The Spanish Netherlands therefore sent Claude de Berlaymont lord of Haultpenne to the area with 42 companies of foot and 25 squadrons of cavalry.

On the place 'where the battle was fought' Hohenlohe somewhat later constructed a new strong fortification that was named Crèvecoeur.

The Dutch wanted to block any action from 's-Hertogenbosch to the Meuse, and in general the Republic was stronger on water.

Somewhat before that, Floris van Brederode, lord of Cloetingen, had marched into the fort with reinforcements.

Now the Dutch built a dam across the Dieze, causing all the surrounding lands to flood, and Mansfeld broke off the siege.

On 4 May 1599 a Spanish army under La Barlotta crossed the Meuse between Kessel and Maren (east of Crèvecoeur) and invaded the Bommelerwaard.

[4] In early 1600 the Walloon and German garrison at Fort Crèvecoeur numbered about 200 men.

After the pay of some men in these garrisons fell 20 months into arrears and that of others for even longer, they mutinied in February 1600.

[7] On 8 May Fort Sint-Andries followed by a treaty that included a payment of 125,000 guilders to the losing garrison.

[clarification needed][8] In 1602 he was successful in the siege of Grave, adding another 30 km of the Meuse to his control.

[1] Crèvecoeur indeed cut off the city from communication upstream on the Meuse, but at the time the Dieze was a dead end.

Fort Crèvecoeur often seems to be depicted as a hamlet on old maps, but it never had any civilian population, even though it had a church.

However, the United Provinces did not allow ships to sail up the Dieze past Crèvecoeur.

Just in time the commander of Crèvecoeur got orders to arrest some ships that were planning to bring supplies to the city.

[15] During the Franco-Dutch War French troops under Turenne easily captured Nijmegen on 9 July, as well as Grave.

Later more batteries were added, and as the enemy approached the militia started to mutiny, leading to the surrender of the fortress on 19 July.

In 1701 the Dutch decided that a fortress was nevertheless needed at the mouth of the Dieze in order to control the inundations of 's-Hertogenbosch.

[19] The fortress then had seven bastions named counter clockwise: Empel, Heel, Maase, Boeckhoven, Henriëtte, Engelen, Dies.

[20] During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) the locks and Dam of Crèvecoeur were put into action after Flanders was lost to the French in 1746.

That same year the locks in the Dieze that flowed through the fort were completed,[18] and shipping was led through the fortress till the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748).

[23] Fort Crèvecoeur was later described as having barracks for the troops, a house for the commander, a church and a gun powder magazine.

On 16 September these were reinforced by the arrival of the Hessen-Darmstad fusileers, bringing the total garrison to 462 men.

There were no gabion baskets, nor other material to make gun ports, i.e. no people able to handle these.

[26] Others claim that the fort did have cover for the soldiers, and questioned the speedy surrender, as well as the abilities and political opinions of the commander.

[27] The surrender of Fort Crèvecoeur enabled the French General Pichegru to open the lock.

This somewhat lowered the inundations around the city, but ideas that these were simply drained by opening the lock at Crèvecoeur are false.

In 1870 the recently renovated Fort Crèvecoeur was mobilized on account of the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1874 two batteries were added to the east, because the dyke of the new Utrecht-Boxtel railroad hindered the fortress' guns.

To create cover for the long traffic jams that could be expected in such circumstances, the terrain was allowed to grow wild.

In spite of the Dieze Canal being much wider, this weir controls most of the water level in the east of North Brabant.