Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Arras (1917)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

[edit] Battle of Arras (1917)

Renomination. This article was recently added as a Good Article, and I believe that all the concerns raised in the previous A-Class review and the peer review have been resolved by myself or Roger Davies. All comments and concerns welcomed. Carom 18:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support'. Well written article. Kyriakos 23:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support - a comprehensive and interesting article. My only suggestion is that that the 'Creeping barrage' section needs a citation. --Nick Dowling 10:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support - here's some improvement suggestions from the automated peer review script..

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 000 yards, use 000 yards, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 000 yards.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.^[?]
• As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]^[?]
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Medains 11:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support, although I have a few suggestions. I suggest a few more sentences in the background explaining how the Allied and German armies ended-up facing each other in 1917. I'm somewhat familiar with WWI but I don't know exactly the chain events leading to where those two adversaries found themselves in 1917. Also, there's a lot of one-paragraph sections, although in this case that might be ok since each section is usually on a completely different topic than the preceeding and following sections, but I still think some sections could be combined. Otherwise, I think it meets the criteria. Nice work. CLA 01:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• Leaning towards opposing

• Under the Commanders section it says Falkenhausen was removed from the Third Army. Surely you mean Sixth Army.

There are an awful lot of small sections. Can the Commanders section be merged with the Aftermath?

• In the Political Background an entire paragraph consist of the line: “In Germany, the storm clouds were gathering too.” This is not very informative.

Additionally, the US declared war in 1917, not 1916!

• Three sections are completely unsourced.

What’s the source for the strengths?

• Needs a thorough check for typos and errors. Eg: citations come after punctuation and without spaces:

Additionally, German records excluded those "lightly wounded".[27] Captain Cyril Falls (the British official battle historian) estimated that 30% needed to be added to German returns for comparison with the British". [27] Falls makes "a general estimate" that German casualties were "probably fairly equal". [27] Nicholls puts them at 120,000.[26]; and Keegan at 130,000[28].

Others errors throughout. Raymond Palmer 10:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Various things went wrong whilst I was editing it this morning. I've fixed (most of) what you mention. Commanders was meant to be part of aftermath and now is. 1916 was a typo. Roger 14:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through and done some ref cleanup; it appears your specific objections have been addressed. Carom 17:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support Please check the change I made in the Second Battle of Bullecourt section, and the Battle of Arleux section. I reworded the original sentences that didn’t seem clear (to me at least), and I hoped I haven't changed the history.

In the Commanders section it quotes a Times article on ‘Falkenhausen's reign of terror’. It was common practice for opposing media to vilify the opposition with tales of atrocity, was it not? Is this story verifiable from another source other than the British press?

Nicely done overall IMO. Raymond Palmer 21:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.