Until World War II, it was never actually used for that purpose; an attempt was made in 1794 to establish a defensive line against the invading French army under General Jean-Charles Pichegru, but the joint British-Dutch army abandoned the line when the French troops approached.

In 1939 the disused line was once again fortified against a German attack on the Netherlands, but due to cost issues reinforcements never reached an acceptable level.

The Grebbeline by that time had been largely constructed behind vast inundations, after which a front line lay that was composed of classic trench works mixed with ferro and ferro-concrete bunkers of light and medium grade.

The front-line trenches had hardly any depth and contained only half a battalion of infantry per single km of stretched line.

Reserves could be thrown in from this line and behind it were battalion and regimental CP's as well as forward light artillery positions.

In the meantime a large and bomb-proof pump house had come under construction that, once it would be operable, would be able to flood the area in front of the Grebbeberg after all.

The 207th Infantry Division chose to place its most formidable push at this point, for which it had the motorized SS Regiment Der Führer at its disposal too.

The adjacent 227th Infantry Division, accompanied by the motorized SS Leibstandarte 'Adolf Hitler', had a less profound picture of the plans ahead.

The latter had first raided the Arnhem fortifications near Westervoort and subsequently massed in the city of Wageningen opposing the Grebbeline.

Overnight the Dutch planned a major counterattack by four infantry battalions, which operation was poorly executed and moreover collided with an SS assault along the northern perimeter of the Grebbeberg defences mid-day on the fourth day of the invasion.

German dive bombers sealed the fate of both the Dutch counterattack and the local defences period.

Moreover, the SS Leibstandarte had been called off on the third day and been instructed to redeploy to the south of the Netherlands, where it had to push along the 9th Panzer Division.

By doing so they positioned themselves such that they got exposed to defensive fire from fixed and trench defences as well as artillery along two-thirds of their front and flank side.

Overnight Dutch artillery unleashed a heavy barrage on the suspected German positions, gradually bringing down the density of fire, which finally ceased shortly before dawn.