Talk:Charles Townshend (British Army officer)

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After reading both "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman Dixon and "The Siege" by Russel Braddon, I intend a rewrite on this article, specifically the evaluation of Townshend. It would be a VERY negative view on Townshend, basically characterizing him as selfish and completely indifferent to the suffering and fate of the men under his command. Would there be objections to this view?

Regarding the note from above...not sure who the author is, so if you would like to chat, please let me know. I am not sure a wholesale negative characterization of Townshend is entirely accurate. A lot of factors need to be taken into account when judging his actions regarding the capitulation of Kut. Going back in time, if you had asked about his competence while achieving victory after victory on his way towards Ctesiphon, one might have gleaned an entirely different characterization of the man. Not to take away from the disaster at Kut, but I think one needs to review the lack of political and military support from India as an important factor in Townshend's decision to advance until his lines of communication were unsupportable. Pjlambert 23:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)Pjlambert

In regard to the author of this article. It must be considered the political pressure put on him to accomplish an impossible mission with the men and supplies he was given. The fact he made it as far Ctesiphon is testament to his skill at command. I think it was very well written and researched and as he was an ancestor of mine happy that others beside me remember him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.205.144 (talk) 23:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Final Sentence About Townshend's Life a Bit Messy

As qualifiers increase to a mind-boggling level in the final sentence of this article while it prepares the reader for a conclusion to Townshend's life (probably involving the loss of his Wrekin seat, whether through a vote or, more likely, a forced resignation), said conclusion… never comes, as the description stops abruptly, mid-sentence…

"However, as post-war reports surfaced about how badly the troops under his command had suffered at the hands of the Turkish Army as prisoners of war after their capture at the fall of Kut-al-Amara, thousands of them having died in Ottoman captivity, many having been brutalized and murdered," … … … ??? Asteriks (talk) 01:07, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Too much trimming?

There seems to have been a flurry of edits towards the end of 2017 aimed towards trimming down what used to be a very long article. While I concede that it did need condensing, the fact is that the article as it exists now omits vast sections of his career. For instance, there are numerous references during the accounts of his actions in Mesopotamia, to his earlier exploits at Chitral at the start of his career. Yet there is no mention of precisely what took place during the Siege of Chitral in the first half of the article. There are also one or two places where it seems two totally unrelated sentences have been merged. Is it possible that, in the effort to condense this article, people have edited out rather too much? 78.147.202.47 (talk) 04:59, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Disagree! The article is still absurdly overlong and needs even more drastic trimming, being broken down into easily readable chunks under sub-headings. The story of the Mesopotamian Campaign should all be in that article, with Townshend's article covering only his rôle. His private life and opinions are of little importance. Clifford Mill (talk) 08:58, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

The blanking at the end of December was just that - blanking. It broke references, broke sentences, removed sections, and left us encountering people or things that had not been properly introduced. I have undone it. If editors feel the article is too long or overdetailed - and I do not - then they should edit it carefully, not just slash and burn, and they should use this talk page to try gain consensus as to what should or should not be removed. DuncanHill (talk) 22:06, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

As there is far too much murky bathwater, it is not surprising if bits of the baby get lost. There are only three things important about this man: (a) his command in Mesopotamia, (b) his captivity, and (c) the subsequent exposure of the sufferings of his men and of his callous incompetence. The rest of his life needs only a few paragraphs. Clifford Mill (talk) 08:08, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

By "Murky bathwater" I take it you mean "referenced text"? It's not acceptable to just blindly blank lumps of the article which you personally aren't interested in, especially when doing so reduces parts of it to incomprehensibility, and buggers up references which others have taken care to introduce. Take a less fanatical position and propose positive changes. DuncanHill (talk) 23:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Three observations: (a) text that is superfluous is superfluous, no matter how brilliantly referenced it may be, (b) an awful lot of people are not interested in the subject of this article, and will not be while it is insanely padded out, (c) I personally have proposed specific changes, but so far nobody has agreed and I shall not return to this page. Clifford Mill (talk) 19:29, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

