james holland, you are a historian.e about 100,000 people who have gathered to commemorate what's often referred to as a historic failure. and yet there's more to it than that. well, there is, yes, because the idea behind it was, as you say, to get in through the back door and had it worked, you know, that could have foreshortened the war by a number of months, and it really could have been over by christmas. so, the principles behind which it was planned and executed were entirely laudable, a high risk operation for certain, but one that could have worked, i think. a lot of historians disagree with that take. but my own view, having walked this ground here and overat nijmegen and studied it in some detail, i think it could have worked. and what these people here and the people commemorating in nijmegen and also here in arnhem are commemorating is that effort. it was an attempt to liberate them early, as it turned out, it didn't work out. arnhem itself was left pretty shattered and the dutch living here had a terrible w