Talk:Levée en masse

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[edit] Scope of the article

The scope of the article is originally researched. The article should be about Levée en masse as commonly understood, that is about the French revolutioon and the mass conscription from August 17, 1793 and subsequent events. I think somebody confused general conscription with the levee en masse which is not quite the same thing. The term levee en masse has to be understood in context of the French Revolution as a rather short-term "'requisition' of all able-bodied, unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25" (Quote Britannica) to fight off the enemies of the revolution.

Both Britannica and Encarta mention in connection with the levee en masse only events of the French Revolution. A quick google search also shows that other than this article the inclusion of Greek or Chinese material is absolutely unheard of.

Since WP states that "generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature" we should concentrate on the real Levee and remove the other inappropiate material. Regards Gun Powder Ma 13:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

Ok, I did a little expansion and merged the pospolite ruszenie article. Still, I think I think the pospolite is separate institution that deserves treatment in its own right, and the article about it should be expanded, not deleted. It deserves mention here also, because of the prevalence of the term levee en mass in translations and scholarly works on the Polish military; and because of the many similarities between the institutions.

Someone with greater knowledge of revolutionary, monarchist and republican France in the 18th century should work on expanding the section of the levee en masse proper.

--Jpbrenna 21:53, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've had a go at putting together a sighter on the French levee en masse without making any claim to have any great expertise on the matter

Sources are

Doyle, William; The Oxford History of the French Revolution (OUP, Oxford 1989) ISBN 0-19-285221-3 for the general context

Woloch, Isser; The New Regime: transformations of the French civic order, 1789 -1820s (W W Norton,New York, 1994) ISBN 0-393-31397-2 for the fine detail

--rjccumbria 11 May 2005

The sentence "The levée en masse is defined in Article 4, letter A paragraph 6 of the Third Geneva Convention." was in the intro and the first paragraph, so I deleted it.

[edit] Huh?

The last paragraph says:

In addition several nations today maintain sizeable reserve forces. The Russian Federation has 20 million trained reserves at the ready in the instance of an outbreak of hostilities with a major power. Austria can mobilize to around a million troops within 48 hours of the order being given in a time of war. Vietnam maintains 3.8 million reserves and both North and South Korea have over 4.5 million reserves. The separatist Chinese province of Taiwan keeps over a million reserves at the ready in case of invasion from the mainland. A number of other nations have large reserve forces in excess of a million (including the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, both of which have around 1.5 million reserves).

Vietnam has less than 1/4 the population of the United States, and 1/12 that of China. Yet it has over twice the number of reserves (even if you count the US National Guard and the small state militias). How are the US and Chinese reserve numbers in anyway comparable? You can't really make the case for a levée en masse when about 1% or .25% of the population is permanently under arms. I'm not even sure Vietnam's case even qualifies, but they are certainly on an entirely different plane than the US and China (if these figures are correct).

--Jpbrenna 02:46, 5 May 2005 (UTC)