Bergen op Zoom is a city located in the south of the Netherlands. скачать в хорошем качестве

Bergen op Zoom is a city located in the south of the Netherlands.

Bergen op Zoom was granted city status probably in 1212. In 1287 the city and its surroundings became a lordship as it was separated from the lordship of Breda. The lordship was elevated to a margraviate in 1559. Several noble families, including the House of Glymes, ruled Bergen op Zoom in succession until 1795, although the title was only nominal since at least the seventeenth century. During the early modern period, Bergen op Zoom was a very strong fortress and one of the main armories and arsenals of the United Provinces. It had a remarkable natural defensive site, surrounded as it was by marshes and easily flooded polders. Furthermore, it could receive reinforcements and supplies by sea, if the besieging army did not have a fleet to blockade its port. Due to these features, the city was one of the strategic points held by the Dutch during their revolt in the Eighty Years War, beginning in the late sixteenth century. It was at that time besieged by Alessandro Farnese first in 1588, and by Ambrosio Spinola a second time in 1622. Both sieges were unsuccessful, and Bergen op Zoom got the nickname La Pucelle or The Virgin as it was never successfully taken in a siege. In 1747, during the War of the Austrian Succession, the French army laid siege to the city. Bergen op Zoom had been fortified by new works built at the beginning of the 17th century by Menno van Coehoorn, with three forts surrounding the city and a canalized diversion of the Scheldt acting as a ditch around its walls. However, it had no second line of fortifications, nor any fortress. After seventy days of siege, the city was taken and thoroughly sacked; the garrison was slaughtered. During the War of the Sixth Coalition, the town was again besieged by the British in March 1814 in a failed attempt to dislodge the French garrison. (Wikipedia)