| Revision as of 17:35, 9 June 2018 editGPRamirez5 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users4,037 edits →War breaks out in Europe; a pretext for a Soviet invasionTags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit← Previous edit | Revision as of 17:44, 9 June 2018 edit undoPaul Siebert (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers26,740 edits →War breaks out in Europe; a pretext for a Soviet invasionNext edit → | ||
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| :::::::Modern views are taken into account by using the word "ostensibly", which implies that the article's text does not endorse this claim. Furthermore, subsequent text continues to speak about Poland, thereby confirming that Poland hadn't "ceased to exist". The source cited also concludes that the explanation was weak from a legal point of view, that it it was intended not for international lawyers, but for affecting a public opinion. I think, this information is quite sufficient for any reasonable reader to draw correct conclusions about an unpleasant role the USSR played in this story. Obviously, a EE reader who is obsessed with the idea that the USSR was the most evil monster of XX century, and the WWII article should tell that it was the USSR who started WWII, and who was the main aggressor, may find this text unsatisfactory. However, it is not our goal to please this tiny fraction of world population. Our goal is to tell truth..--] (]) 15:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC) | :::::::Modern views are taken into account by using the word "ostensibly", which implies that the article's text does not endorse this claim. Furthermore, subsequent text continues to speak about Poland, thereby confirming that Poland hadn't "ceased to exist". The source cited also concludes that the explanation was weak from a legal point of view, that it it was intended not for international lawyers, but for affecting a public opinion. I think, this information is quite sufficient for any reasonable reader to draw correct conclusions about an unpleasant role the USSR played in this story. Obviously, a EE reader who is obsessed with the idea that the USSR was the most evil monster of XX century, and the WWII article should tell that it was the USSR who started WWII, and who was the main aggressor, may find this text unsatisfactory. However, it is not our goal to please this tiny fraction of world population. Our goal is to tell truth..--] (]) 15:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC) | ||
| :::::::So, you do admit that the explanation "was weak from a legal point of view". Speaking normal language, that was actually Soviet disinformation or propaganda. So why should we cite Soviet propaganda on WP pages, without even explicitly telling that it was propaganda and providing alternative views per WP:NPOV? "Ostensibly" does not make it.] (]) 15:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC) |
:::::::So, you do admit that the explanation "was weak from a legal point of view". Speaking normal language, that was actually Soviet disinformation or propaganda. So why should we cite Soviet propaganda on WP pages, without even explicitly telling that it was propaganda and providing alternative views per WP:NPOV? "Ostensibly" does not make it.] (]) 15:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC) | ||
| ::::::::Yes, if we were writing this article specifically for a stupid reader, as well as for some ''very specific fraction of'' EE readers, an explicit reservation should be added ("but that was just a propaganda of evil Soviets"). However, to any ''reasonable'' reader (i.e. to our main audience) the word "ostensibly" is quite sufficient. Other details can be found in the source provided (whose conclusion was: Soviet claims were shaky).--] (]) 17:44, 9 June 2018 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Support''' Paul's change. I copy edited the amendment before it was taken out and summarily executed. I am not enthusiastic about the amendment, but it seems an improvement in that it succinctly adds useful, even necessary, information and is the least bad version I can think of. Well done Paul for spotting and tackling this. ] (]) 21:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC) | :'''Support''' Paul's change. I copy edited the amendment before it was taken out and summarily executed. I am not enthusiastic about the amendment, but it seems an improvement in that it succinctly adds useful, even necessary, information and is the least bad version I can think of. Well done Paul for spotting and tackling this. ] (]) 21:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC) | ||
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Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers
The term was originally coined to describe the USA, the USSR, and the UK - until the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. Granted, that's only 11 years, but I still think UK should be mentioned in this sentence. Thoughts?2605:E000:6300:8300:1B0:6004:280E:655E (talk) 05:25, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- Agree--Britain in 1945 still had an empire and naval power. It was in better economic shape than USSR. Rjensen (talk) 05:29, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- Any chance of some sources? As well as or instead of editors' opinions? I have a personal opinion on this, but I don't see why Misplaced Pages should be interested in it. Gog the Mild (talk) 06:21, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- Agree--Britain in 1945 still had an empire and naval power. It was in better economic shape than USSR. Rjensen (talk) 05:29, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
"Superpowers are able to infl uence policy on a worldwide scale, and often in different regions at the same time. The term was fi rst used in 1944 by T.R. Fox, in his book The Superpowers: The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union – Their Responsibility for Peace. These three nations fought on the same side in the Second World War, but afterwards became involved in a battle for economic, political and military power. At the end of the war, the British Empire covered about 25% of the world’s land area and had 25% of its population. However, its power was in decline, whereas the USA and USSR were emerging as the new superpowers. " Also, the wikipedia page for Superpower itself briefly talks about it with sources. 2605:E000:6300:8300:1B0:6004:280E:655E (talk) 07:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- What is being proposed here? The sentence in the title of this section is in the infobox and is uncontroversial. It doesn't seem to be specifically referenced in the article at present, but finding such references would be trivial. It's certainly true that the UK remained a 'superpower' in the years immediately after the war (until economic realities and the end of empire burst that particular bubble), but so what? Nick-D (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- Exactly. The emergence of the USA and the USSR as superpowers is a "result" of the war. Britain as a superpower isn't.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:19, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- I think it would be more accurate to say "Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as "rival" superpowers". They were already technically described as superpowers before the war ended, the only difference after the war is that they were rivals not on the same side. Lucasjohansson (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Exactly. The emergence of the USA and the USSR as superpowers is a "result" of the war. Britain as a superpower isn't.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:19, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
Advice needed
My question is centered on the approach/method/steps the editors of this article developed to form a consensus on the start date of WWII. How did the editors here resolve this issue? I was hoping to employ the same approach with the article Civil Rights Movement. Mitchumch (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- Nothing special I'm afraid: from memory, it involved just a bunch of regular talk page discussions. I'd suggest looking through the talk page archives for this. They can be searched via the box at the top of this page. Nick-D (talk) 06:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Changes to status of nations and resultant Civil Wars as a Result of WW2
In the Infobox, as Results of WW2, shouldn't there one item making mention of the great changes which followed in some nations, being direct or proximate indirect results of it:
- the Partition of India
- the Chinese Civil War
- the Korean War
etc
Spettro9 (talk) 19:52, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
- I understand where you are coming from, but in my opinion they are not proximate enough to be worthy of mention, especially not in the infobox. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
- The Infobox links to Aftermath of World War II, which covers this, though there isn't much reference to India. I agree that the events you mention did mainly result from WW2, except for the Chinese Civil War which started in 1927.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:28, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 29 March 2018
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27.56.92.249 (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. No request was made. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 29 March 2018
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27.56.92.249 (talk) 18:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Not done: Your request is blank or it only consists of a vague request for editing permission. It is not possible for individual users to be granted permission to edit a semi-protected page; however, you can do one of the following:
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On Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944–45) section, link on "while the Soviets advanced to Vienna." could be changed to "while the Soviets advanced to Vienna." to point to the article describing the battle, not the city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hacker?pcs (talk • contribs) 02:58, 6 May 2018 (UTC) (--78.48.253.133 (talk) 06:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC))
Done. Thank you. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Atomic bombs
The development of atomic bombs seems to be a neglected in this article. It is mentioned twice in the lead. Then, in the body, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gets two sentences. (Less than than the internment of Axis civilians in North America.) There's no mention of the lives lost, but there is mention of the potential lives that might have been lost in an invasion. There's also no mention of the destructive power of the bombs. Incidentally, Casualties and war crimes mentions "mass bombing" of cities, but not the atomic bombs. Advances in technology and warfare makes passing reference to "the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons". More space is devoted to cryptography and jet planes. Aftermath mentions an "arms race", without specifying nuclear weapons. And I think that's it.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
- Actually, the role of atomic bombing in Japan surrender was less important than most people think. See Robert A. Pape "Why Japan Surrendered", nternational Security Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall, 1993), pp. 154-201
- Paul Siebert (talk) 07:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- The issue of why Japan surrendered is separate. The point is (1) a lot of people died, (2) it was a major advance in technology and military destructive capability. Facts are stubborn things, as Heinrich Hoffmann once said.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- (1) The number of people died was not impressive if you compare it with the amount of other civilian victims of conventional bombing raids or from other causes (e.g. siege of Leningrad)
- (2) There is a separate section in the article devoted to the advances of technology and warfare.
- Thank you for pointing my attention at this issue. Actually, two sentences is even too much. This sentence "The Allies justified the atomic bombings as a military necessity to avoid invading the Japanese home islands which would cost the lives of between 250,000 and 500,000 Allied servicemen and millions of Japanese troops and civilians." explains the reason behind the decision to drop the atomic bomb, whereas other steps taken by the Allies or the Axis powers remain unexplained. As far as I remember, there was a consensus to remove all explanations of this kind from this high profile summary article. If noone explains me what was a specific reason to keep this explanation, I'll remove this sentence.
- In addition, if a reason will be provided why we should keep this sentence, we will also have to add the information that the same estimate of possible losses forced the US leadership to ask the USSR to declare war on Japan. Currently, the article says nothing about that, but if the reason for atomic bombing requires a separate explanation, Soviet invasion requires it too.
- Paul Siebert (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- The issue of why Japan surrendered is separate. The point is (1) a lot of people died, (2) it was a major advance in technology and military destructive capability. Facts are stubborn things, as Heinrich Hoffmann once said.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
No reason to keep the justification of atomic bombing has been provided. Since nobody minds, I remove it.-Paul Siebert (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- As I stated, the section on Advances in technology and warfare only makes a passing reference to the atomic bomb. Whatever you do to the lead, the lack of information about atomic bombs in the article is strange.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:34, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- How exactly had atomic bomb affected the course of the war, and what other information about it is needed in this article?--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:42, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Atomic energy was a major advance in technology, but it's barely mentioned. I don't think there's any serious dispute that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important events that happened during the war. They just seem to have been largely forgotten here. The problem is that people come to Misplaced Pages for information, and I think it's perverse to tell them more about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia than the atom bomb. You keep coming back to how the atomic bomb affected the course of the war as if that's the only question. It's not. Even so, the article by Pape that you keep citing doesn't really support your argument. He says, "The second and final change to the emperor's views was caused by the Hiroshima bomb"; it was the "catalyst" in his decision to surrender (p 185). The Hiroshima bombing, of course, occurred before the Soviet declaration of war. In an article like this, we need to deal with what happened. We don't have the space for hypotheticals and rationalisations. Hence, if the Hiroshima bombing led to the Japanese surrender, then the Hiroshima bombing is notable, even if they would have surrendered anyway. And if many people think the atom bomb won the war (which they do), then it's notable, even if that's not true.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:24, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, it was a major advance, as well as von Braun's missiles were (a whole American and, in less extent, Soviet space programs resulted from them). Zuse's computer was equally important advance, and so on. However, this article is about the war, not about that. You propose to support an old stereotype that the nation which develops nuclear weapon first automatically wins. This is true for Civilization games, not for real life.
- Regarding Pape, whom I am keeping citing (I think, it would be more polite to say "You cite", but English is not my mother tongue, so I probably misunderstand these nuances), you didn't read it carefully. Hirohito was not the only decision maker, a "war party" in Japanese leadership was led by the Army, and its core was Kwantung army; the war party was stronger that Horohito, but its positions were totally unaffected by bombing, because the headquarter, industrial and military bases were in Korea and Manchuria. Neither conventional nor atomic bombing convinced them to surrender, but Soviet invasion did, because it crushed the last argument of the war party.
- You absolutely correctly noted that Hiroshima and Nagasaki catalysed the decision to surrender, but had you learned Chemistry well (which is rare in an Anglophone world, alas) you should have known that a catalyst never shifts the equilibrium state: it only facilitates its achievement. Defeat of the Japanese navy PLUS devastating conventional bombing of Japanese cities (actually, there were virtually no good targets remaining in Japan by 6th of August but four intact cities) PLUS imminent destruction of Kwantung army after Soviet invasion - these were three factors that shifted equilibrium to the surrender side. Atomic bomb was a true catalyst: it facilitated the process of comprehension of the need to surrender. But it was just a catalyst. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for your lesson in politeness! As a catalyst, the atomic bomb is important. I don't have a problem with the lead. It's just the rest of the article as I noted in my original comment.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- In another article (authored by one Japanese scholar, I can find it if you want) I found the idea that the bomb gave the Japanese a pretext for surrender: "we were fighting bravely, and we were ready to die hard, but this bomb is a kind of vis major that we cannot withstand, so we have no option but to bow". But that was good for internal propaganda, it was not a real factor.
- Anyway, I sincerely do not understand what additional information should we put in the article about the nuclear bombing: we do not mention the lives lost in much more devastating events, why should we make exception here? Regarding your other points, if we discuss possible losses of Americans during the invasion of Home Islands, we need to add a discussion of the reason for Soviet invasion of Manchuria (it was due to Roosevelt's request, and it was dictated by the same reason), the discussion of why did Western Allies procrustinated with invasion of France, and so on. The article creates an impression of some chess game, it pays little attention to real battles and tells about various negotiations and considerations instead. That is hardly correct. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with the removal of the possible American losses — that was a point I raised in my original comment. That really improves the situation. I accept we probably can't include the death toll of the atomic bombs because we don't do so for other events. If we discuss the role of the atomic bombs in the surrender, we are digging up a hornet's nest. I think the mention in Advances in technology and warfare needs to be expanded, but I'm not sure how to word it at the moment. It would be good to tie this to the subsequent Cold War and the threat of nuclear war...--Jack Upland (talk) 09:08, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Agree. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Why Hungarian POWs are mentioned separately?
The Genocide etc section says: " In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta Conference millions of POWs and civilians were used as forced labour by the Soviet Union. In Hungary's case, Hungarians were forced to work for the Soviet Union until 1955."
Can anybody explain me a reason why do we need to speak about Hungarians separately? Hungary was the Axis power, and its POWs were treated in the same way as other POWs. The article will benefit if the second sentence is removed. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Good point. I would suggest WP:BB. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Remove: seems odd to call out just one Axis power in this manner. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Notice: There is an article on POW labor in the Soviet Union which is not yet linked from the WW2 article. Instead, Foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union is linked. Perhaps candidates for a merger? --Prüm (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Casablanca and unconditional surrender
I am not sure this statement
"At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations, and demanded the unconditional surrender of their enemies."
is absolutely correct and I don't know if it is needed at all. First, it was the meeting of Western Allies only, so the sentence is somewhat misleading. Second, although Roosevelt proposed the concept of unconditional surrender, it was not anonymously supported even by the Britain. It was the Tehran conference where all Big Three leaders agreed upon the unconditional surrender concept. Source: J Roberts, Stalin at the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences, Journal of Cold War Studies Volume 9, Number 4, Fall 2007
In connection to that, I also disagree with the way Tehran conference is described in the article. It should be separated from the Cairo conference, and one or two sentences should be devoted to the explanations of what the Allies decided there, and about the acceptance of the unconditional surrender principle. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- A bigger problem is that the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations, which the USSR did assent to, does not mention unconditional surrender as implied. 98.143.76.91 (talk)
- Agreed. It's also notable that FDR essentially announced the unconditional surrender policy by himself at Casablanca (apparently taking Churchill by surprise), and various sources note that it didn't have much force at this time as a result. Nick-D (talk) 11:26, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
" millions of POWs and civilians were used as forced labour by the Soviet Union"
The article says "In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta Conference millions of POWs and civilians were used as forced labour...."
