Talk:Battle of Navarino

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

Contents

[edit] countries listed as combatants

The combatant list was including countries like "Kingdom of Italy" and "Belgium" that did not exist as states at the time of battle. I removed all countries added by that edit, leaving only the states that have participating ships listed by name. Discuss on talk page if unhappy with change... Willhsmit 22:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] dates

The trivia section says "The engagement took place on the anniversary of the Battle of Salamis" but the Salamis article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis says that battle occured in September, not October.

[edit] Merger

So lets discuss it here. Kekrops, please don't decide just by yourself to redirect developed articles. At least start some discussion. At least merge them, instead of deleting completely. NPOVize the article if it is POV. I hope you haven't been always deleting relevant sourced infos. Anyways, I am not against a proper merger DenizTC 12:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Developed article? With all due respect, it's nothing of the sort. Take a look at the article history; it's a clear case of yet another POV WP:FORK by your compatriot User:Laertes d. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 12:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I really don't know the wikihistory (forks, merges, etc) but seeing the dates alone, the two have only one thing in common, they both took place in Navarino. The events described in the massacres article are dated to 1821, the battle took place in 1827. Lacking knowledge on the subject, I cannot comment on the events described in the massacres article, but those are tottaly unrelated to the naval battle of 1827. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 13:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Article is not POVfork of any sort, it is a separate massacre which occurred much earlier than the battle of Navarino..im suggesting to remove this template..For anyone who might want to dispute the accuracy of sources i can scan the pages..And Kekrops, you must be a joker really, how come massacre of chios is not, but massacre of Navarino is a POVfork?--laertes d 18:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the articles should not be merged. The well known Battle of Navarino took place 6 years after the liberation of Navarino (Pylos both today and in ancient times, Navarino is an Italian name which I am curious to know the origin of) by Greek forces.

I do think that the article should be renamed "Siege of Navarino" and the massacre of some Turkish inhabitants took place following the city's capture by Greek forces. This event really had no impact on anything, and only a few families were killed, it is not really worth an article. It is not like the Chios Massacre, which had tens of thousands of victims and sent reverberations throughout Europe, or the Destruction of Psara which again killed tens of thousands and is sparked outrage and remembrance throughout Greece. If we have an article for this, we need separate articles for a million tiny things such as Ibrahim's razing of Kalamata, which certainly killed many times the victims at Navarino. I really do not think that the killings of a few families warrant an entire article separate from the siege of Navarino-- obviously what was important about the event was the capture of the city, which would remain in Greek hands until today, not the deaths of a relatively small number of civilians, however detestable their killings were. AlexiusComnenus 20:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Initially I thought that they weren't that relevant as well, but since they happened in about the same time period, in the same place, and since Kekrops redirected one to the other one, I started to think that they might be quite relevant, hence I am still not against a merger. Also Alexius, welcome back. DenizTC 06:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

But Denizz, they refer to two different events, although they almost happened in the same period, during the Greek revolt..Returning to alexius suggestion, first destruction of Psara did not cause to the tens of thousands of deaths neither. The entire population was about 7.000 according to George Finlay, and that is an authoritative source unlike the certain websites you used for this article..Plus, i didnt mention about the massacres in Vrachori, Monemvasia, Kalavryta, Athens or elsewhere..There could be established an article for all these separete massacres, which i havent done..what disturbs me the most with Alexius edits is his continuous attempt in trying to portray as if massacres ottoman empire committed were somehow were worse than his beloved greek revolutionnaries--laertes d 08:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I wrote this article and strongly object to including this irrelevant material. Wikipedia is supposed to be an objective resource and not a forum for nationalist propaganda. The article is about the Battle of Navarino 1827. An alleged massacre at Navarino in 1821 has no place in it. The Navsrino massacre should remain as a separate article. Andrea 27/9/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.85.44.73 (talk) 21:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ship totals

The totals for ships and cannon in the table at the bottom do not add up. There are five ships to many on the Allied side in the smallest category: the two French ships and apparently all three English ships with 10 cannon each. Classical geographer (talk) 14:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anachronistic ship classes

The largest ships to participate in the battle were probably "ships of the line" in contemporary terms. A ship of the ine was designed to fire massive broadsides perpendicular to the direction that the ship was moving.

The term "battleship" generally refers to much larger, steel-hulled, steam-powered ships with large, turreted guns -- a type that didn't exist until the later decades of the nineteenth century. The "Maine" that sank at Havana was a battleship. The famous Dreadnought was a battleship. So was the Missouri. They could move their guns in any direction, and thus, were no longer ships of the line. Scott Adler (talk) 05:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Technically, you are right: the full name of the pre-steam ships was "line-of-battle ships". But during the Napoleonic Wars, the press regularly abbreviated the name to simply "battleships" and this term entered common use. It is therefore appropriate to use the term for Navarino: it is used frequently in the documents of the time. EraNavigator (talk) 08:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
According to the Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Ed, the term "battleship" came into use in 1794, so it is not anachronistic to use it for Navarino, as it was the common term by then. EraNavigator (talk) 08:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree with Scott on this one. I consistently see "ships-of-the-line" as the standard term for vessels in the period. To say "battleship" is to adopt layman's terms. Also, ships-of-the-line are ships of 64-or-more guns, and the article classifies some of these as double-decked frigates. While they may have been double-decked, it does not make them frigates as they mounted more than 64 guns. To illustrate, the Leopard was a two-decked frigate of 50 guns. No one can call the 64-gun Africa a simple double-decked frigate: she was a ship-of-the-line as follows classification conventions in accordance with rating. Auror (talk) 02:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] James As the Primary Source

How wise is it to base the majority of the article upon the works of James? Roosevelt did a thorough job of discrediting his 1812 production, and I cringe to think of the potential inaccuracies James included in his writing on Navarino. Auror (talk) 02:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not based on James, but on original documents reproduced in James. EraNavigator (talk) 12:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I've obtained a copy of the most recent study of the battle, C.M. Woodhouse The Battle of Navarino (1965). Using this, I've added more detail on the battle itself and on the Allied navies. EraNavigator (talk) 08:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warship classification

(1) I see nothing wrong with using popular terms, providing they were in use at the time. The point is that battleship is much more intelligible to the general reader, than the cumbersome and obsolete ship-of-the-line. But in the text I have added ("ships-of-the-line") after "battleships" to clarify. (2) You argue that any boat with 64 or more guns should be classified as a battleship. On this basis, at least 3 more Turkish boats were battleships. But they are defined in Codrington's own despatches as frigates and I don't think we should second-guess that. Standards varied with every country and often the dividing line between classes was blurred. The point is that its fighting capability was assessed as frigate-class, not just because of its no of guns but also size, height, sails etc. It seems that by 1827, only 74+ guns were seen as battleships. EraNavigator (talk) 14:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)