Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Brian Horrocks

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[edit] Brian Horrocks

Self nomination. This has recently passed a WP:MILHIST A-Class review. The subject is a general who commanded corps in a few of the key battles of World War II. Leithp 08:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Current ref 92 to an article on the IMDb dead links. Also, it needs to have a title, not just a tinsy little link.
• Current ref 93 needs a title on the link.

Otherwise sources look good. Other links all checked out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That should be both links fixed. Leithp 13:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

All done! Ealdgyth - Talk 13:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• support - seems ok. --Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 15:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Has continued to improve since I reviewed it for GAN. Absolutely no objections from here! Cheers! Cam (Chat) 02:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support. However I have some recommendations which I hope will be addressed - apologies for not reviewing at earlier stages when I could've brought them up:

• I think the intro can be improved a bit. Currently we have:

Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, (September 7, 1895 - January 4, 1985) was a British military officer. He is chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. Later in life he gained further fame as a television presenter and as Black Rod in the House of Lords.

Horrocks had an eventful life in which he served in both World Wars and the Russian Civil War, was a prisoner of war twice, competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics and presented a television programme. In 1940 he commanded a battalion during the Battle of France and it was then that he first served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British general of the war. [...]

• I find "had an eventful life" a bit trite, the reader can discern this from the info provided. Also the first sentence of the second para partly summarises what's been said in the first, like a summary of a summary (e.g. about both wars and the TV show). I suggest the following combination might work better:

Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, (September 7, 1895 - January 4, 1985) was a British military officer. He is chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was a prisoner of war twice, and competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later in life he gained further fame as a television presenter and as Black Rod in the House of Lords.

In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France and it was then that he first served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British general of the war. [...]

• I always prefer to see Featured Articles sans red links. The only one in there is Sir William Horrocks. If he really deserves an article perhaps a stub would suffice for now, otherwise I think we could just lose the link.
• The article should have a WP:Persondata template at the end.
• There are one or two cosmetic tweaks I would like to make that will take less time to execute than to discuss.
• In any case, looks very good - well done. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

On Horrock's father he had a 30 year military career of his own and was appointed CB and KCMG [1], so he's just about notable in my book. Something very stubby could be put together iwth gazette refs if nothing else, but they don't really give much context to his service. David Underdown (talk) 15:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I have the barest details of William Horrocks' life from the autobiography and biography of Brian, no dates of birth or death etc. I didn't really like to start something that bare and wasn't able to pick anything else up in my search. Harlsbottom had expressed some interest in starting an article on William Horrocks a couple of months ago, he may have some sources. Leithp 16:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Harlsbottom has done a superb job in creating a well referenced article on William Horrocks. I think that addresses all the points listed above. Leithp 20:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, talk about 'ask and ye shall receive' - request a stub and get a new article that's pretty well B-class straight off. Great (and fast) work, guys! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose—1a. Took a sample way down that showed a high degree of gobbledygook civil-service-ese.
  • "Upon arriving, Horrocks was ..."—arriving where? You can't rely on the section title for that information.
  • "implementing the defence of"—can you think of one word to replace these four?
  • "Montgomery, mindful of the need to prevent casualties prior to the planned Second Battle of El Alamein, instructed Horrocks that he repel Rommel ...". I mean, why not: "to prevent casualties prior to the planned Second Battle of El Alamein, Montgomery instructed Horrocks to repel Rommel ..."? Straighter line, five words removed.
  • "came to attack"—why not just "attacked"?

Most sentences present easy ways to implement Plain English. Please fine someone else to strip it back to plain, elegant English. The whole article. (The lead suffers less from this disease, though.) TONY (talk) 12:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have addressed your specific points. I'm at a loss about what to do about your more general criticism, though. Leithp 13:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have made a number of changes to the article. I don't know if it now meets your standards but I'd appreciate any further comments. Leithp 08:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: His platoon command guarding the ammo going to Omsk. A platoon with 14 officers is incredibly high. Is this 14 soldiers? Or were there additional attached officers because of the special nature of the task? If that is the case, it might be good to explain that, otherwise it looks quite odd. Buckshot06(prof) 21:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• I have changed the sentence to simply give the size of the party. Leithp 21:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Spot-check on one small part-paragraph. My oppose remains, I'm afraid.
  • "substantive lieutenant-colonel"—not actionable, but for my benefit, what does "substantive" mean? As opposed to what?
  • Caption: "Major-General Horrocks, then GOC of 9th Armoured Division, in his Covenanter command tank during an exercise, 18 July 1942." No period, since it's just a nominal group, not a full sentence. See MOS.
  • "After assisting in organising the new short course for officers,..."—Do we know already about this course? Why "the"? And surely "new" is an epithet (normal adjective), but "short" is a classifier (can't be a very short course, since short-course is a genre of course; thus, a hyphen is required to make it clear).
  • Not good:

"British doctrine of the time did not have heavy machine guns as an organic part of lower formations and instead kept them under the direct command of the corps or, in this case, division."