Can anybody confirm the source explicitly says usage of civilian forced labor in Soviet Union was authorized in Yalta? And, by the way, which civilians are we talking about? For example, were German civilians sent in Gulag? I am not aware of that, and I doubt the cited source says so. Please, explain. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes it is true. At Yalta, Stalin insisted that German labourers be used to rebuild industry and infrastructure in the Soviet Union that had been damaged in the war. The Western Allies also sometimes used POWs in forced labour roles as well. Read the articles on Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union and Forced labor of Germans after World War II. Mediatech492 (talk) 18:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- My question was about civilians. Do you have any evidence forced civilian labour was used? I know that some German specialists were moved to the USSR and they participated in military R&D, but, as far as I understand, the article means something else? Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- I checked (a source is "Against their Will", Memorial), about 300,000 of German civilians, including local Nazi activists were used as forced laborers in the USSR. That means, "millions of POWs and civilians" is an exaggeration.Paul Siebert (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Ah, I am not sure that it is. 300,000 civilians plus nearly 2 million German PoWs is, just about, "millions of POWs and civilians". Arguably plus 270,000 ethnic German civilians from outside the German pre=war border. More arguably plus over 1 million ethnic German civilians from inside the USSR who were gulaged. But it would be better to be more precise, given that we seem to have the sources. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- If some regime killed 10 people and exiled 2000, would it be correct to say "thousands were killed or exiled"?
- The German civilians from the territories annexed by Poland or Czechoslovakia were deported to Germany, not to the USSR. Regarding ethnic Soviet Germans, they were not sent to Gulag (just look at the Gulag statistics). They were displaced to Central Asia, or kept in detention camps (in the same way American did with their Japanese compatriots) during the war and then released. They were not used as forceful laborers.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- "it would be better to be more precise, given that we seem to have the sources" Gog the Mild (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- My understanding is that civilians were unsually interned in NKVD special camps in Germany 1945–49 or sometimes deported to the Soviet Union, such as in Operation Osoaviakhim. Only POWs were normally put to (hard) forced labour in the Soviet Union. Then there's also the question of etnic Germans already living in the Soviet Union before the war. --Prüm (talk) 23:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Exactly. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- That is also my understanding. After the war the USSR held huge numbers of POWs, but civilians were essentially displaced. I question whether the reference from the Hungarian 'Minorities research' is a reliable source BTW - it's not clear who published it exactly, or the author's credentials. It doesn't support the claim regarding Yalta. Nick-D (talk) 11:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Given this discussion, I will remove the statement. Also, we need to bear in mind the context, which implies some kind of equivalence between this issue and the Jewish genocide. Like the internment of the Japanese in the USA, the treatment of the German POWs in the USSR was bad, but it was among many bad things that happened during the war. It's just not on the same level.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:27, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- That is also my understanding. After the war the USSR held huge numbers of POWs, but civilians were essentially displaced. I question whether the reference from the Hungarian 'Minorities research' is a reliable source BTW - it's not clear who published it exactly, or the author's credentials. It doesn't support the claim regarding Yalta. Nick-D (talk) 11:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Exactly. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- My understanding is that civilians were unsually interned in NKVD special camps in Germany 1945–49 or sometimes deported to the Soviet Union, such as in Operation Osoaviakhim. Only POWs were normally put to (hard) forced labour in the Soviet Union. Then there's also the question of etnic Germans already living in the Soviet Union before the war. --Prüm (talk) 23:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- "it would be better to be more precise, given that we seem to have the sources" Gog the Mild (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Ah, I am not sure that it is. 300,000 civilians plus nearly 2 million German PoWs is, just about, "millions of POWs and civilians". Arguably plus 270,000 ethnic German civilians from outside the German pre=war border. More arguably plus over 1 million ethnic German civilians from inside the USSR who were gulaged. But it would be better to be more precise, given that we seem to have the sources. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Concentration camps and death camps
The article says:
- "In addition to Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags (labour camps) led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POWs) and even Soviet citizens who had been or were thought to be supporters of the Nazis. Sixty per cent of Soviet POWs of the Germans died during the war. Richard Overy gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of those, 57 per cent died or were killed, a total of 3.6 million. Soviet ex-POWs and repatriated civilians were treated with great suspicion as potential Nazi collaborators, and some of them were sent to the Gulag upon being checked by the NKVD."
References
- Applebaum 2003 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFApplebaum2003 (help).
- Herbert 1994, p. 222 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHerbert1994 (help)
- Overy 2004, pp. 568–9 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFOvery2004 (help).
- Zemskov V.N. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4, (in Russian). See also (online version), and Bacon 1992 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBacon1992 (help); Ellman 2002 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllman2002 (help).
I see some problems here. "In addition to Nazi concentration camps ... " implies they either have been mentioned before (they haven't), other they deserve less attention that other camps (they doesn't). Moreover, this sentence equates Soviet and Nazi camps, which is incorrect for two reasons. First. High mortality in Gulag in 1942-43 is a direct consequence of the war (Soviet civilians suffered from malnutrition too), whereas Nazi camps deliberately created unbearable condition for prisoners. That means Gulag was especially deadly during the war because of the war, but Nazi camps were deadly because they were specially designed for that. Second, the most famous Nazi camps were not concentration camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor and some others), but death camps, and their primary goal was to kill people. That is an important point. In addition, the next sentence that tells about Soviet POW's is misplaced, because it follows the sentence telling about Gulag. It should be moved to the previous paragraph. I also found several repetitions, for example, Soviet POW figures are given twice.
I propose the following version of the first two paragraphs where different themes are not mixed and internal logic is restored:
- The German government led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was responsible for the Holocaust (killing of approximately 6 million Jews), as well as for killing of 2.7 million ethnic Poles, and 4 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination. Soviet POWs were kept in especially unbearable condition, and, although their extermination was not an official goal, 3.6 million of Soviet POWs out of 5.7 died in Nazi camps during the war. In addition to concentration camps, death camps were created in Nazi Germany to exterminate people at an industrial scale.
- Nazi Germany extensively used forced labourers. About 12 million Europeans from German occupied countries were used as slave work force in German agriculture and war economy.
- Soviet Gulag became de facto a system of deadly camps during 1942-43, when privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates, including foreign citizens of Poland and other countries occupied in 1939-40 by the USSR, as well as of the Axis POWs.
- By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps where they were subjected to NKVD check, and significant part of them was sent to Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.
References
- Institute of National Remembrance, Polska 1939–1945 Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Materski and Szarota. page 9 "Total Polish population losses under German occupation are currently calculated at about 2 770 000".
- Herbert 1994, p. 222 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHerbert1994 (help)
- Overy 2004, pp. 568–9 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFOvery2004 (help).
- Marek, Michael (27 October 2005). "Final Compensation Pending for Former Nazi Forced Laborers". dw-world.de. Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov. Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basisof Archival Evidence. The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049
- Applebaum 2003 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFApplebaum2003 (help).
- Zemskov V.N. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4, (in Russian). See also (online version), and Bacon 1992 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBacon1992 (help); Ellman 2002 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllman2002 (help).
Paul Siebert (talk) 23:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Looks good. One more thing: I believe the Displaced persons camps in post-World War II Europe in the early stages also had a high mortality, as did the transports and forced evacuations of Germans from Eastern Europe (and doubtless other nationalities as well). Not sure how this would enter the picture, belonging to the immediate aftermath of the war rather than the war itself. --Prüm (talk) 05:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree fully with the intent of this change: the current wording is sloppy at best, and at worst is an attempt to imply that the USSR was just as bad as Nazi Germany (as I understand it, the general view is that both were very bad, but Germany was significantly worse). Regarding the second para, it wasn't just eastern Europeans who were used as forced labourers: huge numbers of western Europeans and Italians were also so used. I'd suggest not using the word "employed" in this context, as it implies that they were paid when they were actually slaves. The issue of post-war expulsions is covered in the 'Aftermath' section, and shouldn't be presented alongside wartime war crimes. Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Nick, I changed the draft. Is it better?Paul Siebert (talk) 19:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree fully with the intent of this change: the current wording is sloppy at best, and at worst is an attempt to imply that the USSR was just as bad as Nazi Germany (as I understand it, the general view is that both were very bad, but Germany was significantly worse). Regarding the second para, it wasn't just eastern Europeans who were used as forced labourers: huge numbers of western Europeans and Italians were also so used. I'd suggest not using the word "employed" in this context, as it implies that they were paid when they were actually slaves. The issue of post-war expulsions is covered in the 'Aftermath' section, and shouldn't be presented alongside wartime war crimes. Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see a reason why the Nazi and Soviets camps should be compared (does this mean I agree or disagree with you?). The thing they have in common is that they both had POWs. But I disagree with the view that the Soviets wanted the treat the POWs right and that only food shortage killed them. The Soviet Union had not signed the 1907 or 1929 Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and they had no intention to treat POWs according to those standards. With the death marches and stuff you can't say they weren't being deliberalitely killed. --Pudeo (talk) 19:18, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, out of 90,000 of German POWs captured at Stalingrad only 5,000 survived. However, most of them were already sick, frostbited or wounded by the moment they were captured. Yes, the Soviets did not provide needed medical help or food, but free population of the USSR was starving too. Mortality in GULAG increased sharply in 1942-43 and amounted to 20% annually. By saying that, I do not imply USSR "wanted the treat the POWs right": they used their labour, which is not allowed by Geneva conventions. However, POWs were not treated especially badly, just as bad as Soviet prisoners were treated. That is the difference.
- By the way, is it just a comment, or you propose some changes to the draft?Paul Siebert (talk) 19:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Mostly just a comment: the Western allies treated POWs right so from the Allied side the Soviet Union should stand out. Which I think it fairly well does in your draft, but I was cautioning not modify it at towards the potential "Soviets wanted to treat them good" side. But I would propose this change to the draft: mention the number of 3.6 million German POWs dying. That's a significant number which is sourced in the present version. --Pudeo (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- When I put a draft on the talk page, everybody is usually welcome to edit it (if a rationale is provided). However, the figure of 3.6 million contradicts to official figures of German military losses (3.76 million) and Overmans data (4.5 million). These data include KIA, MIA and POWs died in captivity. I would like to see your source. Can you please drop a reference?Paul Siebert (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, 3.6 million is the number for Soviet POWs killed - I misread the original chapter (actually your draft is more clear in this because it breaks it down to different paragraphs). The number of German POWs killed (350,000-1 million) perhaps then should not be mentioned because it's not as significant and the estimation varies so much depending on whether the Soviet records are trusted. --Pudeo (talk) 20:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- "The number of German POWs died". It seems 1 million is the difference between Overmans and official figures. I don't think we need specifically mention German POWs, because other GULAG deaths are not mentioned. By the way, I saw statistics, war time mortality was much higher, which means unbearable conditions (more severe that before and after the war) were not a result of intentional policy, but the consequence of the war.
- If noone has other comments or suggestions, I'll probably move the text to the article tomorrow.Paul Siebert (talk) 20:17, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Some of the worst famines in human history like the Bengal famine of 1943 happened during war-time so war-time conditions aren't necessarily alone a Get Out of Jail Free card. The mortality rate in the gulags indeed quadrupled during the war-time, but it was 5 % even before the war so the system was built so that a portion of the forced labourers would succumb (which doesn't make them death camps, anyway). --Pudeo (talk) 20:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Correct.Paul Siebert (talk) 23:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Some of the worst famines in human history like the Bengal famine of 1943 happened during war-time so war-time conditions aren't necessarily alone a Get Out of Jail Free card. The mortality rate in the gulags indeed quadrupled during the war-time, but it was 5 % even before the war so the system was built so that a portion of the forced labourers would succumb (which doesn't make them death camps, anyway). --Pudeo (talk) 20:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, 3.6 million is the number for Soviet POWs killed - I misread the original chapter (actually your draft is more clear in this because it breaks it down to different paragraphs). The number of German POWs killed (350,000-1 million) perhaps then should not be mentioned because it's not as significant and the estimation varies so much depending on whether the Soviet records are trusted. --Pudeo (talk) 20:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- When I put a draft on the talk page, everybody is usually welcome to edit it (if a rationale is provided). However, the figure of 3.6 million contradicts to official figures of German military losses (3.76 million) and Overmans data (4.5 million). These data include KIA, MIA and POWs died in captivity. I would like to see your source. Can you please drop a reference?Paul Siebert (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- Mostly just a comment: the Western allies treated POWs right so from the Allied side the Soviet Union should stand out. Which I think it fairly well does in your draft, but I was cautioning not modify it at towards the potential "Soviets wanted to treat them good" side. But I would propose this change to the draft: mention the number of 3.6 million German POWs dying. That's a significant number which is sourced in the present version. --Pudeo (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see a reason why the Nazi and Soviets camps should be compared (does this mean I agree or disagree with you?). The thing they have in common is that they both had POWs. But I disagree with the view that the Soviets wanted the treat the POWs right and that only food shortage killed them. The Soviet Union had not signed the 1907 or 1929 Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and they had no intention to treat POWs according to those standards. With the death marches and stuff you can't say they weren't being deliberalitely killed. --Pudeo (talk) 19:18, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
References
Post war borders
Currently, the caption to the map says:
- Post-war Soviet territorial expansion resulted in Central and Eastern European border changes, the creation of a Communist Bloc and start of the Cold War]]
It is not completely accurate and redundantly long. The border changed during the war (USSR annexed many territories in 1939-40). The term Central Europe is not compatible with Eastern Europe, these definitions partially overlap. The caption provides links that are already present in the article. In addition, the caption implies some changes occurred in other parts of Europe, but I am not aware of it. In addition, I am not sure creation of the Eastern Bloc was the sole reason for the start of the Cold War.
I suggest a shorter and more neutral caption:
- "Post-war border changes in Europe. Creation of the Eastern Bloc."
-Paul Siebert (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hmm, does Eastern Bloc really refer to only the Eastern and Central European communist states? I'm not so sure. Countries like Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, … come to mind. --Prüm (talk) 07:49, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- The current capture contains a link to the same Eastern Bloc article, so I don't understand your point. Do you propose just:
- "Post-war border changes in Europe."
- ? --Paul Siebert (talk) 14:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- The current capture contains a link to the same Eastern Bloc article, so I don't understand your point. Do you propose just:
- The Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955, I believe? That was years after a new Cold War had been mutually declared.
- Let me see… what about:
Post-war occupation effectively brought much of Central and Eastern Europe into the Soviet sphere of influence, the border of which became known as the Iron Curtain
? --Prüm (talk) 15:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)- Too confusing. Germany was occupied completely, but only a part of territory was transferred to Poland and USSR. Moldavia was annexed (actually, it was an interesting story, because Moldavia had never been an part of Romania before 1918, and Romania took it in the same was as Russia recently took Crimea: moved military forces there, neutralized local parliament members and initiated a referendum among ethnically close population. This annexation has never been recognized by the USSR, and, by the way, by the US), and so on. The map is not supposed to tell the history of the whole World War II in Central Europe, it just tells about post war border changes (the section is about war's aftermath).--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- May be "Soviet occupation zone in Europe and post-war border changes"? --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Actually that is also not completely correct, because part of Austria was in the Soviet zone too.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:38, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Do we even need this map? The war led to significant territorial changes around the world (eg, Germany's western borders were adjusted as well, and there were massive changes in Asia with the breakup of the Japanese empire in 1945 and the collapse of the colonial empires over the next few years). The war also led to the creation of a fairly unified western bloc spanning Europe, North America and the Commonwealth dominions, which hadn't existed in 1939. I'd suggest removing it. Nick-D (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
- I have a double feeling. From one hand, you are right, from another hand, border changes in Central Europe, in contrast to other parts of the world (except, probably, Kuril Islands and a small archipelago in a Yellow Sea), provoked some conflicts that have not been resolved even now.
