The great mistake : the battle for Antwerp and the Beveland Peninsula, September 1944

On 4 September 1944, the British 11th Armoured Division entered Antwerp, capturing the docks intact with Belgian assistance.

It was 85 days, however, before the first Allied cargo ship reached the docks on 29 November.

Some 80,000 soldiers of the German Fifteenth Army slipped across the Scheldt Estuary and escaped towards Germany along the Beveland peninsula.

Had 11th Armoured immediately sealed off the peninsula where it joined the mainland, the Allies could have eliminated the Fifteenth Army and opened Antwerp's port much earlier, potentially allowing them to cross the Rhine and defeat Nazi Germany in 1944.

Inefficient command structures, conflicts between Allied commanders and differing American and British military cultures all contributed to a huge missed opportunity, described by many historians as 'The Great Mistake'.

Basing his account on official war diaries, unit histories and personal recollections supported by maps, line drawings and archive photographs, Peter Beale examines the background, considers the actions taken and forgone between 4 and 26 September, and reviews their effects on subsequent operations.