The activity is simple.  The teacher presents history students with two examples of primary sources, in this case press releases from a pair of fictitious countries which have just declared war on each other.  The details in the press releases I have prepared are based on examples of the reasons why Germany and Britain entered the Second World War, but I have placed the war in modern times, and I have used the fictitious nations of Lilliput and the Arcadian Commonwealth.  The object of the exercise is to have students read both primary
sources, then write a quick note to a friend to explain why the Lilliputians and the Arcadians have gone to war.

The next stage of the exercise would be to have students read their notes and comment, as a class, on the differences in their accounts.  This is intended to lead into a discussion on the value of examining primary sources instead of relying solely upon secondary accounts of historical events.  After this, the teacher can present students with an excerpt from a secondary account of the start of the Second World War.  The exercise entails asking students to infer, from what they have now learned, what the new account actually says, or does not say, about the
causes of the Second World War.  Discussions can be raised on issues such as who wrote the account, why they wrote it, and what, if any, biases they may be demonstrating.

The fictitious primary sources follow:

President Uzial Gal has officially declared war on the Arcadian Commonwealth.

“We can no longer tolerate the unfair economic and military sanctions which have forced our people into poverty, and threaten to starve our nation into oblivion,” said Gal in a televised address on Lilliput’s national news agency.

Gal pointed to Arcadian sanctions preventing trade with neighbouring countries, the lack of access to ports once open to Lilliputian ships, and the ever-increasing Arcadian military presence along coastal waters.  Gal said the time had come to use military force to liberate former Lilliputian ports, and to regain control of the nation’s economic destiny.

At 6am today, Thursday, June 6th, 2001, The Arcadian Naval frigate Manifest was attacked, and sunk, by a Lilliputian Navy destroyer.  The Manifest was on a routine training mission off the coast of Utopia, outside of Lilliputian waters, at the time.

“We will not stand for such unprovoked aggression,” said Arcadian Chancellor Augustus Walton shortly before noon in a televised address to the Commonwealth.  “Nor can we stand idly by and allow the Lilliputian regime to continue with its attempts to subvert the continental economy, and violate the sovereignty of its continental neighbours.”

Walton said the Commonwealth’s full military forces have been mobilized to suppress the Lilliputian threat.