- I would make a caption shorter (I already proposed my version) and leave it, although I will not object to map removal either.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:20, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Mention of ethnic groups in the article
I noticed sometimes ethnicity is mentioned in the article without any obvious reason. For example, I've just removed the statement "The largest portion of military dead were 5.7 million ethnic Russians, followed by 1.3 million ethnic Ukrainians " from the "Casualties" section, because statistics says that all ethnic groups in USSR sustained approximately similar military losses (in relative figures).
I suggest to examine the whole article and to remove an information about ethnicity when it is irrelevant. For example, it is absolutely relevant to mention Jews in the "Genocide" section, but it would be irrelevant to mention them separately in the section devoted to military losses (the percentage of KIA/MIA Jews was roughly the same, in relative figures, as of other ethnic groups).
-Paul Siebert (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Of course. One could perhaps say
… N Soviet citizens, of which M were ethnic …
. --Prüm (talk) 07:45, 11 May 2018 (UTC)- What idea such mentioning would suppose to convey? That the word "Russians" or "Ukrainians" should be mentioned? I doubt our goal is to please someone's nationalism.
- IMHO, the ethnicity should be mentioned only when it is relevant. For example, Jews were killed by Nazi because they were Jews, Japanese were detained by Americans because they were Americans of Japanese origin", but Russians were killed because they were Slavs, not because they were Russians. Therefore, it is correct to mention Slavs, Jews, Japanese, but not Russians (in the context of killing, of course).--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:23, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well, it is always relevant to some extent. The Nazis' preferred victims, behind Jews and Gypsies, would be Poles, Serbs and Russians (not sure about the order). One can easily see that they also suffered most severely. Ukrainians were, at least initially, treated with much more leniency than, say, Russians or White Russians. The other peoples of the Soviet Union were even given the opportunity to serve alongside the Wehrmacht, quite regardless of race. So, in short, the Nazis' racialist ideas were not really that coherent. --Prüm (talk) 15:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- In this context, Jews, Gypsies are relevant. Poles are relevant because in means not ethnicity, but nationality (citizenship), actually under "Poles" all gentile population of Poland is meant.
- Serbs are also relevant, because Yugoslavia was split on two parts: a Nazi puppet state of Croatia and occupied Serbia, so "Serbs" means "population of Serbia".
- Russians are NOT relevant in this case, because all Eastern Slavs were targeted in the same extent. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well, it is always relevant to some extent. The Nazis' preferred victims, behind Jews and Gypsies, would be Poles, Serbs and Russians (not sure about the order). One can easily see that they also suffered most severely. Ukrainians were, at least initially, treated with much more leniency than, say, Russians or White Russians. The other peoples of the Soviet Union were even given the opportunity to serve alongside the Wehrmacht, quite regardless of race. So, in short, the Nazis' racialist ideas were not really that coherent. --Prüm (talk) 15:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in the lead
The fragment:
- " From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states."
Is not completely accurate. Some sources say it was the Soviet occupation and annexation of the Eastern part or Romania and Baltic states that convinced Hitler to start planning Barbarossa. Hitler considered annexation of Baltic states by the USSR as an aggressive act and Barbarossa was a response on it (Source: H. W. Koch Operation Barbarossa-The Current State of the Debate. The Historical Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 377-390.) In other words, Hitler did not consider annexation of Bessarabia or Baltic states was stipulated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (he believed USSR was allowed to install friendly regimes there, to keep military bases, but not to occupy and annex.) In addition, the second sentence partially repeats the first one.
I suggest this:
- "From late 1939 to early 1941,
… through a series of campaigns of conquest and by diplomatic means, Germany gained control of
much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy, Japan and several Central European states.The USSR occupied and annexed territories of its several neighbours ( Eastern Poland, Eastern Finland, Romanian Bessarabia and the Baltic states) that were in its sphere of influence according to the non-aggression pact with Germany.
"
- "From late 1939 to early 1941,
-Paul Siebert (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I would suggest:
… through a series of campaigns of conquest and (in a lesser part) by diplomatic means, Germany gained control of …
I am not a native speaker, however. --Prüm (talk) 07:16, 11 May 2018 (UTC)- Agree, except "in lesser part" is incorrect. Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Finland (not an Axis country, but an ally) - all of that was a result of diplomacy. In contrast to Stalin, Hitler was using diplomaitc means masterfully.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:01, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- BTW, I've just realized the Axis included not only Germany, Italy and Japan. Added to the draft.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think that he was masterful at all. Just like Stalin, he mainly relied on brutal force. That there were some diplomatic successes does not mean they were due to Hitler's genius or smth. like that. Perhaps one could see Stalin as the more successful of the two in this regard, seeing that he survived Hitler by 8 years and with his "empire" still intact, being ~10 years his senior. --Prüm (talk) 15:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Under "Hitler" I mean Nazi leadership in general. Hitler was not masterful, but Ribbentrop was. Litvinov was also a very good diplomat, but he was a member of "Lenin team", so his vision of Soviet foreign policy had little support from Stalin. In contrast, Ribbentrop had a full freedom of manoeuvre, so Germany had a lot of sincere allies in Europe, whereas Stalin preferred to occupy neighbours and politically subdue by a brute force.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:22, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- And I would disagree Stalin was more successful, taking into account a recent revival of Nazism in some post-Communist states. Many Central Europeans see Hitlerism as less evil that Stalinism, and I think the reason was that Hitler's foreign policy, in some aspects, was more soft and flexible.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think that he was masterful at all. Just like Stalin, he mainly relied on brutal force. That there were some diplomatic successes does not mean they were due to Hitler's genius or smth. like that. Perhaps one could see Stalin as the more successful of the two in this regard, seeing that he survived Hitler by 8 years and with his "empire" still intact, being ~10 years his senior. --Prüm (talk) 15:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I would suggest:
- I think the current text is fine. It represents the consensus view of historians and is easy to understand. If we acknowledge the views of a minority of revisionists, this should be in the body of the article, not the lead.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:43, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- What exactly is the revisionist minority views in the proposed modification?
- As far as I know, it is a mainstream viewpoint that Hitler's decision to start "Barbarossa" was triggered by occupation of the Baltic states, which was considered by him as unfriendly act and violation of the non-aggression pact. That point of view was mainstream at least since 80s, so by no means it can be revisionist (it is impossible chronologically). Of course, local historians who are focused on the history of their own countries do see both "mutual assistance" agreements with USSR and subsequent occupation as the direct consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. But military historians who see a broader picture do see it. By forcing the Baltic states to sign "mutually assistance" agreement, Stalin was acting in a full accordance with the pact. By occupying the Baltic states, Stalin violated the pact (at least, from Hitler's point of view), and that was the step that affected Hitler's decision to attack USSR.
- I already provided my source, and I can provide more. If you disagree, provide your sources, please. I would prefer to see the sources where Nazi-Soviet relations are being analyzed in details. The sources about the history of the Baltic states are narrow and biased, they do not see a big picture, and many of them make a usual post hoc ergo propter hoc error.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- It is easy to see I haven't cherry picked sources. Just type in google scholar. These sources are the same sources non-biased Wikipedian would find if they decided to familiarise themselves with WWII history.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:49, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think the current text is fine. It represents the consensus view of historians and is easy to understand. If we acknowledge the views of a minority of revisionists, this should be in the body of the article, not the lead.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:43, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Since there is no further comments from Jack Upland, I assume I addressed this concern, and I was able to demonstrate the proposed change are in agreement with mainstream vision of the origin of operation Barbarossa. Actually, it is in agreement with what historians say about the circumstances of occupation of the Baltic states in 1940: in his "Stalin's war" Roberts writes that fall of France causes panic in Soviet leadership, who realised the USSR is the only rival of Nazi Germany in Europe, and they decided to put the Baltic states and Bessarabia under more strict control by fully occupying and annexing them. If no other comments/objections will be made until Wednesday 21:00 EST, I'll implement the proposed change. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:48, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- You can change it if you want, but I'm uneasy about the way this is heading. Hitler himself in his Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler did not say that Barbarossa was in response to Stalin's annexation of the Baltic states. According to Alan Bullock, "As before the Polish campaign, Hitler convinced himself that Germany had been forced to act first in self-defence. But the documentary evidences establishes that the detailed planning for Operation Barbarossa made no provision for having to meet a Russian attack... Confidence in the German camp was high because all reports showed that the Russians were ill-prepared to defend themselves, leave alone launch an offensive... Unlike Hitler... Stalin did all he could to preserve it "(Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, 1993, p 751).--Jack Upland (talk) 07:45, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- What you are saying does not contradict to what I say. Hitler didn't see an immediate military threat in occupation of the Baltic states or Bessarabia, but he was displeased with Soviet actions, and he ordered a start for planning Barbarossa. Koch says:
- "In the meantime Russia liquidated the Baltic states, a process completed before the campaign in the west had ended and watched with disquiet by the Germans, especially as the Russians occupied a small territorial strip around Mariampul in Lithuania which had originally been consigned to the German sphere of influence in 1939. With that the Russians bolted the door to German access to the Baltic countries. Russia's annexations also had economic consequences. Seventy per cent of the exports of these three countries had been absorbed by Germany, mainly wheat, butter, pork, dairy produce, flax, wood and oil. A German foreign office assessment of the situation recorded that 'the stabilization of the Russian influence in these territories signifies a serious danger for us in so far as these essential supplies are concerned '. .... Hitler, and Ribbentrop for that matter, had interpreted 'spheres of interest' rather literally, neither of them expecting the total destruction of the sovereignty of the states concerned".
- However, thanks to your comments, I found another problem with the proposed text: whereas it is more accurate about the Baltic states and Bessarabia, it is less accurate about Poland. I'll probably think more about that, and I will not be implementing this change change so far. Thank you for your comments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- What you are saying does not contradict to what I say. Hitler didn't see an immediate military threat in occupation of the Baltic states or Bessarabia, but he was displeased with Soviet actions, and he ordered a start for planning Barbarossa. Koch says:
Figures
It seems this summary article is supposed to tell about large scale events only. I don't think minor facts and figures belong to it. For example, the Casualties section that tells about millions killed civilians and military, also explicitly mentions 22,000 Polish POWs executed by the USSR. I agree, a link to Katyn should be in the article (it is a significant event, despite its relatively limited scale; it poisoned, and continues to poison the relationships between there two countries), but the statement should be re-worded.
In general, I suggest to check the way all figures are presented in the article. It is simply ridiculous when 3 million and 15 thousand are mentioned in the same paragraph. Usually the revision will not require removal of the information, just re-wording.
And, I suppose, our reader is proficient in school arithmetic, so we don't need to say:
- "Of the total number of deaths in World War II, approximately 85 per cent—mostly Soviet and Chinese—were on the Allied side and 15 per cent were on the Axis side."
Just
- "Of the total number of deaths in World War II, approximately 85 per cent—mostly Soviet and Chinese—were on the Allied side"
would be sufficient.
-Paul Siebert (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I take your point, but many highly educated people don't understand statistics. For example, they were good at history but not good at maths in school. We shouldn't presume that readers have a greater proficiency in maths than the editors who wrote the page!!! That being said, I would support a rewording based on logic.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- We should maintain a balance between providing figures and keeping the article readable. If we remove marginally informative figures that may make a life of a reader who is not proficient in school arithmetic worse, but it will help a general reader understand the text. The article is redundantly long, and we need meticulously clean it from redundant details when possible.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I do not presume the editor who wrote "85 per centwere on the Allied side and 15 per cent were on the Axis side", was not proficient in Math. I think they simply didn't care about making the article as short as possible. In the article like this one, every word matters. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
European occupations and agreement
This section contains two paragraphs that are poorly connected. It also contains a reference to the primary source (avalon project), which is not desirable to have in this article, and I am not sure conversation between Hitler and Ciano is so important: we describing the course of events, not what Hitler, Stalin, Churchill thought about that. In addition, since the current version of the section discusses unsuccessful negotiations (there was a consensus in the past that we avoid that), I think the tripartite Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations deserve mention. The current version does not make clear that "spheres of influence" were not defined in the Soviet-German pact, only in a secret protocol. I propose to merge these two paragraphs as follows:
- In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other rights to "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR). It also raised the question of continuing Polish independence. The agreement assured that after the attack of Poland Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I.
- The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. In a private meeting with the Italian foreign minister Count Ciano, Hitler asserted that Poland was a "doubtful neutral" that needed to either yield to his demands or be "liquidated" to prevent it from drawing off German troops in the future "unavoidable" war with the Western democracies. He did not believe Britain or France would intervene in the conflict. On 23 August Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that Britain had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.
I propose the following changes to make them more readable:
- "The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. In August
23, when tripartite negotiations about a military alliance between France, Britain and USSR came to an impasse
, Soviet Union signeda non-aggression pact with Germany
.This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR),
and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.The pact neutralized the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and
assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I.Immediately after that,
Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that Britain had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland, and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.
-Paul Siebert (talk) 23:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I somehow don't like the part with the impasse. The negotiations just failed, catastrophically so. What about
after the ultimate failure of tripartite negotiations …
? The reason was, of course, the bitter enmity between Poland and Russia, built up over centuries. --Prüm (talk) 07:11, 11 May 2018 (UTC)- It was not a failure. The negotiations were still continuing by Aug 23, but they were really slow. The parties still declared the need of an alliance, but they were unable to resolve key issues (indirect aggression, Polish refusal to allow Soviet troops to pass through its territory, etc. It was an impasse, but formally it was not a definite failure.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- I somehow don't like the part with the impasse. The negotiations just failed, catastrophically so. What about
- All that was still happening at that stage was both sides kept telling each other (for months on end) that neither could accept the wishes of the other. The negotiations had failed even as early as smth. like early summer or even spring 1939? One should also remember that Voroshilov, who conducted the negotiations on Stalin's behalf, was one of his all-time favourites, just like Molotov. --Prüm (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- No, that is incorrect. Britain and France were telling that they would not accept Molotov's interpretation of the "indirect aggression" term, and the political talks were paused (not stopped) in July (which was not early summer). Later, the Soviet side requested that a military talks to start, which discussed military aspects (i.e. practical aspects) of the prospective alliance (with a goal to sign both political and military documents simultaneously in the case of a progress would be achieved in political talks. Military talks started in August, and they were still in progress when Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed. (France was still pushing on the Poles, because France was more interested in an alliance with USSR that Britain: there were no La Manche between Germany and France).
