Activity overview
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Students will engage in a case study of the decision-making for Walcheren Island. How does the blowing of the dykes affect the outcome of the battle? How does it affect the civilians? What can be sacrificed to achieve the mission?
Students will create a Significance Sketch (The Big Six, pp.26-27) of the post D-Day events of 1944-45 to illustrate their understandings of the significance of the Battle of the Scheldt. Students will analyze their sketches (The Big Six, p. 36) to make visible the criteria they used to determine significance. |
Primary HTC concept(s) explored in this activity
Significance guidepost 3 Does it occupy a meaningful place in a narrative? Secondary HTC concept(s) explored in this activity
Cause and Consequence guidepost 3 Events result from the interplay of historical actors and social, political, economic and cultural conditions. |
In this activity, students will demonstrate understanding by illustrating how the Battle of the Scheldt fits into the Canadian narrative of how the war must be won. The intent is that students will explore the significance of opening up the ports from a military perspective, and how this compares with the need to rescue civilians from starvation. Please see The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts (2012) by Peter Seixas and Tom Morton, as well as the Historical Thinking Project website for further ideas for student assessment or to adapt these activities.
Questions posed to students in this activity
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Research question(s): What must be done to take this territory from the Germans? What was known to military commanders about the starvation of the Dutch population in October 1944?
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Inquiry question: Which should take priority, the military or the humanitarian objective?
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Considerations for teachers to introduce in student inquiry
Additional guiding questions for students: What must Canadian soldiers have thought when fighting from mud and cold, water-filled trenches under heavy German shell-fire without enough hot food, ammunition or replacements, especially when Canadians back home talked and planned for life after the war?
Allied and Canadian operations in the Autumn of 1944 were mounted with knowledge of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, Slavs, and other targeted groups, as well as of the plight of tens of millions of innocent people living in German-occupied Europe. What was known about the Holocaust among military commanders? Among soldiers? Among civilians on the home front? If you were in command would you push your soldiers to sacrifice themselves to save those innocent people?
Debates among historians: Many Allied commanders and soldiers at the time argued that the Canadian Army should have been given priority for supplies and reinforcements to open Antwerp in September, rather than waiting for late October. Most historians echo that criticism. Is it a fair critique?
Historians divide the autumn events into two distinct phases: the September battles for northern France and Belgium and the bitter October-November struggle for the Scheldt River Estuary through which ships must sail to reach Antwerp.
Allied and Canadian operations in the Autumn of 1944 were mounted with knowledge of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, Slavs, and other targeted groups, as well as of the plight of tens of millions of innocent people living in German-occupied Europe. What was known about the Holocaust among military commanders? Among soldiers? Among civilians on the home front? If you were in command would you push your soldiers to sacrifice themselves to save those innocent people?
Debates among historians: Many Allied commanders and soldiers at the time argued that the Canadian Army should have been given priority for supplies and reinforcements to open Antwerp in September, rather than waiting for late October. Most historians echo that criticism. Is it a fair critique?
Historians divide the autumn events into two distinct phases: the September battles for northern France and Belgium and the bitter October-November struggle for the Scheldt River Estuary through which ships must sail to reach Antwerp.