With all due respect, as the author of most of this page, which I have done a lot of hard work on, I felt that this article was all right. Mr. Mill, you very well find much of this article to be no interest to you, but those who are interested, I hoped to give an accessible overview on his life. You accused me of writing "dotted with numerous errors attributable to ignorance of the times", but you not listed a singe one. I suppose some of this article could be moved over to articles on the Mesopotamian campaign or the siege of Kut. I'll do some work on this article over the month or so. Thank Duncan Hill for your good care on this article and a sensible approach, which is much appreciated! Cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 20:30, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Reading this one year on, I have made condensations, partly through economies such as, once the full names had been introduced, referring to Kut al Amara simply by its first name as there was no other Kut in the story to be confused with, and the 6th (Poona) Division simply as 6th Division. I have also consolidated all references to the captivity of himself and the Kut troops under the 'Prisoner of War' section heading, so other users can make further trims. (The extensive detail on the treatment of the 'other ranks' might be more useful in an article on the Mesopotamian campaign or on the subject of prisoners of war in the Great War period). Other points I could suggest for trimming (if I don't get round to them myself) could be consolidating the presently scattered references to his Francophilia, showbiz penchant and ambitiousness into unified paragraphs. Also his brief period as MP might benefit from more information, as his political interests were not as notable as his military ones. Cloptonson (talk) 20:16, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

To update, I have filled in a little more on his parliamentary service, and other details under post WWI life, sourced from ODNB. Given the detail, I have excised the uncited last sentence By the time of his death in 1924, his military reputation lay under a shadow in consequence. Cloptonson (talk) 11:40, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Another economy may be to delete repetitions of citations when they successively appear without alternation with another source citation within a paragraph. If a whole paragraph, for example, contains several citations to the same exact source, the last occurring citation of the reference could be left to speak for the whole paragraph, or for the preceding sentences before the occurrence of a citation to another source. Citations can, as I think they should, be left where their absence would leave quotations unattributed and attracting citation needs. I have done this in the article on Sam Hughes and will do the same, with applied discretion, here.Cloptonson (talk) 11:02, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Much material on the siege of Kut that is extraneous to Townshend's experience and input could be transferred to the main article on that siege, which looks less well fed. Ditto with the Battle of Ctesiphon and the overall Mesopotamian Campaign. Cloptonson (talk) 08:25, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Banjo

Apropos the above discussion, I was just watching an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on the comedian Paul Merton. Two of his ancestors (a couple) were music hall performers, circa 1870, who played the banjo, and the researcher mentioned how there was a "banjo craze" in the UK in mid nineteenth century. I immediately thought of this article, and the young Townshend's love of music halls and banjo playing.

A good example of how there is almost no such thing as useless knowledge (and as I get older, I often find the most interesting parts of biographies are the early years, which offer an insight into the times through which the person lived).

Might even be worth a very brief footnote.Paulturtle (talk) 04:04, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

And Edward VII, I've just learned, could play a bit of banjo, having been taught by James Bohee, of whom I had not previously heard.Paulturtle (talk) 02:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Funny article, but the dog is laying it on a bit thick...

Firstly, thanks to whoever put the effort into writing this article. They were clearly trying to tell a darkly humorous tale of man-made disaster, and succeeded; the result is entertaining to read, despite its length. I have to say though, I think it goes a bit out of its way to paint Townshend as a blithering incompetent, obsessed with his own ego and heedless to the suffering of his men. That might well be how most of the sources describe him; but it still comes off as a one-sided work of demolition. As others on the talk page have suggested, there must be another side to the story. Snarky observations such as he spent an inordinate amount of his time making certain that his dog Spot did not suffer from the siege, a tender concern that did not extend to the ordinary British and Indian soldiers under his command... are funny, but cannot reasonably be called neutral. Robofish (talk) 22:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I have trimmed and rephrased some of the detail of him and his dog and other parts of the paragraph.Cloptonson (talk) 09:57, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

How did Spot get home to England to greet him when he returned in 1919? Was he sent on ahead? Did he teleport? Or did his family buy another, similar-looking dog like you would for a child whose beloved pet has died? Or was Spot home in England the whole time, and his "concerns about his dog" were in letters home, and has somebody misconstrued them? Paulturtle (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)