Talk:Ten-Day War

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[edit] Why the move?

Why was the page moved from Ten-Day War? I understand that some people call it the Slovenian War, that's why there's a redirect from that name and a mention in the first paragraph. If the idea is that Slovenian War is the most common name, then it should be called that. Having two names in the title makes no sense and is unnecessary as no other war is known as Ten-Day War. Unless someone can address these points, I'll be moving the article back. -- D.M. (talk) 06:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Some additional points:

  • Google test shows the terms running neck and neck giving a slight edge to "Ten-Day War", 558-544. Though this may be due partly to the Wikipedia page itself.
  • One thing that most distinguishes this war from others is its length and notable brevity. There have been other Slovenian wars and perhaps will be more, but the chance of another Ten-Day war is slim. Articles should only be disambiguated if there is the risk of confusion. I suppose someone might mix it up with the Six-Day War or the Hundred Years' War, but this is unlikely.
  • "Ten-Day War" is most NPOV. I don't personally see anything wrong with "Slovenian War" on this point, but I suppose some Slovenians may object on the grounds that this implies a Yugoslav perspective and diminishes other wars fought in or by Slovenia.

I've probably gone on too much about a minor point, but these naming issues on articles without general consensus have implications that I find fascinating. It is likely that the name of this article will help decide what the war is called in English. By the way, out of curiosity, what do the Slovenians and the Serbs call it? -- D.M. (talk) 06:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Slovenians call it "Slovenska osamosvojitvena vojna", meaning Slovene Independence War. Serbians call it Desetodnevni rat - or Ten-Day War.
"Solvenian Independence War" would probably be the better choice than either "Ten-Day War" or "Solvenian War". Two decades from now, a war thats called "Ten-Day War" would be confused by the general public with the Six-Day War. Jon 14:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I suspect the "Ten Day War" name is consciously derived from the Six Day War. But regardless, that is what the war is most commonly known as (albeit not by a wide margin) and it helps us to disambiguate it from all the other wars fought on Slovenian territory. -- ChrisO 19:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The name in other languages, for the curious

I went ahead and answered my own question about the other languages by tracking down the article in other wikipedias. The other articles are in Slovenian, Dutch, Finnish, and Japanese; none of which I speak, though one can roughly guess on the titles. The Dutch call it De Tiendaagse Oorlog which seems to mean lit. "The Ten-Day War". In Slovenian, it's Slovenska osamosvojitvena vojna which seems to mean "Slovenian Ten-Day War" (a nice compromise), but I have no way of knowing since the online translator couldn't make sense of the second word. Finnish has it Slovenian sota, most likely "Slovenian War". In Japanese it's 十日間戦争 which Google translates as "war ten". What an odd mix of languages for articles. I also found 10-Tage-Krieg which means "10-Day-War" in German, though the German Wikipedia doesn't have an article yet. Other languages seem to avoid naming the conflict. -- D.M. (talk) 08:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, D.M.! As I am a veteran of this war and that I speak Slovene and also a little bit worse English too, I migh say something how Slovenes call it. Slovenska osamosvojitvena vojna literary means Slovene independance war or better Slovene emancipation war or even Slovene attainment of independence war as my Slovene-English dictionary say, what osamosvojitev means. Independence means in fact neodvisnost, so I guess it is not 100 % correct term in English, because Slovenia wasn't under any dominion or something like that. It simply split off from former Yugoslavia. In Slovene this war is also known as desetnevna vojna (BTW wars and battles are in Slovene named in lower case), what really means Ten-Day War. I hope this helps. And also in Slovene wikipedia there is a timeline, day by day (based mainly on written records of a brigadier Janez J. Švajncer), and some day someone will add something here. Of course for me as a soldier this war lasted over a month in an active duty. Best regards. --xJaM 03:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
An anonymous user recently renamed the war to "Slovenian War". I reverted this back to Ten-Day War. This is the name that I have heard most commonly used. I wouldn't object to the name being changed to Slovenian War if it happens after a discussion, but since the previous discussion seems to have settled on the name Ten-Day War, I don't think it should be changed unilaterally without further debate. (Barend 15:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Questions: Holmec incident, ammunition

