Areduit is a fortified structure such as acitadel or akeep into which the defending troops can retreat when the outer defences are breached.^[1] The term is also used to describe an area of a country that, through a ring of heavyfortifications or through enhancing through fortification the defences offered by natural features such as mountains, will be defended even when the rest of the country is occupied by a hostile power.^[2]

In English the termNational redoubt is fairly commonly used. Aredoubt is an outlying fortification, so its use to describe theNazis' National Redoubt in the German and AustrianAlps is an accurate description.^[2] However another term that is sometimes used in English and more frequently used in French is "national reduit" (réduit national) to describe the holding of the centre of a country while abandoning outlying territory.

Examples of this usage are:

• National Redoubt (French:Réduit national), a ring of forts built aroundAntwerp built between 1859 and 1914, was to be Belgium's national redoubt.
• National Redoubt (French:Réduit national,German:Schweizer Réduit) was a strategy by which the Swiss would first seek to hold an invading army on the border. If that failed, the army would launch a delaying war, allowing the bulk of the Swiss forces to withdraw to a defensible perimeter in theSwiss Alps.^[3]
• Réduit des Flandres, during theBattle of France of theSecond World War, around theChannel ports ofBoulogne,Calais andDunkirk.
• Réduit Breton, also during the Battle of France in a later phase, in thepeninsula ofBrittany.

• Fortifications open to the public as museums

• Fortification (architectural elements)

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