Maybe "at the time"? And is "doctrine" the right word?

"British policy was not to use heavy machine guns as an organic part of lower formations, but to keep them under the direct command of the corps or, in this case, the division."

• • May I suggest that you go through and add commas after most of the sentence-inital adverbial and prepositional phrases? This optional comma is more likely in longer sentences and more formal prose. For example: "After commanding the battalion for only seventeen days, he had impressed his superiors sufficiently for him to be given the temporary rank of brigadier and the command of 11th Brigade." More redundancy; why "11th" but "seventeenth"? Check whether "the" belongs before the title of the brigade. TONY (talk) 05:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• "Doctrine" is, I believe, the term used in the military for that kind of operational guidelines. 11th is because it is the form the British Army used to refer to its brigades. It would only use the form "Eleventh" for an Army. I have no idea why. Substantive is a form of temporary rank, I believe. I'll try and clarify that. I don't believe that "the" is appropriate in front of brigade numbers. It doesn't seem to be used in my sources, anyway. I'll try to address your other comments. Thanks for the feedback. Leithp 06:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
• I got it the wrong way round. "Substantive" is the officer's permanent rank, i.e. when the war ends and the Army is de-mobilised, the officer would return to that rank. "Acting" or "Brevet" are temporary appointments due to local circumstances or a shortage of officers of the required rank. It was not uncommon to hear of officers being reduced from acting lieutenant-colonel or brigadier to captain at the end of the First World War, for example. Leithp 06:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

We do have an article on military doctrine, would it help to link that? On rank, British Army use has distinguished at different times (in order of "permanence") between "local", "acting", "temporary", "war substantive" "brevet" (though this seems to have fallen into disuse), and "substantive" (at some periods this might be referred to as regimental rank). I have been thinking that we could do with an article on this topic, but I don't really have the sources or knowledge to do it justice. David Underdown (talk) 08:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

An article sounds useful. I'm damned if I can work out what all those terms mean. Leithp 14:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• I have asked an outside editor to copyedit. Hopefully it now meets your standards, Tony. Thanks. Leithp 15:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I returned wanting to be generous, but found too many deficiencies in my spot-check, too easily. Like ...

• "one hundred and sixty-seven successful applicants for cadetships, even including 200 bonus points"—figures or spelt out: which? I suggest figures.
• "which rather embarrassed Horrocks"—"Rather" is normally avoided in this register (it's what we call "interpersonal", grammatically).
• "He was also interviewed extensively for"—Have you told us already about interviews? No. "Also" is redundant.
• Caption fluff: "Horrocks carried the map board with him when visiting troops in order to provide front-line soldiers with an overview of the situation." Remove the hated "in order" (makes me do a Hitler salute). "Horrocks carried the map board with him when visiting front-line soldiers to provide them with an overview of the situation." Better?
• "and was knighted with his appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire"—can it avoid the repeated word?

Not happy. It really needs a good hour or more by a a thorough copy-editor. TONY (talk) 15:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've addressed your specific points and will try and find a fresh copyeditor. Leithp 17:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I'm having to read too many sentences twice before I understand them. Here is but one example of many:

By mid-September, XXX Corps had been diverted to the east, while the First Canadian Army would be tasked with clearing the strengthened German defensive line stretching from Antwerp down both banks of the Scheldt River to the North Sea in the month-long, costly Battle of the Scheldt.

There are others like this where too many thoughts are being squashed into one sentence. It's hard work rather than a pleasure to read. GrahamColm^Talk 14:31, 8 June 2008 (UTC) Comments DONE Lead should be reworded to include his books and jounalism, and to remove the implausible claim that he gained "further fame" or whatever as Black Rod - who can ever name the current Black Rod, unless they are already famous, as Horrocks was? If anything he made the job more famous. The lead should also mention his two periods as a POW. The military terminology does get a bit congested at times for a general reader like myself, but I see others are addressing this. Johnbod (talk) 18:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• I have made a slight change to the opening paragraph, to address the point you made about his writing and Black Rod. The lead does say "was a prisoner of war twice" and I feel it might overwhelm the lead if I expand on that. Do you agree? Leithp 19:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I have marked my specific comments done, and expect to support when some (not all) of the phrasing points of others are addressed - I seem to feel about 50% should be adjusted, others are not needed. Johnbod (talk) 22:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support Per above. Prose seems sufficiently improved to me, although others may continue to winkle out points. Military history always means rather chewy prose in my experience. Johnbod (talk) 13:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment Since I have a military history article also winding through FAC, I'm not unbiased enough to support this. However, I want to say that you do an excellent job here with the material that you are given. Military biographies are tough! A few suggestions:

