>"reduit, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford University Press. November 2010 [September 2009]. Retrieved 3 March 2011.. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1904.
1948 Times 31 Dec. 3/3 "The obsolete conception of a national reduit has been abandoned in favour of an extra-territorial base established in the Belgian Congo".
2003 Macpherson Amer. Intelligence War-time London vi. 177  "As for the Reduit (or Redoubt), this was the rumoured area for 'a last-ditch stand' in the Bavarian, Austrian and Italian Alps".
 <a href="http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/160532" target="_blank">http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/160532</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/109-the-schweizer-reduit-hard-core-switzerland/ Strange Maps <a href="http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/109-the-schweizer-reduit-hard-core-switzerland/" target="_blank">http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/109-the-schweizer-reduit-hard-core-switzerland/</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Reduit open-in-new

Reduit