Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/War of the Grand Alliance
I've substantially updated the article. If you feel inclined, please tell me what you think Raymond Palmer 23:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Very good article, overall; aside from the usual quibbles on formatting and layout, there are a few broader issues that I'll comment on.
The use of the pull-quote boxes as a layout tool for tangent discussions is quite interesting. It's not something that I've ever seen on Wikipedia, but I'm familiar with the idea from printed works. Personally, I'm not disturbed by it, but other people may object that the boxes interrupt the flow of the article. In any case, if they're retained, I'd suggest several changes:
- Change the boxes to use a template (to be created) for the formatting, to ensure that they can be changed easily.
- Enlarge the font a bit; it's not too bad in Firefox, but unpleasantly small in IE.
- Perhaps lighten the background?
Another suggestion would be to merge the Treaty of Ryswick article directly into the "Aftermath" section here (or perhaps create a separate "Treaty of Ryswick" section above it). There's not much of interest to be said about the treaty per se; in such cases, my preference is to merge it directly into the war article, both to give it more context and to avoid leaving a side article with no hope of real improvement.
A third issue is the question of whom to list under the "Commanders" field of the infobox. Political leaders is one possibility; but, given that some of them (Charles II!) didn't really play a significant role in military affairs, it may be better to list some of the more prominent field commanders instead. It's mostly an issue of personal preference, though, so it's entirely up to you.
Aside from that, the minor stuff:
- The infobox should list all the significant combatants; there aren't so many here that omitting parts of the list is worthwhile.
- The links to the major sub-articles should preferably use {{details}}.
- Using the CMoS date style ("1688–91") in the section headings may be a bit neater.
- I'm not sure that the parenthetical dates on the various treaties/edicts/etc. are needed; if someone is curious, they can just follow the link, and the text would parse a bit more easily without them.
- More generally, parenthetical explanations should be avoided where simple links would suffice, particularly for points that are largely tangential to the topic. For example, "electors (so called because it was they who elected the Emperor)" is clunky when "electors" could just be linked to the appropriate article instead.
Kirill Lokshin 02:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
- Actually it was I who insisted that we should replace field commanders with the leaders of the nations. My opinion is that only two kind of commanders should be listed in the infobox of a war, either the leader of the nation or a commander-in-chief over the entire armed forces of that nation. For example in the War of the Fifth Coalition it lists Napoleon I, as the leader of the French Empire, and Archduke Charles, as Commander in Chief of the Austrian army. But that's just my opinion.
- The question of Charles II is a simple one, did he control the spanish state or was there someone else, like Richelieu in France during the reign of Louis XIII. Carl Logan 10:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I suppose that's one possible approach. My preference—at least for earlier conflicts where a unified command structure is not readily apparent—is to list the major field commanders (as in, e.g. this article); but that is, again, merely a preference. Kirill Lokshin 12:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
- A further point that's occurred to me: the formatting of the footnotes is fairly unusual. The style seems to be Author-Page-Title; all the style guides I've seen recommend Author-Title-Page. Is there some particular guide (which I presumably haven't seen) that's being followed here? Kirill Lokshin 16:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Very interesting article - I just have one major issue, but I think it is one that requires a decision. Under commanders, are we listing the strategic commander, the head of state, who literally initiated the conflict in which the entity now finds itself, or are we listing the battlfield commander? Respectfully, though I am not minimizing the role of the head of state, let me correlate this argument to the Battle of Waterloo. Would the monarches of the allied powers have been the commanders, or the Iron Duke and Gebhard von Blücher? (of course, with the French, obviously the state of head was the tactical battlefield coammnder as well, but this is not the case among his opponents) I would believe that from any military history perspective, while a "prelude" would list the political events that led to the battle, the battle itself should list as commanders those who led the forces in the field that day. old windy bear 19:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
- I brought that up too, and I think the article has been switched to list the major field commanders now. For a war, I've seen both forms of listing used. (For battles, this is not the case, as battle articles always list the field commanders of the actual battle, not the broader political leaders; listing political leaders under Waterloo would be simply incorrect.) Kirill Lokshin 19:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me just first congratulate you on a great article. Really terrific job. My main suggestion is that the article needs a light copyedit. I'll be happy to give it one before you take it to FAC; just drop me a word on my talkpage. Other than that...let's see:
-In the Aftermath section, I think it's best if you clarify that it wasn't all just status quo in the New World. France acquired Sainte Domingue, which would prove to be a very wealthy asset over the course of the eighteenth century. The inclusion of this information specifically is only my opinion, but I think a term like "status quo" is a bit sketchy.
-There is some information in the Irish theater section that doesn't belong there (like the mention of Fleurus, for one out of many examples). Wouldn't this be best placed in the Continental section?
I'm sure there's other stuff I missed, but this really is a phenomenal article. It makes me giddy and happy just reading it.UberCryxic 01:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you all for taking time to review the article.
- Uber: I have added St Dominigue to the French acquisitions. The term ‘Status Quo’ strictly applied to New York, New England and New France territorial gains only.
- The reason I mentioned Fleurus in the Irish theatre was for both chronological reasons, and to show that the main effort of the war was actually happening on the continent at that time. Initially I too thought it may be in the wrong place.
- As to casualty figures, it is not possible to make an accurate estimation for the war – although I think I read somewhere that the total casualty figures for all of King Louis’ wars totalled just over 2 million, but that’s the best I can find.
- Kirill. I have done everything you suggested apart from the Text Box template. If it goes to A-Class review it may not be worth it if people complain about them – although I have had positive feedback so far.
- Thank you again. I hope this article is almost finished now and I can finally forget about it ;) Raymond Palmer 20:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)