• Can you expand on his time as the Black Rod any? That seems notable, but it is given only the most passing of glances. If it's just ceremonial, that makes sense, but were there any particularly notable ceremonies that he was involved in that could be mentioned? Certainly not as important as a war record, but something interesting must have happened in 14 years?
• Should you add a "Works" section for the book(s) that he's written and the other things that he participated in? I don't know if this is in the MOS anymore, but it may be a good idea.
• You tend to end sections with one or two-sentence paragraphs. Can these be merged into the above paragraphs?
• Your abbreviations in references are distracting, especially when you take it to the extreme with #37.
• You cite what his nickname means, but no citations to support your interpretation or that show that was his nickname.
• Take another look at the lead. The third paragraph reads funnily in context and there are other elements of his life that may deserve mention. POW, for example?

All in all, an enjoyable history. JRP (talk) 18:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Taking your comments in order:

• I have added a couple of anecdotes from his time as Black Rod, to expand on that a little. Let me know what you think.
• He authored two books, both listed in the "references" section, and edited a number of regimental histories. I'm not convinced that there is a benefit in listing the regimental histories, as he only wrote forewords for them.
• I have expanded one of the short paragraphs and will likely look at doing that to the others, rather than combine them with preceding paragraphs. Although I agree that all are a bit too brief, they all mark a change in subject to the preceding content.
• I have changed ref #37, as suggested. As regards the other abbreviations, I had thought that it was clear which book was referred to and that further expansion was unnecessary. This is particularly the case with clumsy titles such as the Neillands and Warner books.
• I have added a ref for the nickname. I must have missed that.
• I was rather fond of that third paragraph! Do you think I should combine it with the second? I'm not certain that his sojourns as a POW are important enough to be expanded on in the lead, compared to his Second World War actions.

Thanks for your kind words regarding the article and best of luck with your own FAC. I agree with you about military biographies, the terminology is a killer and it's hard to get beyond the "date-action, promotion, date-action, promotion" format. Horrocks' autobiography (a good read, by the way) manages this by using anecdotes extensively, something I was trying not to do too much. Leithp 20:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support Generally looks good to me. Gary King (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comments

• Oppose, the prose is not very compelling, but my main issue was just getting stuck in the unclear narrative with too many questions whose answers do not lie in the text. Examples:
  • "Horrocks attributed this rapport to the "respect for each other" of front-line troops." Grammar.
  • "Despite his capture, he was promoted to lieutenant on December 18, 1914." Double meaning, can't determine which it is.
  • "While imprisoned, he tried to escape, and he once came within 500 yards (460 m) of the Dutch border before capture." I thought he lost the use of his legs?
  • "To prevent further escape attempts, his captors placed him in a compound for Russian officers." I don't understand how this prevented escape attempts. Were the Russian officers prisoners? Why was their compound more secure?
  • "Horrocks used the time to learn their language." Why pipe this link and make the reader click it to discover what their language was?
  • "Horrocks had trouble adapting to peace-time on his return and spent four years of back-pay in six weeks, indulging in pleasure trips to London." Sounds like what every sailor I've ever known does every time we had shore leave. How is this having trouble adapting to peace-time?

These are all just from one section. A lot of fit and finish needed, plus work on the narrative. --Laser brain (talk) 05:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Laser's last point is another example of the throwing into a single sentence of ideas with dubious logical connection, joined by "and". TONY (talk) 11:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Minor question, could you clarify this statement: "The battle ended with the Germans in control of Himeihat hill, at a high cost, and the Allied forces unwilling to try to re-take it after a failed attack by the 2nd New Zealand Division on the withdrawing Germans" The end of this statement implies the Germans abandoned the hill, but the start of the statement says they were left in control of it. Can you clarify this? Maury (talk) 20:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• I took out "on the withdrawing Germans". If I remember right, and I don't have the source in front of me, the counter-attack came as the Germans withdrew back to the hill. The sentence was unclear, as you say. Leithp 06:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Just a quick comment for now - please make sure that all the image captions make it obvious why the image is relevant to this article. This is most egregous with the Russian civil war image. Try reading through the article by reading only the image captions (maybe the first two lines of the intro as well) and see if it at least makes basic sense to people. Savidan 13:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)