  • Are there any documents on the shooting of surrendering YNA recruits by TO forces that was broadcast live on Austrian TV (ORF)? I distinctly remember seeing that video on TV myself back in 1991, recently saw a (very bad quality) webcast of it (apparently as part of a discussion on Serbian TV, as far as I understood one of the killed soldiers was a 19-year old from Novi Sad), and I personally know of only one printed reference in German language (Kurt Köpruner's 2001 book "Reisen in das Land der Kriege", no English translation available as of today). The video shows a small group of unarmed YNA soldiers (maybe 5) holding up a large white flag of sorts (possibly a blanket). Moments later, gunfire erupts and they fall to the ground. There are allegations that this was not an isolated incident, and that a majority of YNA casualties were the result of TO forces shooting up surrendering YNA soldiers. However, I cannot seem to find more documentation on this - I suspect most of it is not available in English. It's probably possible to request the original TV broadcast from ORF, but this may cost a bit.
  • Related question: YNA soldiers were allegedly ordered to take back control of border stations without having been issued any ammunition, at least in the initial phase of the conflict (apparently, their commanders had not expected any violent reaction at this point). Does anyone have more information on this?

83.65.242.32 17:31, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I certainly suggest you find good sources before putting that into the article. I have never come across allegations about atrocities committed by the Slovene TOs, and I did my masters dissertation on this topic. (Barend 14:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC))
That's why I'm asking. Problem is that most sources with fairly recent discussion of this topic are probably in Serbian and Slovene language, which I understand only in fragments. Köpruner cites Hofbauer (1999) "Balkankrieg. Zehn Jahre Zerstörung Jugoslawiens" which apparently contains a brief description of the video segment. And now I just found a bit in English, apparently this happened at Holmec: http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=57 "Biserko, .., said that Slovenia’s reaction to the recently released footage of war crimes being perpetrated at Holmec, shows that the region is still not prepared to deal with this question. .. The footage taken by the Austrian ORF television station, shows three Yugoslav National Army soldiers being killed after raising their hands in surrender." And another interesting piece emerges once you know what to look for: http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/trae/archive/data/199902/90211-001-trae-lju.htm - maybe others have more information. 83.65.244.198 05:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I've now added a paragraph, as there seems to be enough substance (and relevance). However, the thing needs more and better references. 83.65.240.37 17:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
B92 TV Report showing the ORF video (or parts of it): http://www.b92.net/video/vojska_slovenija.ram - a link to the original, unedited ORF footage would be better. 83.65.241.92 18:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, RTV Slovenia did play the footage as well. This is direct link do RealPlayer file: http://ava.rtvslo.si/ava/media?action=play&mediaId=2895803. Jump to 00:02:00. edolen1 17:33, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 11 May edits

On 11 May, an anonymous user rewrote nearly the entire article. He deleted much of the detailed factual content, and added much text which was partially very skewed against the Slovenian side, and partially factually wrong. For instance, the "secret talks", held between Serbia and Slovenia were not in fact secret, and a communique issued after the talks can be read (in English) on the Slovenian government's website [1]. The total effect of the re-writing was to totally ruin the article's Neutral Point Of View, and lose much factual content. I therefore reverted the entire edit. If the user who made the edits wants to contribute to the article, I would suggest he add information he thinks should be in the article which is not there, but take care to maintain a Neutral Point Of View. Calling all statements from the Slovenian side "propaganda" is not NPOV. Neither is branding all Slovenia's moves "illegal". If he wants to make claims about conspiracies with foreign intelligence services, he should provide sources to back up such claims. And he should not delete factual information already in the article. (Barend 12:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC))


[edit] Rewriting???

Much of the "detailed factual content" that had been written was pure misconception and an exagaration. Things were simply blown out of proportion, and Slovenian phoney war, as many analists call it, was nothing more than a charade. Things that had been mentioned were basically glorifying little Slovenian force against fourth largest army in Europe at the time. I am sorry for not having quoted the sources the first time I rewrote the topic, but this time I certainly did so. The facts that Barend had written were right, yet the language used was not appropriate. For instance, when the TO shot down a helicopter over Ljubljana, he never mentioned that the helicopter was flying very low and was to supply the soldiers in barracks with bread and so on. He claims that Slovenia's moves were not illegal. The whole federal structure was bypassed, even the Constitutional Court of SFRJ found it unconstitutional. The point is that very foundation of Slovenia, as well as Croatia and Bosnia, become undermined and therefore their official sources cannot be quite relevant. After all, Milan Kucan's testomony at Hague Tribunal reveals a lot in regard to events that led to break-up. Kucan: 'The aggression occurred, done by the JNA.' He literally applied only 2-3 short sentences speaking of that 'aggression', stating that it happened 'right after the celebration, at 2 or 3 a.m.', that the 'units came out of barracks and headed towards the state border'. He offered a choice of descriptive nouns : 'That clash, aggression, war was ended on 7 July by the talks on the Brioni Islands, with the participation of the Ministerial EC troika, led by Van Den Bruck, who intervened in a certain way in that period between 27 June and 7 July.' So much about the 'war'. Eloquent and full of detail. Prosecutor Nice glided on through the final retreat of the JNA from Slovenia on 26 October 1991. Milosevic then turned to the reasons for the war that Slovenia fought against the Federal Government : the revenues from customs duties. Kucan denied it, saying that Slovenia was only reacting to being attacked.

