What was the liberation of the Netherlands by Canada?

The liberation of the Netherlands by Canada was the Allied campaign from September 1944 to May 5, 1945 to liberate the German-occupied Netherlands. The First Canadian Army (commanded by General Harry Crerar) played the leading role as part of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group. The Canadians ended the Hongerwinter (Hunger Winter) of 1944 to 1945 that had killed about 22,000 Dutch civilians from starvation and exposure. The campaign forged a lasting Dutch-Canadian friendship that remains a defining feature of bilateral relations.

The campaign began with the Battle of the Scheldt (October 2 to November 8, 1944), in which the First Canadian Army cleared the Scheldt Estuary to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping. The Canadians fought through the Breskens Pocket (Operation Switchback, October 6 to November 3, 1944), the Beveland Peninsula (October 24 to 31, 1944), and Walcheren Island (November 1 to 8, 1944). The Battle of the Scheldt cost about 12,873 Allied casualties, of whom about 6,367 were Canadians (over 3,650 Canadians killed and wounded between October 6 and November 8, 1944).

The German Ardennes counter-offensive of December 1944 to January 1945 (the Battle of the Bulge) delayed the planned advance into Germany. The First Canadian Army held the northern flank of the Allied front in the Netherlands during this period. Operation Veritable (February 8 to March 11, 1945) saw the I Canadian Corps and II Canadian Corps (reunited from the Italian Campaign in February 1945) clear the Reichswald and the German Rhineland west of the Rhine. The Rhine crossing (March 23 to 24, 1945, Operation Plunder) moved Canadian forces into Germany.

The northern Netherlands had remained under German occupation through the winter of 1944 to 1945. The German-imposed transport embargo and Dutch civil servants' strike (in support of the Allied advance) had caused severe famine in the western Netherlands cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. Dutch civilians ate tulip bulbs and sugar beets to survive. The First Canadian Army's drive into the northern Netherlands began in April 1945. The Canadians liberated Arnhem (April 14, 1945), Apeldoorn (April 17, 1945), Groningen (April 16, 1945), and Leeuwarden. Canadian Operation Manna and the Allied Operation Chowhound (April 29 to May 8, 1945) air-dropped food to the starving Dutch population. German forces in the Netherlands surrendered to General Charles Foulkes at the Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen on May 5, 1945. About 7,600 Canadians died in the Netherlands campaigns. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands had given birth to Princess Margriet at the Ottawa Civic Hospital on January 19, 1943 (the maternity ward was temporarily declared Dutch territory to ensure her Dutch citizenship). The Dutch Royal Family expressed their gratitude through the annual gift of about 20,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa, which became the foundation of the annual Canadian Tulip Festival (begun 1953).