- Again, that was just an impasse, not interrupted negotiations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:12, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- Negotiations could not have stopped in early summer or spring, because William Strang, head of the Central Department at the British Foreign Office and former counsellor in Moscow, who was a head of British delegation, arrived in Moscow on 14 June only. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
- All that was still happening at that stage was both sides kept telling each other (for months on end) that neither could accept the wishes of the other. The negotiations had failed even as early as smth. like early summer or even spring 1939? One should also remember that Voroshilov, who conducted the negotiations on Stalin's behalf, was one of his all-time favourites, just like Molotov. --Prüm (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Ok, since I see no objections, I am intended to implement proposed changes tomorrow. 21:00 EST. Please, comment if something is wrong with the proposed text.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
References
- ^ Shore 2003, p. 108. sfn error: no target: CITEREFShore2003 (help)
- ^ Dear & Foot 2001, p. 608. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help)
- Minutes of the conference between the Fuehrer and the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Ciano, in the presence of the Reich Foreign Minister of Obersalzberg on 12 August 1939 in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV Document No. 1871-PS
- "The German Campaign In Poland (1939)". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
- Derek Watson, Molotov's Apprenticeship in Foreign Policy: The Triple Alliance Negotiations in 1939, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Jun., 2000), pp. 695-722 ]
- "The German Campaign In Poland (1939)". Retrieved 29 October 2014.
chemical and biological warfare
I have a double feeling about this edit ]. As far as I know, there was a very limited usage of chemical and biological weapon during WWII. Do we really need to mention it? --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:38, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- We should not let our personal standpoint influence the way the article is written. If you were Chinese, for example, your feelings about this would quite probably be totally different. --Prüm (talk) 20:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- I have no idea on how my personal point follows from my post. I am just asking some concrete question: I am not aware of examples of massive usage of chemical warfare during WWII, and I am asking if any information is available about that (I mean, not occasional, but massive usage). Regarding biological weapon, I know Japan was developing it. Did they use it massively (at least, as massively as chemical weapon was used in WWI)? If yes, please, provide the sources. If not, do we need to write about that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:05, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- I thought it was a point worth noting that WW2 was indeed the first conflict in which the whole spectrum of A, B and C weapons was applied. If you want to and can disprove this, go ahead. --Prüm (talk) 10:59, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- As far as I'm aware, the Japanese use of chemical and biological weapons in China wasn't on a large scale. Unless sources demonstrate otherwise, this does not belong in the lead as it risks giving readers the impression that there was considerable use of such weapons. Nick-D (talk) 12:06, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- I thought it was a point worth noting that WW2 was indeed the first conflict in which the whole spectrum of A, B and C weapons was applied. If you want to and can disprove this, go ahead. --Prüm (talk) 10:59, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- To me it's not necessarily the scale that matters, even had it been so small as you suggest. It's the way of thinking behind the decisions to use these weapons that (I hope) should give anyone who reads this at least some cause for reflection. (This is notwithstanding the knowledge that in sum, probably more people were killed by "conventional" means than by WMD.) --Prüm (talk) 08:57, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
- The use was small-scale, and experimental. Let's not be misleading.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
- I've removed this from the lead, per this discussion. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- The use was small-scale, and experimental. Let's not be misleading.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
The exact time (hour, minutes) the war started on 1st September
I notice we give just the day, September 1st, but we don't discuss the hour. First, there's plenty of sources for 0445 (ex. David T. Zabecki (1 May 2015). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 1663–. ISBN 978-1-135-81242-3.), but before we add this, consider the following. I am reading a book (sadly, non-English but seems reliable, author is Tadeusz Olejnik, a Polish historian), which discusses this in detail on several pages in the context of Bombing of Wieluń. Short version, it gives the hour 04:00 as the earliest time the German troops invaded in several places, citing numerous witness accounts (mostly Polish, but a few Germans; notably memoirs of Polish general Juliusz Rómmel, with page numer). Many other reports note that even more hostilities started at 04:30. He then discusses the hour 04:45 which is 'commonly given' for the war start, noting that it seems to be based on Hitler's speech form September 1st (through a bit confusingly, Hitler mentioned the hour 0545, see Since 5.45 a.m. we have been returning the fire. ). Here's a source that talks about Hitler's written order for 0445 Harlow A. Hyde (1988). Scraps of Paper: The Disarmament Treaties Between the World Wars. Harlow Andrew Hyde. pp. 329–. ISBN 978-0-939644-46-9.. I'd appreciate thoughts on this, particularly given that the linked Polish books contains numerous primary and secondary accounts of fighting starting at 0400. PS. Another Polish source, an academic journal article I am reading (, ) notes that the stated time of beginning of German air operations against Poland, Ostmarkflug, was 0430. He also cites Olejnik book on p.15, noting that some German accounts give the time likely advanced by an hour due to a summer time difference between Poland and Germany (incidentally this time difference may explain why Hitler gave 0545 not 0445 in his speech, but at this point this is my OR); this is in the context of the cited bombing of Wielun, which is generally assumed to have happened at 0440; through some German documents give the time of 0540 (Olejnik gives numerous witness accounts with the hour of 0430 for the first bombing run the the town). PPS. I am thinking about a phrase such as "While 0445 is the hour most often given for the start of hostilities on the Polish-German front, there are accounts suggesting that in several places Germans crossed the border and engaged Polish units as early as 0400." --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- To be honest, the difficulty you have in the text above with identifying an unambiguous single time in the literature, would in my view be already more than enough reason to NOT name a specific time, at all, at least not in this high level overview article. Arnoutf (talk) 10:00, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- Summer time (i.e. DST) was re-introduced in Germany in 1940 (de:Sommerzeit references the relevant law, which specifies GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 April-October). There was no summer time in 1939. At least Timeanddate.com claims there was no time difference between Berlin and Warsaw in 1939: . So the difference may have other reasons. —Kusma (t·c) 10:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- That seems an excessive level of detail for this article. Nick-D (talk) 10:04, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with Nick-D It makes Misplaced Pages look like it's trivia-hunting Rjensen (talk) 10:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- Taking into account that there is no agreement that the WWII started with invasion of Poland (many authors believe it started earlier in Asia, or later, in 1941, and we have a separate section about that), this redundant accuracy may give a start for another round of debates, because some people may find this article too eurocentric.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree — excessive level of detail.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:42, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
War breaks out in Europe
First of all, I am not sure the description of the start of the war is fully accurate. As far as I know, it was not just "the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations", it was a German staged incident (Gleiwitz incident). In other words, Germany didn't use some event as a false pretext, it deliberately created the pretext.
Furthermore, the current version makes a redundant emphasis on the independence of British dominions. I don't see why should we discuss it here. If they were fully independent, that means we should describe them as such, without separate reservations. Below I propose the version that is much shorter and, in my opinion, more accurate. Instead of the current version:
- "On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland under the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations against German targets near the border. Two days later, on 3 September, after a British ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations was ignored, Britain and France, followed by the fully independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth—Australia (3 September), Canada (10 September), New Zealand (3 September), and South Africa (6 September)—declared war on Germany. However, initially the alliance provided limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious, half-hearted French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which was to later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic."
I propose: File:Schleswig Holstein ostrzeliwuje Westerplatte 39 09 01 b.jpg The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at Westerplatte
- "On 1 September 1939,
upon having staged several border incidents
, Germany invaded Poland.Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared a war on Germany. This alliance was joined by South Africa (6 September) and Canada (10 September). The alliance provided only
a limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, whichwould
later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.
I also see some problems with other parts of the text.
First, the two sentences "On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 ..." imply a strong causal linkage, in other words, it look like the USSR invaded Poland, defeated it, and Warsaw surrendered ... to Germany. Obviously, it is incorrect: Germany played a key role in this war, and the USSR played just auxiliary role.
Second. I don't see we need to mention Chamberlain's name and give a long quote from him. He was not the most influential politician by that time. I propose to remove it.
Third, I am not sure significant casual linkage existed between the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation and the "mutual assistance" pacts the USSR forcefully signed with the Baltic states. These pacts were a consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (its secret protocol). Furthermore, it should be noted that Finland refused to sign a similar pact, and after that the USSR demanded territorial concessions and then attacked Finland.
Fourth, I don't think a photo where two military officers are shaking their hands needs an explanation that they are shaking hands. In addition, the photo is more specific, it was taken in Poland, not just Eastern Europe. Poland was the only country were the USSR and Germany coordinated their activity. I suggest to make the caption more brief and more accurate.
Fifth, the expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nation is described incorrectly. That happened simply because Finland complained, and the USSR refused to stop aggression. In other words, the USSR was expelled from the League simply because it was an aggressor. I also do not understand why the motives of France and Britain need to be explained: their votes had the same weight as the weight of other states. Source: Carl van Dyke. The Soviet Invasion of Finland. Frank Cass Publishers, Lindon, Portland, OR. ISBN 0-7146-4753-5, p. 71. In my opinion, this source, which tells about the subject specifically, is more trustworthy than a more general source the article uses currently.
Sixth, it is incorrect to put the last paragraph here, because the annexation of the Baltic states happened later, and it was directly connected to the start of Barbarossa planning. The casual linkage is broken there, and I propose to restore the chronological sequence of the events: these annexations cannot be described separately from the Battle of France.
Below, I show the modifications I propose:
- "
The Polish army was defeated, Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October. Poland's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, which invaded Eastern Poland on 17 September 1939 after signing a cease-fire with Japan. Smaller parts of Polish territory were also transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia
. After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish resistance established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army. About 100,000 Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other theatres of the war.
- On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union.
The proposal was rejected, " and
Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,which was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.
- On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union.
in the occupied Poland, 1939
The Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the states that were in a Soviet sphere of influence"—to sign "mutual assistance pacts" that stipulated stationing Soviet troops in these countries. Soon after that, significant Soviet military contingent was moved there.
. Finlandrefused to sign a similar pact and rejected to cede part of its territory to the USSR, which prompted a Soviet invasion in November 1939, followed by expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations The resulting Winter War ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions
. "
The last paragraph ("In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the disputed Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertza. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and economic co-operation gradually stalled, and both states began preparations for war.") should be moved to the section that tells about the Battle of France.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- Since we discuss this section, I don't think this phrase is correct: "limited direct military support to Poland". It was not 'limited direct support'. There was no direct support at all. Or indirect. The Saar small offensive did not make Germans divert a single military unit or otherwise do anything that would interfere with their invasion of Poland. while the Phoney War deserves a link, the Saar Offensive is too insignificant to warrant any sort of mention here. Also, the word 'initially' misleads by implying some sort of support was provided. The sentence "Initially, the alliance provided limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious French probe into the Saarland." should read "The alliance provided no military support to Poland."
- I am unclear what changes you are proposing to the latter paragraphs, but I'll point out further problems: The sentence "The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October." implies that the pockets of resistance were in Warsaw. Further, pockets of resistance is imprecise - one could argue that pockets never surrendered, after all Poland had big resistance movement, and some small units simply transitioned into partisans. I'd suggest the following rewrite: "The Polish army was defeated, Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October." Finally, I don't think that the sentence about " Poland's Enigma codebreakers were also evacuated to France" is relevant, the codebreakers evacuation and even subsequent work is not that important. Since the BS is also mentioned later in the more relevant section about Enigma (under the English name Polish Cipher Bureau), the mention here can be safely removed. Instead, we could add a short sentence about the first battle of WWII, one that is iconic in Poland (most Poles know its name), the Battle of Westerplatte. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- Piotrus, I agree it would be correct to say that no military support was provided, However, I think Saar offensive still should be mentioned. Do you have any idea how can it be done?
- Re:, "The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October", I think you are right. I added the version proposed by you to the text.
- I also agree about Enigma (I remove it from the text), but I think it should not be removed from the article completely. The "Technology" already tells that Enigma was made by Germans, and I think it would be correct to specify that the system that broke Enigma code was made by a Polish-British team. That deserves a separate mention, because the code breaking system was a greater technological advance than the Enigma itself. Can you please think about this modification of the "Technology" section?
- Re: Westerplatte, I think, in general, the present article's version devotes too much attention to political statements of various historical figures, and all WWII battles serve just as a background. We must devote more space and attention to the description of the course of the war. Can you please add Westerplatte to the first sentence of the paragraph? Feel free to add it directly to the text.
- In general, if you see some minor defects in this text, please, feel free to correct them directly.
- Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- One more question. I think we need a consistent policy about usage of figures in the article. It does not mention the figures in other sections, but it says about 100,000 Polish military. I do think providing figures is quite relevant, because it gives a reader an impression of the real scale of the events. That is why I am not removing this figure. Do you think we need to discuss this problem on the talk page in a separate section?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- A problem with the 100,000 figure is that the wording of this sentence implies that these were all the Poles who fought with the western Allies in the free Polish Army. As I understand it, substantial numbers also joined after being released from imprisonment in the USSR (eg, II Corps (Poland)) and from other sources. Large numbers of Poles also fought in the pro-Communist Polish Army which was attached to the Red Army. The current wording on western Allied military support for Poland seems fine to me: it was 'limited', as France and the UK had not mobilised and were unable to do so in time and the geography made it pretty much impossible to provide any support at all to the fighting within Poland (even by the end of the war British and American strategic bombers could only barely reach Polish territory and air lift was nothing like it is now). Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- Nick, my question was more general: we need to decide do we include figures of troops or not? If we decide we do, this figure may stay (probably, it needs a correction, as you noted), but other figures should be added too. That may be a general improvement, because the article gives no impression of a relative scale of events. If we decide we do not show figures, the number of Poles should be removed too. I am more inclined to include figures for major military operations, however, I will support any consensus. If some decision will be made, it should be applied consistently to all parts of the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:27, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- Nick, the reasons why the Western Allies didn't aid Poland are not relevant, the fact is they didn't. The Saar Offensive does discuss this, and while it is not in great shape, suggests they they were mobilized sufficiently to push harder, and that it might have ended the war early - instead, they decided to sit it out. Not something that is that relevant here, but limited support implies doing something. As the Saar article makes it clear, the Saar offensive did not result in any change of German deployments. Nothing that the Western Allies did resulted in any change in Polish situation. Hence, it was not limited support. It was zero support. Limited support was, for example, land lease to Soviets and stuff that the WA did before the Normandy. So, no support. (Also, I keep repeating this, I don't believe Saar offensive is important enough to warrant a mention, we currently describe it as half-hearted, ineffective, etc. - why would such a small scale failure of a mil op deserve a mention in this article at all?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
- A problem with the 100,000 figure is that the wording of this sentence implies that these were all the Poles who fought with the western Allies in the free Polish Army. As I understand it, substantial numbers also joined after being released from imprisonment in the USSR (eg, II Corps (Poland)) and from other sources. Large numbers of Poles also fought in the pro-Communist Polish Army which was attached to the Red Army. The current wording on western Allied military support for Poland seems fine to me: it was 'limited', as France and the UK had not mobilised and were unable to do so in time and the geography made it pretty much impossible to provide any support at all to the fighting within Poland (even by the end of the war British and American strategic bombers could only barely reach Polish territory and air lift was nothing like it is now). Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Paul Siebert: I didn't mean to remove the mentions of Engima (and I think the fact that it was the Poles who spearheaded the breaking of it is relevant and should be left in the article, and indeed the Technology section is relevant; for now I'll ping User:Nihil novi and User:TedColes who did a lot of work on that topic, and got the BS article to GA). I will review the Technology paragraph shortly.