Milosevic then quoted Warren Zimmerman, the former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, from his lengthy article in a foreign affairs journal where it was plainly and brutally written that 'contrary to the beliefs, the Slovenes had started the war. There were no efforts to negotiate.' Zimmerman proceeded to explain why : the customs duties revenue generated from the only border crossings towards the Western European countries, Italy and Austria, which were in Slovenia, gained up to 75% of the overall federal budget. The Slovenes simply took over the customs offices by force, changed the insignia, and started to collect, depriving the rest of the country of that revenue without negotiating first. The Federal Government had to react by sending few light JNA columns to retake the customs offices and re-establish the status quo ante. Then the JNA was attacked.

Then, Milosevic pulled out the case of a live TV show in Slovenia a few years into their independence, with illustrious guests from Croatia (Mesic, General Spegelj, Tomac), where Kucan also participated and they answered direct phone questions. Kucan tried to wiggle out, saying his memory is not that good anymore, but confirmed he was there. Milosevic proceeded to describe what happened in that show and how in a celebrative mood Mesic got too relaxed and babbled about Genscher [the then German Chancellor] and the Pope who crucially contributed to the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.

Kucan kept on with his lengthy whining of how Slovenia was always in the minority, how the principle of 'one man, one vote' in the Parliament could have been amended, but Milosevic insisted the question being about the legal rulings of the Constitutional Court, and that the Slovenes expressly said their changes will be done according to the law and Constitution, offering the Constitutional Court as a guarantee for that, and 'then you complain about your rights being violated because the Constitutional Court made his rulings'.

The next issue was illegal arms trade between Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. When first generally asked about that by Milosevic, Kucan denied it existed at all : 'No, as far as I'm aware.'

When Milosevic then produced documents, from Croatia, proving the opposite Kucan changed his tune, saying that he couldn't see anything contentious here, these were 'legal channels, with competent authorities and you spoke of illegal trade.' To that, Milosevic gently reminded him that at that time the UN arms embargo was in effect.

Kucan then claimed that this was before the international recognition of Slovenia, 'therefore it did not apply to us.' But then, he realized the mistake, saying : 'Excuse me, it was in the period when both states were recognized ; therefore, we took necessary measures to protect ourselves.' [Wow ! So, the new statelets have the right to violate the UN embargo, just because they need to be able to protect themselves. That is a creative interpretation.]

There's a lot more, Barend, but if you really want to be neutral, then there are many ways to find out the truth. If you ask any honest Slovene what happened, they will tell you the truth. And to summarize, Slovenia did get what she wanted, the JNA did get embarassed due to lack of consensus, but there's no need describing the events in a way you'd done it.

Mick

ChrisO has written, just below this, in a better way than I could, why your rewriting is unacceptable. I would just like to point out that it wasn't I who wrote the article the way it was, I only added a couple of sentences to it. I only reverted your changes, which I found seriously damaged the quality of the article. You obviously feel strongly about this subject, but if you cannot write objectively and neutrally about it, you shouldn't write about it on wikipedia at all. (Barend 19:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Problems with the latest changes

I've reverted the latest changes to the article. They were clearly biased (see WP:NPOV for why this is a bad thing) and seem to be designed to portray the JNA as hapless victims rather than as active combatants. Many of the changes seem to be intended to depict the Slovenians in a bad light, and a lot of cited and documented points were deleted without explanation. It might be useful for me to explain the specific issues:

1) The infobox inaccurately described the conflict as being between "Slovene Territorial Defence" and the JNA. This is completely wrong - the conflict was directed by state governments, not just by militaries. (Was the Second World War fought between the US Army/Red Army and the Wehrmacht?) Furthermore, the Slovene TO wasn't the only organisation involved on the Slovenian side - the state police and Ministry of the Interior (MUP) troops were also key elements.

