The fort had acquired a reputation of impregnability (some newspaper articles called it the Gibraltar of the North) which the Belgian government had every reason to encourage, and it formed, with the Meuse River, from the French border to Namur and Liège and then on northwest along the newly dug Albert Canal, the first line of defence against a German invasion coming through the Dutch province of Limburg, which juts out a long way south between the German and Belgian borders. Eben Emael is situated close to where the two obstacles, the Meuse and the Albert Canal, meet. Thus it formed the easternmost hinge position of the first defensive line the Belgian Army was planning to hold against a German attack.

To make the Allies (France and Britain) believe that the German breakthrough in neutral Belgium and Holland was the genuine breakthrough (rather than the later Sedan to the Somme ‘sicklecut’ which was the real planned Schwerpunkt – where the main push would be made) it was essential to achieve three things. First they must take Eben Emael, then secure the Meuse/Albert Canal crossings, and finally lure the Allied force deep into Belgian territory (which for various reasons they wanted to do anyway), so that as many as possible of the French and British troops would be drawn into a trap – to be sprung when the Panzers reached Abbeville and the Somme estuary on 20 May 1940. To take Fort Eben Emael by simply bombing and shooting at it was feasible. That is how the other forts around Liège were dealt with, but at this point it would have expended too much time and heavy ammunition, so two new surprise weapons were used, apparently at Hitler’s own prompting: glider transports and hollow charges, together with heavy, continuous Stuka bombing.

If the fall of Eben Emael (taken by surprise with new, hitherto unknown weapons) was bad news, it should be noted that the real catastrophe of the campaign was the fall of the key position of Sedan in France (taken with conventional means against an enemy that had ample warning), because it opened the whole Western Front to a turning and enveloping westward movement that was to lead to its eventual collapse.

The silent cupolas at Eben Emael still show the effects of the hollow charges, though they were partially cemented over by the Germans, who did not want their new weapon to be known. Only birdsong can now be heard where on a May dawn, the war in the West began with great noise, blood, suffering and destruction. Forts Eben Emael, Aubin Neufchâteau, as well as Battice and also Loncin, taken in August 1914 at the beginning of another war, and several others in the Liège area can be visited today.⁴ A pleasant drive along the different bridges over the Albert Canal is also possible and several interesting monuments are to be seen close to them.