- I'll also try to work out a nice, short way of mentioning the Battle of W. Tentatively, I am thinking about adding the following sentence after the first sentence (Germany invaded Poland): "The Battle of Westerplatte, a Polish military depot shelled by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, shortly before 05:00 on that day, is often described as the first European battle of World War II". (The text in italics is optional with more details, including time, which yes, I note many editors didn't thought is that relevant above, but I think it flows well with the text). I added the 'often described', because of course it at the same time the many smaller battles of the Battle of the Border begun. Refs (is one sufficient? which one is preferable?): Jürgen Prommersberger (29 January 2017). Battles at Sea in World War I - Jutland. Jürgen Prommersberger. p. 233. ISBN 978-88-260-0919-3., Philip D. Grove; Mark J. Grove; Robert John O'Neill (2010). World War II: The War at Sea. The Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-1-4358-9131-9.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help), Michael R. Fitzgerald; Allen Packwood (10 October 2013). Out of the Cold: The Cold War and Its Legacy. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 141–. ISBN 978-1-62356-330-1., Spencer C. Tucker (6 September 2016). World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection : The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-CLIO. pp. 2434–. ISBN 978-1-85109-969-6., Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof (2011). 1939 - the War that Had Many Fathers. Lulu.com. pp. 343–. ISBN 978-1-4466-8623-2.. - You and User:Nick-D raise a good point about the 100,000 number being potentially misleading. I'd suggest we split of the discussion about figures into a new section, as it is an issue that is relevant beyond the short 'war starts in Europe'/Poland topic. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- If Westerplatte was one of several simultaneous battles, I see no reason to mention it. It was a pretty small affair, and this is a high level article. The article currently mentions the Polish enigma codebreakers twice. Nick-D (talk) 05:29, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- Please reread the discussion above. First, we are suggesting to remove some content, including the indeed unnecessary double mention of Polish codebreakers. Second, as can be seen in numerous sources, including some cited, the battle of Westerplatte is a famous one. In addition to being a famous, practically a household name in Poland, it is commonly mentioned in encyclopedias and histories of WWII. Some further sources: David T. Zabecki (1 May 2015). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1736–. ISBN 978-1-135-81249-2., Steven Carol (19 August 2009). Encyclopedia of Days: Start the Day with History. iUniverse. pp. 356–. ISBN 978-0-595-60328-2., etc. It is common for sources to mention, like Schultze-Rhonhof in one of the sources above does, that "World War II begun with a German attack on the Polish garrison of Westerplatte". Any overview of this subject should mention this battle, it is one of the iconic battle of WWII, famous for being the first battle of the war (yeah, yeah, there is a vocal minority who argues that WWII started before '39, but well, that's a minority; for the majority of historians who define WWII as 39-45, this is THE FIRST BATTLE). The only question is, how many details, if any, we want to give regarding it. Just saying it was the first may be sufficient.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- Too much detail IMO, and we don't need to add minor battles which are "household names" in various countries but little-known elsewhere. This needs to be a high level article. Nick-D (talk) 12:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think a compromise solution may be to replace the photo of German solders on Polish border (quite generic one) with the photograph of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein with a caption informing that the attack of Westerplatte by this battleship was the first WWII battle. I myself was wondering why this photo is not here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- What is too much detail is debatable; IMO there is too much detail in the article already, for example with the 2nd unnecessary mention of Enigma breakers (their evacuation), or with the Saar campaign (a conflict of no importance to the war, outside being a subject of some jokes and ironic commentary). We can also do a GBook count, WWII+Westerplatte net 2,900 hits. This is more than the GBooks mention of the events like the Battle of Yenangyaung (2300 hits) or Battle of the Kerch Peninsula (2300 hits), not too mention stuff like the Battle of Mount Song (1300 hits) or the Panther–Wotan line (400 hits) and about as much as Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (3100 hits), Defense of Hengyang (3300 hits) or Operation Longcloth (2800 hits). So there's plenty of events here of debatable importance, or what some would call, trivia. Westerplatte, as I've shown, is commonly mentioned in descriptions of the war as the place the first shots were fired. On that note, I'll also make one more point: we mention where did the Japanese surrendered ("On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war."), but not where did the Germans surrender ("Total and unconditional surrender was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.") - that happened in Karlshorst, Berlin, and mention of that would hardly be more trivial than of the Missouri. And if we mention USS Missouri as the token symbolic place the war ended, Weterplatte holds the same, equivalent weight as the place the war started. (Of course, this is not surprising, given the usual US bias in the English 'pedia - American battleship gets a mention, but a German city and Polish fort do not, since they are not American...?)/ Anyway, if we remove some stuff, like the second mention of Enigma breakers, we open room to add something else. It stands to reason that if we remove a Polish-related mention from Polish section, we can add something else there, and as I've shown with numerous sources, this is a high profile battle mentioned by numerous works. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:24, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think we need to develop some general criteria for inclusion of battles in the article. IMO, the criteria should be:
- - strategic importance;
- - scale (number of troops involved);
- - symbolic importance (that can be measured as a number of gbooks/gscholar hits.
- If we agree about this criteria, and agree that each of them separately is sufficient, Westerplatte should be included. However, we probably need to reexamine the article, because many events that meet one of these criteria are missing, whereas some less important events are present. We can save space by copy-editing and removal unneeded and and long considerations (as I did in the above text with Chamberlain's words), so the space is not a big problem.
- By the way, why don't you like the idea with the photo? That will be even a greater emphasis on this event that just addition of one sentence. I myself was going to propose that even before you raised the question about Westerplatte.
- --Paul Siebert (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am fine with the photo switch, through I note that there are some other events that are currently represented (mentioned) both in the photo and in the text, and I don't see why W. shouldn't be one of those. I agree with you that we need to re-examine this article, fact by fact; I like your criteria too. I did a bit of this already, as I was purposefully looking for events of low popularity (and relatively unknown). Of course, some events may be known under multiple names, and that means a simple GBook count is not always sufficient, but the list of events I listed above is not a bad one to start - I am not saying all of those should be removed, but they all deserve a discussion equivalent to what we have here about W. I very much doubt all of them (if any) where subject to discussion before. On a final note, I think we should consider a sentence about battle of Bzura, 2300 Ghits, " the major Polish counterattack of the campaign" and "the bloodiest and most bitter battle of the entire Polish campaign" and "the biggest batle in Europe until the German invasion of Soviet Russia in 1941". Seems to me it would pass all of your criteria. Scale-wise, in involved over 0.6m soldiers; for comparison, Operation Longcloth we mention involved several thousand, and Battle of Mount Song, a bit over 20,000 and neither of those (I am focusing on just two examples due to lack of time) seems to suggest anything about them being either strategically significant, nor symbollically so. Before some suggests I am trying to expand the Polish section unduly, do remember I suggested some cuts to it, so the overall length should stay the same, and I also think that this is the last well known keyword (battle, blue-link) missing form that paragraph. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think we need to develop some general criteria for inclusion of battles in the article. IMO, the criteria should be:
- Too much detail IMO, and we don't need to add minor battles which are "household names" in various countries but little-known elsewhere. This needs to be a high level article. Nick-D (talk) 12:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- Please reread the discussion above. First, we are suggesting to remove some content, including the indeed unnecessary double mention of Polish codebreakers. Second, as can be seen in numerous sources, including some cited, the battle of Westerplatte is a famous one. In addition to being a famous, practically a household name in Poland, it is commonly mentioned in encyclopedias and histories of WWII. Some further sources: David T. Zabecki (1 May 2015). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1736–. ISBN 978-1-135-81249-2., Steven Carol (19 August 2009). Encyclopedia of Days: Start the Day with History. iUniverse. pp. 356–. ISBN 978-0-595-60328-2., etc. It is common for sources to mention, like Schultze-Rhonhof in one of the sources above does, that "World War II begun with a German attack on the Polish garrison of Westerplatte". Any overview of this subject should mention this battle, it is one of the iconic battle of WWII, famous for being the first battle of the war (yeah, yeah, there is a vocal minority who argues that WWII started before '39, but well, that's a minority; for the majority of historians who define WWII as 39-45, this is THE FIRST BATTLE). The only question is, how many details, if any, we want to give regarding it. Just saying it was the first may be sufficient.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- If Westerplatte was one of several simultaneous battles, I see no reason to mention it. It was a pretty small affair, and this is a high level article. The article currently mentions the Polish enigma codebreakers twice. Nick-D (talk) 05:29, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
- Piotrus, whereas I agree with the notion which I found somewhere that Polish military contribution was comparable to that of France (if not bigger), I am not sure I understand what was the importance of the battle of Westerplatte except its symbolic nature. If we use the sentence that you proposed as a caption (I created a stub, pleas add few words there directly), in my opinion, that would be everything a reader needs to know about this event. With regard to other battles of Polish campaign, let's use the Battle of France as an example. I believe, by removing some redundant details and re-wording, I was able to save some space which we can use for description of Polish campaign. If you prepare a paragraph of the same size as the para describing the battle of France, it would be good. The only thing I would like you to avoid is a common stereotype that there was a cooperative invasion of Poland by USSR and Germany, because some sources say there were no coordination until German victory became imminent. Only after that Stalin decided to invade.
- In general, I don't think this article is supposed to reflect popular WWII stereotypes everybody can find in popular books or articles. In contrast, it should say what scholarly sources say, the sources many readers have no access to.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think the M-R pact needs any deeper discussion than what is already present, and indeed, the level of cooperation between NG and USSR is debatable. I am not sure where you want to work on a draft (or in the main space)? This hampers me a bit, I am used to editing the article's directly, but I am not sure if the gatekeepers of this article would not revert me outright again... (You also mention a stub? What stub? Where is it?). Anyway, I'll try to be bold and I'll edit the article directly based on what we have discussed here so far; even if I am reverted it will at least show a wikified direction we can consider. PS. I see now, you refer to your stub above. I'll propose my v2 below shortly.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
File:Schleswig Holstein ostrzeliwuje Westerplatte 39 09 01 b.jpg The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at Westerplatte
On 1 September 1939, upon having staged several (NOTE: ADDED LINK TO OH)
border incidents, Germany invaded Poland. Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared a war on Germany. This alliance was joined by South Africa (6 September) and Canada (10 September). The alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of a
cautious French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would
later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.
On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Polish army was defeated in numerous engagements, including in the Battle of Bzura, the major Polish counterattack and the largest European battle of the early war.
(HERE CITE Taylor ) Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October.
(THIS CLAIM WAS MISSING A CITE IN THE CURRENT ARTICLE, HERE IS A RS: }} Poland's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Lithuania and Slovakia also receiving small shares. Tens of thousands of (SOURCES VARY)
Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other theatres of the war. After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish government in exile(LINK CHANGED)
established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army, {{one of the three largest partisan forces in existence (FOR SOURCES OF THIS CLAIM, SEE FOOTNOTE AT Polish_contribution_to_World_War_II#endnote_bnone}}.
- I think that only Operation Himmler should be linked to (having two links to what was ultimately the same thing in neighbouring words is confusing). I'd also suggest omitting the "the largest European battle of the early war" as this is unclear (what's the "early war"? - surely this includes the Battle of France, which involved larger scale fighting). Other than that, the changes look OK. Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Nick-D: Actually, Taylor specifically refers to biggest until Invasion of Russia. I was a bit surprised too, but he is reliable. Can you think of any larger battle from France? I am not very familiar with that conflict. Still, unless we can find numbers to the contrary, I'd modify the sentence "Polish counter offensive to the west halted " to "Polish counter offensive to the west, resulting in the largest European land battle until 1941, halted ". Since this is of course a controversial (or at least, surprising) claim, I won't add it to the article until we have consensus here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Piotrus, I think this your version contains just one flaw, but this flaw is important. It mixes military contributions of the USSR and Germany. Correct me if I am wrong, but Polish army was defeated primarily by Germans, and Red Army was not involved in any major battle, just petty skirmishes. In contrast, when a reader sees that "USSR invaded, and Polish army was defeated", it looks like the USSR made a final and decisive blow that ended the campaign. In my opinion, the text proposed by me explains more clearly that USSR, like a vulture, just picked up what remained from Poland after German invasion. Can we combine your version and mine to make that clear?--
- The northern front (Belgium and northern France) was enormous, involving the bulk of the German, French and British armies as well as the largish Belgian Army. Nick-D (talk) 08:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Nick, the mention of "largest battle" was not added. However, we still need to develop some way (a general way which will be applied to the whole article) to give a reader an impression of a real scale of the events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- And yes, I agree with Nick, because we need some general approach how we can give an impression of a scale of WWII battles. We do need that, but we need to use this approach consistently, to all events the article is telling about. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
I took a liberty to implement the changes that caused no objections from you. Since that saved a considerable space (without a loss of any important facts), I also took a liberty to expand the story about the battle of Poland. I also added few words about Finland, because the fact that overwhelming superiority of the Red Army hadn't lead to a total military defeat of Finland deserves mention.
Piotrus, if I made some mistakes in description of the battle of Poland, please, correct me. I was not able to include Westerplatte, because the Scheswig-Holstein 's image was not in a public domain. Can you please think if it is another way to add a few words about Westerplatte (if you still believe it makes sense)?
Two other comments. I wrote "Germany occupied western Poland, and Soviet Union annexed its eastern part" for two reasons. First, different sources use either "occupation" or "annexation" to describe this event, and these territories became parts of Ukraine and Belorussia later. Second, a legal meaning of "annexation" and "occupation" is different: "annexation" is a full legal incorporation of some territory into another state, which means the territory and population get the same status as other parts of the annexing state. That is what happened to Eastern Poland: its citizens became Soviet citizens, although many of them against their will. In contrast, the status of a German occupied Poland was, by and large, different from that of Germans themselves, which more fit the term "occupation".
I propose to move the last sentence to another section, just after the Battle of France, because those events were partially caused by the latter, and these occupations triggered Hitler's decision to start Barbarossa. If you agree, we have a space for adding two more lines about 1939-40 events. Can anybody think about that, please?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am fine with the text, except I'll add links to Westerplatte and Kock, since they seem to fall under 'no objections'. I'll also note that some Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany, and some were occupied and administered under General Government. Please see my main article changes for how I attempted to resolve this. Regarding Westerplatte, you are right, we need better pictures. Fortunately, public domain in Germany is moving forward, consider this 1940 image of the SH battleship: File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MN-1002-07A, Linienschiff "Schleswig-Holstein".jpg on Commons. Looking at commons:Category:Schleswig-Holstein (ship, 1906) I see A camera crew of the propaganda ministry filming the Bombardment of the Westerplatte by training battleship "Schleswig-Holstein", German battleship Schleswig-Holstein during a shellfire of Polish garrison Westerplatte in Gdańsk on 1 September 1939, German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at the Polish Military Transit Depot during the siege of Westerplatte.. And there may be more images on the web that are eligible for upload.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Piotrus, instead of "Germany annexed the western and occupied the central part of Poland", I suggest "Germany annexed the western part of Poland to the German Reich and occupied its central part, ...".
- Regarding the picture, this picture German battleship Schleswig-Holstein during a shellfire of Polish garrison Westerplatte in Gdańsk on 1 September 1939 is exactly what I was thinking about, I simply didn't find it.
- I think we need to add a reference to the statement that Poland didn't sign surrender to Germany. Can you do that, please?
- I also have a feeling that the sentence "After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish government in exile established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army" "wants" some continuation, because it is stylistically non-perfect. Something like: ".....established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army, which would be conducting numerous sabotage actions against German military targets and infrastructure during later stages of the war." What do you think about that? We also have a space for a couple of words about "London Poles". Do they deserve mention, in your opinion?--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
References
- ^ Evans 2008, pp. 1–2. sfn error: no target: CITEREFEvans2008 (help)
- Jackson 2006, p. 58. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJackson2006 (help)
- Weinberg 2005, pp. 64–5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWeinberg2005 (help)
- ^ Keegan 1997, p. 35 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKeegan1997 (help).
Cienciala 2010, p. 128 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCienciala2010 (help), observes that, while it is true that Poland was far away, making it difficult for the French and British to provide support, "ew Western historians of World War II ... know that the British had committed to bomb Germany if it attacked Poland, but did not do so except for one raid on the base of Wilhelmshafen. The French, who committed to attack Germany in the west, had no intention of doing so." - Beevor 2012, p. 32 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBeevor2012 (help); Dear & Foot 2001, pp. 248–9 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help); Roskill 1954, p. 64 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRoskill1954 (help).
- Beevor 2012, p. 32 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBeevor2012 (help); Dear & Foot 2001, pp. 248–9 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help); Roskill 1954, p. 64 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRoskill1954 (help).
- ^ Zaloga 2002, pp. 80, 83. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2002 (help)
- ^ Hempel 2005, p. 24. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHempel2005 (help)
- ^ Zaloga 2002, pp. 88–9. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2002 (help)
- Cite error: The named reference
ibiblio1939was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Nuremberg Documents C-62/GB86, a directive from Hitler in October 1939 which concludes: "The attack is to be launched this Autumn if conditions are at all possible."
- Liddell Hart 1977, pp. 39–40. sfn error: no target: CITEREFLiddell_Hart1977 (help)
- Bullock 1990, pp. 563–4, 566, 568–9, 574–5 (1983 ed.). sfn error: no target: CITEREFBullock1990 (help)
- Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk, L Deighton, Jonathan Cape, 1993, p186-7. Deighton states that "the offensive was postponed twenty-nine times before it finally took place."