2) Background - we don't need a lot of historical detail, as the article is about the war, not the breakup of Yugoslavia. The circumstances leading up to Slovenia's declaration of independence would be better dealt with in a separate historical article, probably History of Slovenia (which really needs some work). The question of the legality or otherwise of Slovenia's moves should be discussed there, too.

3) Conflict - the cited and sourced paragraph about the JNA's indecision about what to do in Slovenia was deleted, as was the bit on Markovic's denial that the federal government was aware of the JNA's actions. If you disagree with that, you should provide a cited counter-argument, rather than deleting a sourced section and replacing it with your own unsourced view of the matter (see WP:CITE for our citation policy and WP:NOR for our policy on original research).

4) 26 June 1991 - the point about local Slovenes setting up barricades and demonstrations is a key one, as it highlights the fact that the JNA didn't have the support of the Slovenian population. Also, the anon user's statement that "In the combat operations which immediately followed, a number of these drivers got killed" is chronologically inaccurate - the first casualties came on the next day - and is weasel wording (see Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words). Who killed them and why?

5) 27 June 1991 - another deletion of a cited paragraph. Not a good thing.

6) 28 June 1991 - claiming that "the army made no attempt to fight back" is simply untrue; who caused the casualties on the Slovenian side? What about the well-documented missile attacks by the Yugoslav air force at Brnik and Strihovec?

7) 29 June 1991 - the claim about "human shields" at Rozna Dolina comes from a 1992 Yugoslav government report - not, I think, a particularly credible source - and doesn't seem to be supported by any other sources. Also, I can see no good reason for deleting the line "In response, the Slovenian Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis that did not jeopardise Slovenian independence."

8) 30 June 1991 - "Serbia blocked such an option" - what is the source for this?

9) 1 July 1991 - as with the Rozna Dolina claim, the Ljubljana Kosede claim comes from an otherwise unsubstantiated 1992 Yugoslav government report.

10) 2 July 1991 and 3 July 1991 - why were the descriptions of the engagements largely deleted? They're documented as having happened; are you trying to claim that they didn't happen?

11) 7 July 1991 - why was the line about the Slovenian government's conditions on the withdrawal deleted?

12) Strategic aspects of the war - lots of POV edits here. "Propaganda machine" is extremely biased. There's no good reason to delete the mention of Slovenia's military strategy, nor of the Slovenian advantages, nor of the consequences of the JNA's poor performance in Slovenia and (later) Croatia. Again, this is just an unsubtle attempt to push a particular pro-JNA, anti-Slovenian POV, rather than trying to present an objective review of events. We're trying to write a military history here, not a propaganda piece.

13) Sources - don't delete valid references. This is very much frowned upon on Wikipedia and could result in you being blocked if you persist. Many of the references added by the anon user are so vague that they're unusable, e.g. "Testimony by Dusanka Lazic, wife of a JNA officer" - where can this be found, when was it published?

I've just got hold of a CIA military history of the conflict (in the volume "Balkan Battlegrounds", which also includes the operational map in the article). This provides a lot of extra detail - I'll add some key points to the article later today. -- ChrisO 12:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MilHist Assessment

Great length and detail. I like the inclusion of flags in the infobox, plus it is a very complete infobox, with estimates of the casualties and strengths. The article discusses the development of the war day by day, and even includes a map. There are also a good number of references and in-line citations. Definitely tops of the B-class. LordAmeth 11:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

Why isn't the article called SLOVENIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE or SLOVENIAN WAR OF LIBERATION? --CroDome 22:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It was, somebody changed it for reasons unknown. Wikingus 11:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I've changed it back to Ten-Day War; moves like this need to be discussed, not unilateral.
I agree with the article's title, but I think the initial statement should be changed to "The Ten-Day War, sometimes called the Slovenian Independence War...", as there were more wars in the history of Slovenia, this would better specify which, plus I have to admit I have never heard or seen the term "Slovenian War" while the "Slovenian Independence War" or "Slovenian War for Independence" has been mentioned in the media. Of course, I still think the Ten-Day War is the most suitable as the main name. edolen1 16:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
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