Talk:Breakup of Spanish armed forces (1936)

Initial comments

I have written this entry out of desperation. Nowhere I could have found comprehensive data on manpower split of the armed forces, just fragmentary info, loose bits and pieces or general, but extravagant claims. So, I have decided to put all what is available together, hoping to arrive at some meaningful conclusions. First I have checked all books on my shelves, then I combed GoogleBooks, and finally I did some loose internet search. The result is this piece. I am afraid I am where I was. In some cases information from different sources seems to converge (e.g. how many peninsular troops stayed loyal), but in some there are contradictory claims, e.g. Payne claims the overall majority joined the rebels, but Casanova claims the opposite. But at least you have all the differences listed now.

Yes, I was tempted to offer my own estimates. But first, sooner or later the Wikipedia Guardia Civil would descend upon me and label it “own work”. And second, I failed to find any rationale as to what is the best way to proceed among many at times widely different estimates. So I have just settled for a table with minimum and maximum numbers. My request: please do not try to improve the article by offering “averages”, “widely accepted figures”, “data offered by expert historians”, “figures prevailing in historiography” etc., unless there is indeed some comprehensive work which covers it all and which I missed. Sure in case there are some other estimates I failed to comb out of GoogleBooks or whatever it would be great if you add them.

rgds, --Hh1718 (talk) 18:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hh1718 The page is well done, it's a good choice that you shouldn't offer your own estimates, it would indeed be WP:OR. The table is perfectly fine. Noorullah (talk) 22:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)