- Smith et al. 2002, p. 24. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSmithPabriksPursLane2002 (help)
- ^ Bilinsky 1999, p. 9. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBilinsky1999 (help)
- Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 55–6. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMurrayMillett2001 (help)
- Spring 1986, p. 207-226. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSpring1986 (help)
- Carl van Dyke. The Soviet Invasion of Finland. Frank Cass Publishers, Lindon, Portland, OR. ISBN 0-7146-4753-5, p. 71.
- Hanhimäki 1997, p. 12. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHanhimäki1997 (help)
- Ferguson 2006, pp. 367, 376, 379, 417. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFerguson2006 (help)
- Snyder 2010, p. 118ff. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSnyder2010 (help)
- Koch 1983. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKoch1983 (help)
- Roberts 2006, p. 56. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRoberts2006 (help)
- Roberts 2006, p. 59. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRoberts2006 (help)
- Beevor 2012, p. 32 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBeevor2012 (help); Dear & Foot 2001, pp. 248–9 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help); Roskill 1954, p. 64 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRoskill1954 (help).
- I am fine with the annexed change. Can you add the picture? TBH, I think we are going light on the references, we've added some facts to the article that I provied refs for above, but I couldn't add the refs (sorry, I never understood that Harvard template). Here's a ref for Poland did not surrender: . Regarding the Home Army continuation, I'd like to add something about AK being one of the worlds biggest resistance movements (I think I cited refs above). Finally, re London Poles, I don't think we need to mention the existence of the gov-in-exile (I presume this is what you refer to) beyond the current single mention. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
partisan Home Army and other subjects
- The phrase partisan Home Army is unprecize. The HA was formed only in 1942 as the third subsequent underground organization, which annected a number of other organizations. The goal of the HA was to prepare Operation Tempest, so I'm not sure if it was partisan. It was dominated by Polish army officers, without any guerilla experience. National Military Organization and a number of smaller organisations existed outside the Service for Poland's Victory/Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army. Xx236 (talk) 08:38, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- What concrete change do you propose?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I think I have an idea how to make this a bit better, also per your request on my talk. See . I think that despite adding a new fact and a few links, the new version is even slimmer (shorter) than what we had.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- What concrete change do you propose?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- The war was prepared before the September. Poland mobilized secretely part of its army (August 24) and fully (August 30). Poland evacuated also the main part of its navy - three destroyers - to the UK. Xx236 (talk) 08:51, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I am not sure three destroyers are too important to discuss. I think we don't need to specifically mention that Polish army was mobilised.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- According to some Polish historians the first conference of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council decided to not fight. This Misplaced Pages ignores the subject. Xx236 (talk) 09:40, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Peking Plan is cool (I wrote about it) but IMHO too trivial indeed to be mentioned here. Ditto for Plan Worek. Damn, 10 years later and I still remember those codenames... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Do you have any concrete wording in mind? If not, I'll try to do that myself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- The German army was accompanied by the Einsatzgruppen, which murdered civilians. The WWII wasn't a military war only, it was an extermination war in the East, the number of civilian victims being higher than military ones.Xx236 (talk) 10:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I'll try to add that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Bombing of Guernica is mentioned (before the war), later Battle of Britain and bombing of Hamburg 1943. The Luftwaffe destroied Wieluń, Sulejów and parts of Warsaw killing thousands of civilians. It was the intermediate step between Guernica and London.Xx236 (talk) 09:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- If we mention all bombing (Belgrade, Stalingrad, Dresden, Tokyo, etc) the article will become too inflated. IMO, Guernica, BoB and Hamburg, as well as Hiroshima, are mentioned not because of a large number of victims, but because they were important from other points of view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- "The attack is to be launched this Autumn if conditions are at all possible." - the German army wasn't able to attack anyone in 1939, it needed months to recreate ammo and fuel and to renovate tanks and cars. Even Adolf Hitler wasn't able to change it so the weather was unimportant.Xx236 (talk) 09:51, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- This is just a quote from a historical document, it is not a part of the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2018
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World War II ended for the USA on December 31,1946. President H.Truman Proclamation 2714. Cbudt13 (talk) 22:12, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP 23:35, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2018
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change:
It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, biological and chemical warfare, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
to:
It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, biological and chemical warfare, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war, for now. 2A02:A311:8265:7800:5CFD:4663:BEE9:8057 (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
- Not done: unnecessary. NiciVampireHeart 14:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
No page is needed for articles
I see several "page needed" tags in the references to journal articles. As far as I know, no exact page is required for journal articles, just first and last page numbers. The exact page number is required only for books. I propose to remove these tags from article references.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- quite right. in many online services you get the journal article in one long stream with no page divisions. Rjensen (talk) 15:45, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- In addition, even printed journal articles are often short (fewer than 10 pages) so the burden of finding the information by reading the whole thing is not that large - compared to having to go through a full 1,000 page book. That is why most scientific citing styles (like APA) do not ask for pagenumbers for journal papers (unless a specific quote is used). And neither should we. Arnoutf (talk) 18:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't agree with that. Template:Cite journal clearly provides for single page numbers to be provided. A lot of referencing styles do too. While sometimes online it might be impossible to provide pinpoint page numbers, it is still desirable to provide them. The issue is not just the "burden of finding the information". It's about verifying. That's why we have citations. Even if a journal article is relatively short, it is reasonable to ask editors to specify exactly what page they got that fact from, if they can. I've certainly faced the issue of searching through page after page looking for support for a contentious claim, and not knowing whether my search was thorough enough to say the claim was unsupported by the source. I think one page is manageable. After that, it is not reasonable to expect volunteers to expend energies trying to verify information. If some editor has asked for a page reference, that is reasonable, and the tag should remain until the reference is supplied, or the information verified in some other way.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- In addition, even printed journal articles are often short (fewer than 10 pages) so the burden of finding the information by reading the whole thing is not that large - compared to having to go through a full 1,000 page book. That is why most scientific citing styles (like APA) do not ask for pagenumbers for journal papers (unless a specific quote is used). And neither should we. Arnoutf (talk) 18:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- quite right. in many online services you get the journal article in one long stream with no page divisions. Rjensen (talk) 15:45, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- The template's description says that it can be filled by a bot if DOI is provided, and the bot takes "author's name, journal name, date, volume, issue, pages, etc." automatically. Since DOI contain just first and last page number, that is what is expected to be in the references if a bot fills it. I don't think WP has different rules for bot and human written references. Anyway, page numbers have already been provided in this article, so I do not understand why this duplication is needed.
- In addition, articles, in contrast to books, are devoted to some narrow aspect of some topic, so it is desirable to read the (short) article in full, because a statement may be misleading when it is taken out of a context. That is why providing a concrete page is redundant. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Do we need more than one commander per country on the infobox?
Can anybody comment on this addition ? Anyway, even if Truman is accepted, Churchill cannot go after him. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think listing only the national leaders of the major powers is quite sufficient for this level of article. The various sub-articles can be more specific depending on their subject areas. I agree Churchill should be listed before Truman; he played one of the most prominent roles for most of the war, whereas Truman was almost a non-entity on the world stage up until FDR's death.
- Sorry, the question was "do we need more than ONE commander (sorry for a typo)? If I remember correct, the infobox always contained just one commander per a country.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Tough. Also, because 'which country' is another controversial issue. I'd say just one, but Japanese is a problematic case. I think a good case can be made for Tojo, in fact he is likely a better choice if we have to chose him or the Emperor (who was more of a figurehead). I'd oppose adding Truman, he presided over the mopping up. Just like we don't add the British PM who replaced Churchill around that time (and nobody even remembers his name outside historians, for the same reason). (Btw, I am glad France is not there, keeping the 3 Allies is enough... on that note, I am not really happy with Chiang Kai-shek - China wasn't that important of a war theater, through of course this may be a bit of my Western bias speaking about a front where next to no Westerners participated in...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:42, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- This has been discussed many times before, with the previous version reflecting the consensus of who to include. From memory, this was settled through a RfC. I've reverted the change. Nick-D (talk) 11:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Just a response to Piotrus's comment: Truman was the one who dropped the A-bombs on Japan, so he is significant. I don't know what role Clement Attlee played at the end of WW2, but he should be treated with contempt just because a Misplaced Pages editor doesn't remember his name. And China was a highly significant war theatre. In loss of life, China came third after the USSR and Germany. Chiang was treated as a major world leader at the time, for example, participating in the Cairo Conference. China was alone in East Asia (apart from the USSR) in not surrendering to Japan, after the British Empire had lost Hong Kong and Singapore. China, which had been fighting Japan long before the Westerners, lost its major cities but still hung on. It had some support from the US including the Flying Tigers. So China and Chiang has to be mentioned.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Significance of atomic bombing in Japanese decision to surrender is questionable, so that argument does not prove Truman's significance.
- Regarding China, it is a traditional American view that it was significant (Churchill disagreed with that in his "Second World War"). China was virtually defeated by 1941, it poses no significant military prob;em for Japan. It was in the same state the USSR would be had Barbarossa achieved its goal: a vast land devoid of military industry and presenting minimal military threat. Hitler didn't plan to conquer the Asian part of the USSR, because he was not interested in that. Japanese hardly needed to establish full control over whole China, but when they needed to advance further into China's mainland, they did that easily in (operation Ichi-Go) even in 1944, when their failure in Pacific was evident.-Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- regarding China--FDR was the only one who considered China important--the other Allies all ignored Chiang. FDR thought that the millions of Chinese soldiers would fight the Japanese Army--they did not do very well and kept losing. It was the Russian army that moved in in 1945--FDR had been begging Stalin to do so and Stalin did so on schedule. As for numbers killed that seems to be an off-beat fascination on the part of lots of Wiki editors. Military historians emphasize winning and losing battles, not how many civilians died. Rjensen (talk) 17:12, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Indeed. Perhaps we need to re-examine or restart the mentioned RfC with the question of China (it was big, it had a large army, and it didn't seem to have mattered at all, Japan was defeated by the Allies, de facto US, and that result is unlikely to have changed if the China had surrendered. I am not saying China should not be mentioned in the article, it was a front with some notable events, ex. Nanking, but if China is mentioned in the lead, so should be IMHO France with De Gaulle, for example... and I'd prefer we just stick to the Big Three+the Axis). (And nobody commented re: Tojo vs Hirohito, see Hirohito#Accountability_for_Japanese_war_crimes, historians still debate how much control he head, whereas nobody doubts Hideki Tojo was responsible for many Japanese decisions). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:43, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- The atomic bombing is significant regardless of its role in the Japanese surrender (which is basically a meaningless question). Many historians talk about the lives lost in war, but perhaps military historians don't. This is an article about history, not just military history. We have to look at the human toll on China, which was major. And that makes China significant. And China also tied down a large number of Japanese troops — more than were deployed in the South Pacific. The difference between China and France is that France surrendered and China didn't. You could also draw a parallel between the British Empire and China. The British Empire lost almost every battle, and lost major cities like Hong Kong and Singapore. If the USA and the USSR had not entered the war against Germany, the British Empire could not have won. But significance is not about success.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:49, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- Several works are devoted specially to the role of bombing in Japanese surrender (see, e.g. Pape. Why japan surrendered). That China was tying down Japanese troops was not too important, because they could not be used in Pacific when US obtained naval superiority. In addition, the most significant troops were permanently stationed along Amur to protect from a possible attack of the USSR, which kept more than half million troops there during the whole war.
- Regarding Britain, it was the only power that was actively resisting to Hitler from the very beginning to the very end, and served as a core around which all new Alleys united.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:22, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- From memory, the RfC which led to the current formulation of the countries and leads in the infobox was a long-running process with a fairly conclusive result in the end. I don't see what would be gained from re-opening the matter. Nick-D (talk) 09:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- If under "current" you mean this, I agree. The current scheme is confusing and ridiculous. If we add Attlee, than Chamberlain should be added too. I think formal criteria is not the best approach.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:58, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Allies gain momentum. Hamburg bombing.
I removed this , for several reasons. First, this sentence is not in the best context. Second, I believe, we came to agreement we don't need to give numbers of that type (why exactly these 40,000 victims deserve an explicit mention, and the victims of other bombing are not?). Third, it is redundant, because the "Western Europe/Atlantic and Mediterranean (1942–43)" section already discusses strategic bombing. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hamburg is especially important because its the first time that either side got the firestorm effect that causes vastly more casualties, because it burns the oxygen out of underground shelters. Dresden 1945 also. I think that never happened in Berlin or Cologne or the other major cities, and it happened only once in Tokyo. See http://www.onlinemilitaryeducation.org/posts/10-most-devastating-bombing-campaigns-of-wwii/ Rjensen (talk) 23:28, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- I understand that. My question is: there were many terrible events during WWII when several tens of thousand people were killed in one day. Why exactly are Hamburg inhabitants mentioned here explicitly? What was a strategic importance of this particular bombing (as far as I know, all bombing until early 1945 had just minimal strategic consequences)?
- The only difference between bombing of Hamburg and, for example, Tokyo was that Hamburg was just a first example. However, it was not the most devastating bombing raid. German bombing of Stalingrad in August 1942 or American bombing of Tokyo in 1945 were more deadly. What is the reason to mention Hamburg and not to mention Tokyo, Dresden, Stalingrad or Coventry? Maybe Hanburg is more appropriate for the "War crimes" section?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:50, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- If we don't already have it, the article should note instead that the bombing campaign against Germany began to be a major offensive from mid-1943. Hamburg was probably the single most devastating attack on a German city during the war (more killed than at Dresden and a much more economically important city destroyed), but it marked the start of the campaign. Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Historians always stress the "first" -- especially when the results were so unexpected. The Allies used Hamburg as their model and tried repeatedly to copy it. Rjensen (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree that few words can be added about Hamburg when the article tells about the start of the bombing campaign. My point was that the sentence I removed was in a wrong place, and we should not mention the number of killed explicitly is we do not do that for other events (including the events other than bombing raids, because it was just one example of mass killing).--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:22, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Historians always stress the "first" -- especially when the results were so unexpected. The Allies used Hamburg as their model and tried repeatedly to copy it. Rjensen (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- If we don't already have it, the article should note instead that the bombing campaign against Germany began to be a major offensive from mid-1943. Hamburg was probably the single most devastating attack on a German city during the war (more killed than at Dresden and a much more economically important city destroyed), but it marked the start of the campaign. Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I added Hamburg back to a more appropriate place and reworded it. Check if everything is correct. I think one sentence should be added here about efficiency of this campaign, which was not impressive unlit early 1945. Does anybody have any idea on that account?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Surrender at Stalingrad?
The article says, "By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender". This suggests there was a general surrender at Stalingrad, as there was at Singapore (for example), but that is false. The Germans were given a chance to surrender before the final assault, but they rejected this. General Paulus was captured (he denied surrendering), but this did not initiate a surrender of all troops. Many troops fought to the death. See Battle of Stalingrad#Soviet Victory. I think it would be better to say all troops were either captured or killed, rather than give the false impression that there was a general surrender.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:54, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- From memory, the cauldron was cut on two parts, and each of them surrendered independently, although Paulus claimed he was unaware. But the surrender negotiation did occur (in the south pocket, General Schmidt was a negotiator, and Karl Strecker was in the north). Paulus asked for permission to surrender from Hitler, but Hitler promoted him to fieldmarshal instead, implying he expected Paulus to commit suicide.
- I think there is a more general problem with this story. Case Blau and the battle of Stalingrad was an extremely important event, its scale was enormous, and the number of casualties (from Soviet side) exceeded the combined military losses of USA in all theatres of war from 1941 to 1945, and German military losses were greater that the total losses European Axis sustained in all theatres (except Eastern front) during the whole WWII. However, the description of this battle, which was a turning point of the whole war, creates an impression it was just one of many battles fought in 1942-43.
