Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Gheorghe Tătărescu

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 discussion.

[edit] Gheorghe Tătărescu

This article is an A-class on WP:Biography. As Tătărescu was mostly a political figure, I think it's notable for the MilHist project because he served as a Minister of War in 1934. He also had a very important activity during WWII, especially fighting with the Iron Guard. --Eurocopter tigre 12:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• In all honesty, I'm not sure that he's really in-scope for us. Did he do anything substantial as Minister of War? Otherwise, he seems like a regular politician that happened to be active during a war, but had no direct involvement in military affairs; and we've traditionally considered such people to be outside our purview. Kirill 13:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I will take a look in a minute, but you should know that i'm not the person who assessed it as a WPMILHIST article. --Eurocopter tigre 13:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Yep, I know. You'd probably be the best person to decide whether he had any real military involvement, though, as you're probably more knowledgeable about the topic than the rest of us. :-) Kirill 13:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Would the fact that he is the one who accepted the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (a military action) + his activity during the war be significant for us? --Eurocopter tigre 13:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
        • Mmm, not quite sure. Did he have some particular role (other than being Prime Minister at the time and voting to accept the occupation) in the events? If not, I'd be hesitant to include him based on that alone; it'd be a bit like including a member of Congress only because he voted to declare war on Japan, for example. Kirill 15:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct, but as a prime minister during the war, I think you are still very involved in it. Just think at Churchill, etc. Sincerelly, I don't really know what to say, so I'll let you decide if this article is notable for WPMILHIST or not. --Eurocopter tigre 16:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess that's true to a certain; but Churchill was a pretty hands-on PM as regards to military planning, and it's not clear from the article whether Tătărescu played a significant role in military decision-making. I'd lean towards considering him outside of our scope. I may be being too strict, though, I'll leave a note for the other coordinators to drop by here so that we can get some other opinions before doing anything. Kirill 17:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but he might had significant role behind the scene, as a prime minister, for example negotiating with the weapons providers and similar things. But, let's see what the other people say. --Eurocopter tigre 17:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Speaking for myslef, I tend to view any position held at or above the rank or General/Admrial to be within our scope even if the person exercised little if any authority in the position, or will mark an article as within our scope if WPBIO has already marked the article as being within the scope of their war task force. In this case: If he was war minister for a while I would be incline to conclude that he falls within our projects scope,a lthough I could firm this up a little more if the article on the romanian war ministry was more detailed - In particular, I would like to know how the ministry chooses its head and what powers the head exercises. The same issues apply to other articles as well; since the U.S. constitution stipulates that the President is to the Command and Chief of the army and the Navy all past and future presidents could be construed to fall within our scope. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that's a reasonable approach. In this case, though, it's not quite clear from the what his role as Minister of War entailed. He is listed as holding that position in 1934, but became leader of the cabinet (and presumably Prime Minister?) in January of that year. I'm wondering whether the position was one he held only during the five-day period under Constantin Anghelescu, in which case it seems too trivial to warrant including him unless he actually did something significant in those five days. Kirill 03:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose: Thats the problem here; we don't know what being the war minister here entails. It could also be a sign that the article isn't ready for A-class review yet; if we have to deabte the merits of this rather than read and comment than I dare say perhaps more content is needed in the article to clarify the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: I took a read-through. I tend to agree with Kirill that inclusion in WPMILHIST at this point is primarily by association (cabinet position) rather than by anything discussed in the article in any detail. For the article to squarely fall under military history, to TomStar81's point, I think it needs a good more detail substantiating Tătărescu's specific involvements with the military or his effect on military actions. The current focus is pretty much all on politics and foreign policy. PētersV

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 discussion.