Beautiful hard gravel strip along the Peel Canal (also called the Defense Canal). A path with history and very beautiful nature. Many bunkers and other traces of the war.
Source Wikipedia:
The Defense Canal or Peel Canal was dug in the Peel in 1939 - from Griendtsveen - as part of the Peel-Raamstelling. The canal reaches the Raam, a small river above Mill. It served as a drainage canal and anti-tank ditch, which quickly gave it the name Defense Canal.
On the west side, an 80 kilometer long defense line was built with minefields, casemates, barbed wire barriers and trenches behind them. This was called the Peel Framework. At the beginning of the war, the existing railway line (the so-called German Line) was equipped with a hastily constructed asparagus barrier on either side of the bridge at Mill over the defense canal.
The Defense Canal was a typical Dutch economic product. It was wanted by Defense, but because it was built by unemployed people, other departments helped pay for it. In this way, several birds were killed with one stone.
The Peel Framework played an important role in the defense strategy of the Netherlands before the Second World War. That position was constructed behind the Defense Canal and the Zuid-Willemsvaart, and ran from the Raam in the north to Weert in the south. According to the original strategy in 1939, the position and the security zone behind it would contain the III Army Corps and the Light Division, approximately 35,000 men. With the change of commanders in chief in February 1940, the strategy changed and the Peel-Raamstelling would only have a weak occupation and the rest of the troops would withdraw within the Fortress of Holland on the first night of the war.
When the Germans invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, there was fierce fighting at some locations along the Defense Canal on May 10 and 11. The Battle of Mill in particular was fierce and lasted more than 24 hours. The battles that were fought further south in the Peel-Raamstelling mainly took place in the sector of the position that was constructed behind the Zuid-Willemsvaart.