- I believe it would be correct to expand this story and tell more about strategic implications of these events, and to more explain details of different phases. For example, the Operation Winter Storm, a failed attempt to break the encirclement of 6th Army, had the scale comparable with the Second battle of El Alamein, but it is completely ignored. The battle of Caucasus is not mentioned at all, the battle of Voronezh (it had a huge scale, about 50 Axis divisions attacked the city), and so on. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Individual groups surrendered when all hope was gone, but there was no general surrender, as I said. Paulus quite pointedly said he was not surrendering on behalf of the troops who continued to fight on. It was quite different from the surrender of Singapore, France etc. I think the text gives a false impression.
- I agree on the second point. It's part of the way this article is constructed. The battles of El Alamein — a British victory — is considered equivalent to Stalingrad etc. I think some indication of the scale of the Battle of Stalingrad (and associated battles) would be good. However, we have to be mindful that this article is just a summary.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:42, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- Did I understand you correct that you propose to replace "surrendered" with "captured"?
- Yes, it is, but it currently contain a lot of minuscule or marginally relevant details that blur the actual scale of events. I think two solution to this problem are possible: to expand a story about really important events, or to purge the article from less important details. Let's think about that together.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think "captured and killed" or something like that is better than the current text which implies that after taking tremendous losses, the German Army surrendered.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- Frankly, I am not sure I understand the difference: one of two pockets had no communication with Paulus, and its commander did surrender. In another pocket there was a de facto surrender, although Paulus didn't ordered it. Anyway, that was just a small part of the whole 6st army, which was destroyed before. In other words, what happened can be described as: "The German 6th armyy sustained tremendous losses, the remaining German troops were captured". I propose to expand this story, because it is one of the central WWII events, and we can change the wording to reflect these nuances.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think that is a better wording: "The German 6th Army sustained tremendous losses, and the remaining German troops were captured". The point I was trying to make is that the 6th Army as a whole did not surrender. I don't know what fraction of troops were captured and what fraction of troops were died, but a lot were killed in battle or died of wounds and frostbite etc and the remainder surrendered or were captured based on their own decisions or the circumstances of battle. The current wording really distorts the reality for the ordinary reader who knows nothing about the actual battle.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:41, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Conflicts in bias for World War II "Start" Date between Europe and Asia, Considerations of India-Burma as a Theatre of World War II, Considerations of The Second Sino-Japanese War as a Theatre of World War II
In Europe, it is commonly agreed that World War II started in 1939 with the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland. This directly lead to Great Britain and France declaring war on Nazi Germany due to a guarantee of Poland's borders. It can be argued this is the true start of World War II since it is the point in which the Axis and Allies are clearly and legally formed by process of who is at war with who.
However, there is an argument to be made for the 1937 Marco-Polo incident along the border between Japanese-controlled Korea (Manchukuo) and the Republic of China to be the "true" start of a direct chain of events that were an enduring conflict of World War II, significantly raised global tension, and had a major influence on the military and political policy of Allied and Axis powers. Most articles refer to the 1937 Marco-Polo incident as the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war, but if one considers the conflict in China during World War II to be a part of it, that would mean the breakout of hostilities between China and Imperial Japan marks the start of World War II.
The United States had major goals in China during the war. The first of these being to aid the Republic of China in their fight against the Imperial Japanese Army, a fight which never militarily repulsed the IJA from China. The United States also did not want to support the Chinese Communists. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, were under severe pressure of a two-front war with Nazi Germany and the Imperial Japanese Army. The IJA's defeat at Kalkhin Gol (1939) at the hand of famous Soviet General Zhukov lessened these fears, but they were still significant in the mind of Stalin considering that Kalkhin Gol was not a decisive victory. It can be argued this played a part in Stalin's Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler, as the Non-Aggression Pact was arranged at the exact same time as the Battle of Kalkhin Gol and was a major reason that the Imperial Japanese Army ceased their offensive given they were now bound by alliances to be non-aggressive to the Soviet Union. This Non-Aggression pact was a major reason that Operation Barbarossa took the Soviets by such a surprise in 1941.
This conflict also triggered the chain of events that included the Battle of Kalkhin-Gol, the IJA's invasion of India and subsequent ground-war with major Allied forces, and general out-of-control takeover of South-East Asia and Pacific Islands. The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy competed with each other throughout the war; it is this competition that drove one or the other to more and more conquests in pursuit of greater glory than the other. They often did so against the advice of Japan's government or Emperor Hirohito (of Japan) himself. This ultimately lead to the attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the United States into the war. It is difficult to imagine a truly World War with participants from all hemispheres without the Marco-Polo Incident and subsequent invasion of China in 1937.
Content given for review and discussion from fellow Misplaced Pages users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:2CCC:78D0:472:8FBF:506E:7068 (talk) 23:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
- We've already discussed this at length. The consensus view is 1939.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Trivial
I know it's trivial but Australia did not declare war on Germany in 1939. Perhaps this passage could be simplified. Does it really matter if Canada declared war a few days later than Britain?--Jack Upland (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- I myself am not sure. An old version said Britain and dominions declared a war, but later an explicit explanation was added that dominions were fully independent, and they declared a war independently. I am not sure it is correct at all, because the war was declared on behalf of a King, not a Prime Minister: dominions were independent from the British government, but not from the king. However, that requires some literature search. Can you do that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- You are correct, the authority of government in British parliamentary democracy does come from the Monarch. However the various Dominions each have their own Crown from which the authority of the monarch derives. That is to say that the Monarch wears (figuratively speaking) the Crowns of Britain and each the Dominions simultaneously, but the royal authority over each is exercised separately. Therefore a declaration of war by any of them does not compel any action from the others. Mediatech492 (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- Only the monarch can declare war And he does so on the advice of his prime minister. The king of the UK *and his Prime Minister Chamberlain) acted separately from the king of Canada (and and Prime Minister Mackenzie King), and likewise for Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Rjensen (talk) 22:11, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- Not exactly. The Australian Government took the position in 1939 that if the UK was at war, Australia was automatically also at war and no separate declaration of war was made. In 1941 the government (by now the progressive Labor Party) took the view that Australia should declare war on Japan separately (as well as Bulgaria and Finland!). The process for doing this was somewhat convoluted, and the arrangements for South Africa and Canada were different. In the event, the King authorised the Governor General of Australia to declare war in 1941 and 1942. Since legislation was passed in 1942, this power is exercised by the Governor General. Please see pages 6-9 of the relevant volume of the Australian official history here and pages 3-4 of this expert paper. According to our Monarchy of Australia article, there also wasn't a King of Australia, with the title for a separate Australian monarch being established in 1953. Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for filling out the details. I've long felt that the war between Australia and Finland needed to be better known. But how do we put in the article? Would it be better to say: "France and Britain declared a war on Germany. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada also joined the war." ?--Jack Upland (talk) 08:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Don't get me started on the Bulgarian menace to Australia either. That wording looks good to me. Nick-D (talk) 08:53, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for filling out the details. I've long felt that the war between Australia and Finland needed to be better known. But how do we put in the article? Would it be better to say: "France and Britain declared a war on Germany. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada also joined the war." ?--Jack Upland (talk) 08:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Not exactly. The Australian Government took the position in 1939 that if the UK was at war, Australia was automatically also at war and no separate declaration of war was made. In 1941 the government (by now the progressive Labor Party) took the view that Australia should declare war on Japan separately (as well as Bulgaria and Finland!). The process for doing this was somewhat convoluted, and the arrangements for South Africa and Canada were different. In the event, the King authorised the Governor General of Australia to declare war in 1941 and 1942. Since legislation was passed in 1942, this power is exercised by the Governor General. Please see pages 6-9 of the relevant volume of the Australian official history here and pages 3-4 of this expert paper. According to our Monarchy of Australia article, there also wasn't a King of Australia, with the title for a separate Australian monarch being established in 1953. Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Only the monarch can declare war And he does so on the advice of his prime minister. The king of the UK *and his Prime Minister Chamberlain) acted separately from the king of Canada (and and Prime Minister Mackenzie King), and likewise for Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Rjensen (talk) 22:11, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Issues of weight
Further to the discussion about Stalingrad not having enough weight, these are some topics that I think are given too much weight:
- Background and Pre-war events — this seems unnecessarily extensive
- North African campaign — too much detail
- Aleutian campaign
- Borneo campaign (1945)
- Internment of Japanese citizens etc — not significant enough to included with the Jewish genocide
- Is use of deception an advance in technology?
I'm sure there are many others.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:25, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- The 'Pre-war events' section could certainly do with a trim (and a simpler structure). One and a half sentences on the Aleutians and a sentence on Borneo in 1945 seem about right to me - these were large operations in the context of the Western Allies involvement in the Pacific War (about a couple of divisions with massive air and naval support in each case). I agree about the Internship of Japanese - while an appalling act, it's false equivalence to present this alongside the Holocaust and other massive crimes in this section. Nick-D (talk) 11:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- Jack Upland and Nick-D. I suggest to look at each section separately. I think we have been able to reshape the "War breaks out in Europe (1939–40)" section, which is more compact now and more informative (at least, in my opinion). It needs just a replacement of one picture and additional reference (per Piotrus). Let's do the same with other sections. I can start a discussion of the next section in a separate thread.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think that's a good idea, Paul. I have removed the Japanese internment.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- This all seems very sensible to me. FWIW I would agree with Nick-D re weighting. I think that the N African campaign is also over-weighted for an overview article. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:28, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think part of the problem is an Anglophone bias. Because Anglophones fought in North Africa, it is over-weighted. The Eastern Front where very few Anglophones fought is under-weighted. I think there is excessive weight given to British intelligence successes for the same reason. Likewise, the internment of the Japanese, because it occurred in the USA, is over-weighted.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:46, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- I quite agree. I started to write something similar, but decided that it was OR and PoV for a talk page
. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:57, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- I quite agree. I started to write something similar, but decided that it was OR and PoV for a talk page
Further reading section
This section currently lists a very random-looking collection of books. Some aren't even about this war (the Spanish Civil War and Nomonhan), specific elements of it or individual generals (Zhukov). Would there be any objections to removing this? The article already lists a vast number of sources. Nick-D (talk) 11:48, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed. It's a huge scope. Anything really useful should be in the bibliography here, and in use. Otherwise we already have a specific bibliography article. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:09, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hi Nick-D. Please, please feel free to cut it down. (I can lend you my machete.) Gog the Mild (talk) 10:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
As there have been no objections, I've just removed this section. Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Western Europe (1940–41)
This is the draft of the next section. Currently, this section of overinflated. I tried to remove repetitions and irrelevant details. It is quite possible that I removed too much. Please, think what deserves to be added back.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- On a first skim it looks fine to me, apart from needing a good copy edit. I agree regarding the maps. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- Gog the Mild, any copy editing is warmly welcomed, just modify the below text directly. Please, keep in mind that I removed a lot, so something is definitely needed to be put back.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:13, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
- Done. Quick and dirty. (As this is a work in progress it isn't my best work.) I agree that we could insert a sentence or two about the battle of France. In particular, at the moment it implies that Blitzkrieg was only/first used during the advance to Paris. That said, I repeat that I find this version good, and of roughly appropriate length. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC) I have had an attempt at this. What do people think? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:16, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
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In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off. Denmark capitulated after a few hours, and Norway was conquered within two months despite Allied support. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940.
On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region, which was mistakenly perceived by Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles. By successfully implementing new blitzkrieg tactics, the Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. Britain was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although abandoning almost all of their equipment..
On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom. The Germans turned south against the weakened French army and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which Britain attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany.
The Battle of Britain began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours. Britain rejected Hitler's ultimatum, and the German air superiority campaign started in August but failed to defeat RAF Fighter Command. Due to this the proposed German invasion of Britain was postponed indefinitely on 17 September. The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in the Blitz, but failed to significantly disrupt the British war effort and largely ended in May 1941.
Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic. The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck.
In November 1939, the United States, who were taking measures to assist China and the Western Allies, amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases. Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.
In December 1940 Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the US to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promoted Lend-Lease programmes of aid to support the British war effort. The US started strategic planning to prepare for a full scale offensive against Germany.
At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy and Germany as the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined. Romania and Hungary would make major contributions to the Axis war against the USSR; in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the USSR.
References
- Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 57–63 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMurrayMillett2001 (help).
- Commager 2004, p. 9. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCommager2004 (help)
- Reynolds 2006, p. 76. sfn error: no target: CITEREFReynolds2006 (help)
- Evans 2008, pp. 122–3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFEvans2008 (help)
- Keegan 1997, pp. 59–60. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKeegan1997 (help)
- Regan 2004, p. 152. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRegan2004 (help)
- Liddell Hart 1977, p. 48. sfn error: no target: CITEREFLiddell_Hart1977 (help)
- Keegan 1997, pp. 66–7. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKeegan1997 (help)
- Overy & Wheatcroft 1999, p. 207. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOveryWheatcroft1999 (help)
- Umbreit 1991, p. 311. sfn error: no target: CITEREFUmbreit1991 (help)
- Brown 2004, p. xxx. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrown2004 (help)
- Keegan 1997, p. 72. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKeegan1997 (help)
- ^ Murray 1983, The Battle of Britain. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMurray1983 (help)
- ^ "Major international events of 1940, with explanation". Ibiblio.org.
- Dear & Foot 2001, pp. 108–9. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help)
- Goldstein 2004, p. 35 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFGoldstein2004 (help)
- Steury 1987, p. 209 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSteury1987 (help); Zetterling & Tamelander 2009, p. 282 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFZetterlingTamelander2009 (help).
- Overy & Wheatcroft 1999, pp. 328–30. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOveryWheatcroft1999 (help)
- Maingot 1994, p. 52. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMaingot1994 (help)
- Cantril 1940, p. 390. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCantril1940 (help)
- Skinner Watson, Mark. "Coordination With Britain". US Army in WWII – Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Operations.
- Bilhartz & Elliott 2007, p. 179. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBilhartzElliott2007 (help)
- Dear & Foot 2001, p. 877. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help)
- Dear & Foot 2001, pp. 745–6. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDearFoot2001 (help)
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I think this version contains the most essential information about this phase of WWII. If you believe something should be put back, let's discuss it. I would say we can add more about the battle of France, because it was a really high scale military campaign, and the space allows us to do that.
