A Roman fort in Holland is linked to the conquest of Britain

INVADING AAD country is rarely easy, as Vladimir Putin discovered this week. Most efforts to conquer Britain, for instance, have been dismal flops. The most recent one, in 1940, never even got out of port. After they gave up, the Nazis studded Europe’s coast with defensive bunkers; many still dot the dunes of Holland.A few miles from these pillboxes, near the town of Velsen, archaeologists have found remains dating from a more successful invasion. In November the head of a dig sponsored by the Dutch Research Council announced that the Roman fort he was excavating had been bigger than anyone thought. Rather than a , housing a few hundred troops, it was a , hosting thousands. A wooden plank dated to the winter of 42, just months before Emperor Claudius’s legions crossed the Channel and made Britain a province of the empire.