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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Schliengen/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 10:52, 6 January 2015 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Battle of Schliengen

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Nominator(s): auntieruth (talk) 00:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the Battle of Schliengen, in October 1796, between elements of the French Republican Army and the Habsburg and royalist French armies. It has been through reviews in the MIL Hist wikiproject and recently passed A-class. I'd appreciate constructive criticism. It is at least comparable with other articles of similar type that I have brought to FA review.. auntieruth (talk) 00:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "the Prince Condé", "the Condé": There's no requirement for consistency in titles within Wikipedia, but I think it would help. I see from a link below that this is Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé (it would be better to move the link to first occurrence); I don't see "the Prince Condé" in that article, looking quickly. There are lots of ways to write titles, and I don't know a lot about the subject, but many of them sound jargony to a wide readership.
  • fixed
  • "on Freiburg": "assigned to Freiburg" or "at Freiburg" might be a little clearer.
  • "))": MOS frowns on this.
  • Yes, I do too. However, the template assigns a parens. What do I do?
    • The convert template used to handle this, but I don't see it in the list of parameters now. Do it without the convert template, using "or" instead of parens. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "His position on the heights gave him the advantage in any approach; his troops would be firing downhill on the Habsburg troops, which would have to not only look up into the fire but also would have to march uphill. The French position, in the chain of abrupt and woody heights, seemed nearly impregnable.": There's overlap between this and the next paragraph: "... Moreau had chosen an almost unassailable position, especially for his center. Any Habsburg force would have to cross the Kandern; in most cases, it would have to advance uphill into withering fire."
  • fixed
  • fixed in both instances.
  • "Feldberg, his column moved with the corps": ?
  • fixed
*I don't see it.....auntieruth (talk) 17:49, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image check

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Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Longer quotes (more than 40 words) should be blockquoted
fixed, although I think it makes the spacing awkward.
  • Why do some resources have full citations in both Citations and Sources, but others have only one?
I think these are fixed now.
  • Databook or Data Book for Smith?
fixed
  • Be consistent in whether you include publisher locations
some of the publishing locations are self evident, but now they are included. In other case, there was no publishing location, esp on the old books.
  • Why do some short cites include title while others don't?
fixed
  • Kepner or Keppner?
fixed
  • Some general inconsistencies in how citations are punctuated.

Nikkimaria (talk) 17:04, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - This is tentative (I need to reread the article to make sure I didn't miss anything) but a speed read through shows a good article with all the associated I's dotted and T's crossed. You are missing alt text for two images though, I'd entertain the idea of adding it if you can. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Support
  • I think I got all the links.
  • Link and give the full name of Archduke Charles the first time he appears in the main body. The lead doesn't count.
  • moved some stuff around and included a better explanation of who these guys (see below too) were.
  • Add convert template to "211-mile" (Why are we using miles anyway?)
  • done (why not miles?)
  • Who is Wurmser? Fürstenburg? Condé? Jourdan? Moreau? Links please. Full name on first appearance in the body. (Fürstenburg is subsequently linked twice.) Explanation would not go astray either.
  • What is the 74th, 17th and 84th? Regiments? Demi-brigades?
  • Yes, Demis. By this time, the French had reorganized themselves (one of the many times).
  • Move the map up to the first section
  • did you mean the map of the river? I put a different map in.
  • "16th and 50th Demi-brigades" Here the B should be capitalised here.
  • idk...I think since it is referring to two, it would not.
  • "4000 prisoners" -> "4,000 prisoners"
  • fixed
  • "emigre" -> "émigré"
  • yes!

Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:02, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
  • "The village of Schliengen lies close to the border of present-day Baden-Württemberg (Germany), the Haut-Rhin (France), and the Canton of Basel-Stadt (Switzerland), in the Kreis Lörrach." How about "The village of Schliengen, in present-day Baden-Württemberg (Germany), lies close to the borders with the Haut-Rhin (France), and the Canton of Basel-Stadt (Switzerland), in the Kreis Lörrach." This gives an extra piece of information in much the same words.
  • fixed
  • "After retreating from Freiburg im Breisgau, Moreau established his army along a ridge of hills, in a 7-mile (11 km) semi-circle on heights that commanded the terrain below. Given the severe condition of the roads at the end of October, Archduke Charles could not flank the right French wing." This wording seems to imply some previous knowledge. I would prefer something like "On 20 October Moreau retreated from his position at Freiburg..." and "Archduke Charles could not flank (outflank?) the French right wing because the roads at the end of October were in a bad condition."
  • fixed
  • Background section. I take hchc's point that too much background upsets the balance of the article, but I would have liked a couple of sentences to cover the abrupt transition between 1792 and 1796.
  • added a wee bit
  • "with sufficient depth to resist the pressure of their opposition." opponents might be a better word.
  • "had already made itself onerous, by reputation and rumor at least, throughout France." I do not understand this. My dictionary defines onerous as requiring a great deal of effort. Do you mean odious, and if so how?
  • fixed
  • "An assault into the German states was essential, as far as French commanders understood," I think "in the view of French commanders" would be better.
  • clarified
  • "The ardent Republican" "An ardent Republican"?
  • clarified
  • "The Swabian force consisted of recruits and most of them were field hands and day laborers drafted for service in the spring of that year." I do not understand this. Recruits implies voluntary enlistment and drafted suggests conscription. This comment is repeated with slightly different wording below.
  • fixed
  • What is the Swabian Circle?
  • clarified
  • "As Charles withdrew further east, the neutral zone expanded" What was the neutral zone?
  • clarified
  • "the armies of the Coalition and the armies of the Directory sought to flank each other". Not sure, but I think it should be outflank. This applies to other cases where flank is used. A flanking attack is one on the side of the opposing force, but moving round the side of an enemy to outmanoeuvre them is outflanking.
  • "On 3 September at Würzburg, Jourdan attempted to halt the retreat. Once Moreau received word of this defeat". this defeat? You have not said that the attempt was unsuccessful.
  • clarified
  • "The Austrian corps commanded by Latour drew too close to Moreau at Biberach and lost 4,000 prisoners" Austrians taken prisoner?
  • clarified
thank you so much! auntieruth (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Swabian force consisted of recruits provided by the members of the Swabian Circle and most of them were literally raw recruits, field hands and day laborers drafted for service in the spring of that year." I still do not understand whether they were voluntary recruits, or the Swabian Circle. Were the Swabian Circle a group of aristocrats and the "recruits" their serfs? Below you say "most of the Swabian Circle was abandoned to the French" as if it was an area of land. PS. I see that note 2 (on the second mention of the Swabian Circle, not the first) refers to imperial circles as groups of states, but the relevance is not obvious on first reading. I think it would be clearer to say that the Swabian circle is an example of a group of states organised in an imperial circle.
  • okay I think this should be clearer now.
  • Terrain section. You might move the map to the right. With it on the left, the block quote is not indented.
  • done
  • Key Figures in the Battle of Schliengen. It is a bit odd that the commanders are not in these images of key figures. I would suggest moving the commanders to have the portraits all together.
  • "The defeats of Jourdan's army at the Amberg and Würzburg allowed Charles to move more troops to the south." Presumably to Schliengen? I am sure you explain the geography above but it is difficult to keep track.
  • clarified
  • "south-west through the mountains from Elzach, through Bleibach and Waldkirch. Just to the southwest" Inconsistent southwest or south-west.
  • fixed
  • "(see 47°45′N 7°36′E), .8 miles (1 km) east of Schliengen." Usually shown as 0.8 miles.
  • fixed.

Note -- Ruth, do I take it that the paragraph at the end of Summer of maneuvers is sourced to FN15? If so I'd suggest move the citation from the opening sentence of the subsection to the end of the subsection, as my first thought was that there was a significant block of unreferenced text... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk)

I see that Ealdgyth also picked this up and that it's been actioned, tks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • Sources look good.
  • CorenSearchBot shows here a duplication problem, but the site given is a Wikipedia mirror (and it correctly credits the Wikipedia article). Googling three random phrases showed no copyvios - only wikipedia mirrors.
  • not sure how I can prevent this sort of thing.
  • Background:
    • A date for the Declaration of Pilnitz? I'm not excessively familiar with the details of the whole French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars time frame (and the average reader is almost always even more historically ignorant than I am) so a date would help.
  • added
  • Campaign in 1796
    • Missing context for "the army but the thin white line of Habsburg infantry " .. why is it a "thin white line"?
  • they wore white coats. Just a turn of phrase. I added a note and citation to article.
    • Is there a source for "The Austrian army consisted of professionals, many moved from the border regions in the Balkans, and conscripts drafted from the imperial circles."? It has a footnote ... but is the source for that footnote also for the sentence?
  • yes. Moved citation to end of paragraph
    • "Furthermore, it was an army entirely dependent for support upon the countryside." .. this could mean two things - political/moral support or material support. I think it's a bit opaque to the non-specialist here.
  • material support.
  • Summer of maneuvers
    • Is there a source for the information in the concluding paragraph here?
  • don't know where that went, because certainly everything was sourced at one point. HOWEVER, I've added the source back in.
  • Preliminaries
    • "eight battalions and 14 squadrons" - per the MOS - it should be either "8 battalions and 14 squadrons" or "eight battalions and fourteen squadrons" - given the later sentences, I'd suggest "8 battalions and 14 squadrons"
  • all those are fixed, although it goes against my training to do that.
  • Austrian strategy
    • "included 11 battalions and two regiments of cavalry" as above, either "included 11 battalions and 2 regiments of cavalry" or "included eleven battalions and two regiments of cavalry". Either seems fine to me.
  • see above
  • Combat:
    • Why are we suddenly given coordinates in this section (and the next) when we haven't been before? Consistency, because "castle of Bürglen 3.9 miles (6 km) to the east" doesn't give coords... and why "(see [coord])" instead of just giving the coord?
  • all coords added here because most of these villages don't exist today as separate entities, and they can be hard to find. Eventually I'll have a map for this, but not yet.
    • "Ferino's troops sustained "prodigies of valor" from daybreak to nightfall" .. sustained seems odd here - "performed"? If you're quoting Ferino with the sustained, then expand the quotation there.
  • translations. moved quotation mark.
Most of these are minor and would not make me withhold support, but the unreferenced paragraph needs sourcing, as it includes some opinionish type writing. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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