______________________________________________
I also think that the Maginot line picture is not informative. We need at least to show a direction of a German attack that cut Allies near Dunkirk. Do you have any picture of that kind in mind? If not, we can modify the existing picture by showing (very schematically) the attack through Ardennes towards the cost.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I see no further comments, so I put this text into the article. I also added an animated map of Northern France/Belgium. Let's start the next section? Does anybody have any ideas?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:00, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2018
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Correct spelling,
Course of the war War breaks out in Europe (1939–40)
" many om them would fight against the Axis in other theatres of the war."
to "many of them" MattJustChecking (talk) 09:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
- Fixed. Thanks for letting us know. HiLo48 (talk) 09:42, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
"The Battle of Westerplatte is often described as the first European battle of World War II. "
This sentence seems to duplicate the caption. It carries no additional information and breaks the narrative. I think, it is quite clear from the caption that the Battle of Westerplatte was the first WWII battle. I suggest to remove it. If any editor who knows Polish history can propose a sentence about other battles of Polish campaign or Polish resistance, I will support that, because the space allows it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:06, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed. This is also trivia. I'm sure that I could come up with some minor Australian battle which has an interesting fact attached and add it in, but that would also be a bad idea. Nick-D (talk) 03:27, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I am not sure Australia played a prominent role during this period of war. It would be better to add something to a story about later events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I was referring to Australia in general, and am not proposing to add anything. Nick-D (talk) 03:52, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I am not sure Australia played a prominent role during this period of war. It would be better to add something to a story about later events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Maybe, you don't but I do. I see an opportunity for reduction of the text volume (in the same way we have already done with two sections), to devote more space for description of battles, so if you have some specific battles with Australian involvement during a 1941-45 period, it would be good if you proposed a couple of sentences.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:12, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- The Battle of Hel was much bigger and longer. However the main batlle was the Battle of the Bzura, about 1000 bigger than the Westerplatte one.Xx236 (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Bruza is already in the article. Do you propose to add Hel?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Battle of the Bzura - I don't see it. Xx236 (talk) 12:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- "On 8 September, German troops reached suburbs of Warsaw. The Polish counter offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by Wehrmacht."--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I am fine with Westerplatte being mentioned in caption. And I'd have thought we moved beyond called it trivia, we discussed numbers showing its popularity above. (Still, that reminds me we have some other, much more trivia-like content, to remove, I'll start a discussion about it shortly). On battle of Hel: while it was indeed longer and bigger, I am not sure if it is important enough for the mention. IIRC it was the lengthiest battle of the Polish campaign, but well, this is indeed kind of a trivia fact. Mentioning W. makes sense because it is often mentioned, in the context of 'the first battle' - a bit trivia, but mentioned so much that I think our mentioning it is totally justified. I don't feel Hel would pass that test, however. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Anglo-French Supreme War Council
The page doesn't link the Anglo-French Supreme War Council. I believe it should.Xx236 (talk) 09:29, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Why? It was short lived and ineffectual. Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- It was short lived and ineffectual inviting Germans to Paris, Bruxelles and Haag. Such inefectivness deserves mentioning.Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Economy of German war
The subject is ignored. See Götz Aly Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State Hitlers' social politics (populism) created the basis of German victories. Xx236 (talk) 10:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Then the role of Soviet propaganda and repressive machine in victory should be described too. Let's think about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Strength of the Armies
Why strength of the Armies is not given Wxzapghy (talk) 04:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Maybe, because nobody proposed a good way to do that? We have an artcile about WWII casualties, hence the link to "others" in the infobox, but there is no similar article for army sizes, so if we add strengths for few participants only, it will immediately start to inflate, because there is no natural threshold for inclusion. If you have any idea how to include armies without inflating the infobox, let's discuss it. It also makes sense to check talk page archives, because it is quite possible that this question had already been discussed. I personally believe that if we show army sizes in the WWI infobox, we also may do the same in the WWII infobox too. That may give a better impression of a real scale of events at different theatres. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:01, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I doubt that it's possible to present meaningful figures for the infobox on military sizes. All the major powers had vast numbers of people enter their militaries, but also suffered significant casualties. The sizes of the various militaries also peaked at different times. How the British Empire/Commonwealth forces would be treated is also tricky. Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Population transfers and wounded
During the war and as the result of it tens of millions were moved (some of them returned). One of the projects was the Generalplan Ost. After the war Displaced persons camps in post-World War II Europe were created. Xx236 (talk) 07:21, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Millions of handicapped victims survived the war, many of them without legs, using primitive skateboards. Tuberculosis and typhoid fever killed both during and after the war.Xx236 (talk) 07:34, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Generalplan Ost is already linked twice in the article and the second para of the 'Aftermath' section covers the vast post-war movements of peoples in Europe. Coverage of the long term human cost in terms of people with physical and psychological injuries as well as the disruption to families (for instance, an incredibly high proportion of German children lost their father) would be useful, but needs to be drafted, etc. Nick-D (talk) 07:42, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- The Generalplan is linked once regarding lands East od Poland since 1941 (but ignoring Poland and the period 1939-1941) and the second time as mass executions, so not population transfers.Xx236 (talk) 08:12, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- You are right regarding the post-war migrations in the East, nothing about Displaced persons however. Xx236 (talk) 08:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Generalplan Ost is already linked twice in the article and the second para of the 'Aftermath' section covers the vast post-war movements of peoples in Europe. Coverage of the long term human cost in terms of people with physical and psychological injuries as well as the disruption to families (for instance, an incredibly high proportion of German children lost their father) would be useful, but needs to be drafted, etc. Nick-D (talk) 07:42, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Propose removing the mentions of the following 'trivia' events
This is based on Google Book mentions of the terms, in comparison to other stuff mentioned here, as well as on the seemingly small scale / relative lack of importance of those events to the big picture of the war (or, as Nick calls it, this stuff is pretty much "trivia"):
- Panther–Wotan line (400 hits), "along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line"
- Battle of Mount Song (1300 hits) "In September 1944, Chinese force captured the Mount Song to reopen the Burma Road" -> if needed, can be shortened to "In September 1944, Chinese reopened the Burma Road"
- Operation Longcloth (2900 hits) "The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results." Granted, this has more hits, but as the text state, this had mixed results. Doesn't seem like something worth mentioning. TBH, I am not sure even if the Arakan Campaign 1942–43 deserves a mention too, but I guess with 4k+ hits it is significant enough (through it doesn't seem to be even linked from Burma Campaign?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:33, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I think the Panther Line is significant.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed. Actually, I am going to propose a discussion about significant modification of this part at the talk page, (in the same way we did with "war break out in Europe" section). Panther-Wotan line had an immense strategic importance. Hitler hoped it would be possible to stabilise Eastern front along this line, which would allow him to defeat any attempt of Allied invasion in France.
- Generally speaking, I propose to focus at removal of various descriptions of leaders plans and thoughts, like "Hitler decided to..." "Allies planned to..." In general, if some plans were abandoned, I see no reason to talk about that in this summary style article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:26, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I would support amending Mount Song as you suggest and deleting Longcloth. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:50, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Counting Google Book mentions seems like an unsound methodology for determining the relative importance of events to me (see also WP:GHITS). That said, I tend to agree with omitting the examples here. From memory, the stuff on the Panther-Wotan line was added as part of POV pushing about Estonia's role in the war. The 1942 Arakan campaign is definitely worth including: it was the only major British offensive in Burma that year, and its near-total failure had important results. Nick-D (talk) 22:51, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Actually, we probably need to replace the name "Panther-Wotan line" with Ostwall, and even expand it, because its crossing had an immense strategic importance: Kiev was retaken, as well as a major part of Ukraine and Crimea. Actually, the eastern front events during late autimn 1943, winter 1944 and spring 1944 are not covered at all, although a huge territory was retaken, and the prerequisites for the Operation Bagration were created. I need to think how to expand it.
- I totally agree about google. I some cases, google scholar is preferable, because it makes a search mostly in academic and scholarly sources.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Comment: The Panther-Wotan line is mentioned briefly; I don't see excessive coverage of it:
- The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.
- K.e.coffman (talk) 04:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- That is my point. Breaking through this line took more lives and efforts than whole Mediterranean theatre and had immense strategic importance.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Also, the Panther Line continued to be effective till the end of the war, with the Courland Pocket being among the last Germans to surrender.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:30, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
War breaks out in Europe; a pretext for a Soviet invasion
Since the section describes the pretext for German invasion, I added "On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland under a pretext that Polish state ostensibly ceased to exist
." It is an important addition, because otherwise a reader may conclude there was a state of war between Poland and USSR, although, as far as I know, no formal war was declared.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- This is a controversial issue that I don't think we need to clarify here. Soviet invasion was clearly an act of war and the only reason Poland didn't declare it back is because it would do little good. See ex (on why didn't the Allies declare war on USSR), or (a Polish historian arguing Poland should've declared war on USSR). This is a fascinating topic that I may need to research later, but I don't believe we should clarify it here. Citing Soviets 'pretext' is opening the door to a wider debate - how did Poland and the allies reply to that? We don't have room for that. Sufficient to say, USSR invaded Poland. At most we could add a sentence that this did not lead to any state of war, since neither Poland nor USSR declared war on one another, but I don't believe this is needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with Paul's edit. I think it is important to clarify this briefly. Polish troops fought the Germans, but I don't believe they fought the Red Army. And no one at the time knew there was a deal between Germany and the USSR.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:34, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, as you know, when Poles asked Britain why it hadn't declared a war on the USSR, they responded that the secret protocol of the Anglo-Polish treaty stipulate that this treaty took effect only in the event of German aggression. I agree that de facto Soviet invasion was a purely aggressive act. However, the development of historical events demonstrated that the formal pretext of Soviet actions absolutely satisfied Britain and France, who didn't know about a secret protocol at that time, and who believed the USSR is just returning the territory Poland conquered in 1920. As a result, they didn't see the USSR as an aggressor (in contrast to a situation with Finno-Soviet war). The text I am adding (which contains the word ostensibly) reflects those time views and explains why there were no state of war between the USSR and Anglo-Franco-Polish alliance. If we do not say that, a reader may start to look for the information about peace treaty signing between the USSR and Britain of Poland in 1941, when the USSR joined the Allies. However, that never happened, and the reason was: formally, the USSR had never been at war with Britain or Poland. I think that is important fact a reader needs to know.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:43, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Here is the edit. Saying "under a pretext that Polish state ostensibly ceased to exist" is the Soviet version of this, something that has been relentlessly promoted by the Soviet propaganda. We all know that USSR invaded the Poland because the invasion was agreed in advance with Nazi in the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But this page tells surprisingly little about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was actually one of the main reasons this war started. My very best wishes (talk) 17:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Soviet statement was that "Polish state ceased to exist". The article says: "Soviets said Polish state ceased to exist". Do you see a difference? The goal of this statement is to transmit the official Soviet position without endorsing it. That is what the article is doing with other official statements. Do you disagree with that way of presentation of information in general?
- In addition, there is no agreement among historians on the role of MRP in Soviet invasion. It seems Stalin and Hitler interpreted the pact differently. Some sources argue Stalin's plans of invasion significantly depended on Hitler's successes, and the decision to invade was made after the rapid collapse of Polish army. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- No, I do not think we should devote attention on this very general page to the Soviet position ("transmit the official Soviet position") on the question why they have attacked Poland. We should transmit positions by the modern day historians/RS on this question. My very best wishes (talk) 17:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Hmm...if the Polish state continued to exist, wouldn't that mean there were Polish death camps??GPRamirez5 (talk) 17:35, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- As about "Stalin and Hitler interpreted the pact differently", yes sure, Hitler quite probably expected the USSR to attack Poland immediately and together with him, but Stalin waited a couple of weeks, until Hitler became involved in the war on multiple fronts, the war he was almost certain to loose (the future engagement of the USSR against Nazi Germany was inevitable and planned in advance by Stalin). That was the significance of this (missing on the page?), as described in books on the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- No, I do not think we should devote attention on this very general page to the Soviet position ("transmit the official Soviet position") on the question why they have attacked Poland. We should transmit positions by the modern day historians/RS on this question. My very best wishes (talk) 17:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Do you have an objection to presenting only Soviet position, or your objection is general (I mean, noone's positions should be presented)? If your objection is general, I think we need to discuss it. Let's remove all "Roosevelt declared...", "Hitler said...", etc. Of course, we can do that if there will be a general consensus about that. If you object to a description of the Soviet position only, there should be a serious reason for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- I find this highly unproductive. Please, remember that consensus does not mean you have a right of veto.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
One more argument why this explanation is needed is the mention of expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations for its aggression against Finland. A reader may ask: "Why was it possible that the USSR was still in the League after a joint Germano-Soviet (some EE users even say "Soviet-German") invasion of Poland?" An answer is simple, the USSR provided a formal pretext that satisfied most states, and the current version of the article informs about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Telling about the official Soviet position is fine, just like "Hitler said...", however then one should also tell what contemporary historians/RS tell about it. Otherwise, the text will not be consistent with WP:NPOV. However, on an overview page, such as that one, we simply do not have space to describe such complex issues. This belongs to Causes of World War II. My very best wishes (talk) 12:05, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- Modern views are taken into account by using the word "ostensibly", which implies that the article's text does not endorse this claim. Furthermore, subsequent text continues to speak about Poland, thereby confirming that Poland hadn't "ceased to exist". The source cited also concludes that the explanation was weak from a legal point of view, that it it was intended not for international lawyers, but for affecting a public opinion. I think, this information is quite sufficient for any reasonable reader to draw correct conclusions about an unpleasant role the USSR played in this story. Obviously, a EE reader who is obsessed with the idea that the USSR was the most evil monster of XX century, and the WWII article should tell that it was the USSR who started WWII, and who was the main aggressor, may find this text unsatisfactory. However, it is not our goal to please this tiny fraction of world population. Our goal is to tell truth..--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- So, you do admit that the explanation "was weak from a legal point of view". Speaking normal language, that was actually Soviet disinformation or propaganda. So why should we cite Soviet propaganda on WP pages, without even explicitly telling that it was propaganda and providing alternative views per WP:NPOV? "Ostensibly" does not make it.My very best wishes (talk) 15:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, if we were writing this article specifically for a stupid reader, as well as for some very specific fraction of EE readers, an explicit reservation should be added ("but that was just a propaganda of evil Soviets"). However, to any reasonable reader (i.e. to our main audience) the word "ostensibly" is quite sufficient. Other details can be found in the source provided (whose conclusion was: Soviet claims were shaky).--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- Support Paul's change. I copy edited the amendment before it was taken out and summarily executed. I am not enthusiastic about the amendment, but it seems an improvement in that it succinctly adds useful, even necessary, information and is the least bad version I can think of. Well done Paul for spotting and tackling this. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- I also support including this helpful explanatory material.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
- Support inclusion. I've always wondered what the Soviet Union's justification for invading Poland was. Now, I have a better understanding. To be honest, I'd rather have more. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:24, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Mediterranean section
Here is a shortened version of Mediterranean 40-41 section. Major changes:
- Trivial remarks (like "Hitler viewed the new regime as hostile " etc) removed: it is obvious that any pro-British coup would be viewed by Hitler as hostile. Several other statements of that kind removed.
- More German images are needed. I added Rommel, who is deservedly considered a main hero of this theatre in 40-41
- I am not sure if we need this sentence: "Commonwealth counteroffensives in May and June 1941 were unsuccessful." Too small and unimportant. If we list all battles of this scale and importance, the sections below would grow 50 times.
What do you think?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC) PS. The remark after the ref to Weinberg (2005, p=229 says: -- REFERENCE SEEMS VERY NARROW FOR RANGE OF EVENTS COVERED --. Can anybody check what does this book say?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
_______________________________________
Main article: Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II.jpg)
In early June 1940 Italian Regia aeronautica attacked Malta, and a siege of this British possession started. In late summer - early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with British air support; the campaign ended within days with minor territorial changes. Germany started preparation for invasion of Balkans to assist Italy, to prevent the British from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, which would be a potential threat for Romanian oil fields, and to strike against the British dominance of the Mediterranean.
In December 1940, British Commonwealth forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa. The offensive was highly successful, by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large number of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.
Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy the expeditionary force to North Africa, and by the end of March 1941 Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces. In under a month, Wehrmacht advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk that fell later. Commonwealth counteroffensives in May and June 1941 were unsuccessful.
By late March 1941 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days after signing by pro-British nationalists. Germany responded with simultaneous invasion of both Yugoslavia and Greece, which started on 6 April, 1941 and forced both nations to surrender within the month. The airborne invasion of Greek island of Crete by the end of May finalised German conquest of Balkans. Although the Axis victory was swift, bitter and massive partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.
In the Middle East, Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria, then, with the assistance of the Free French, invaded and occupied French possessions Syria and Lebanon.
- I think that two photos for this short section is plenty (the article probably already has too many photos). As the article avoids photos of generals, I don't think that Rommel should be included. While prominent in this theatre, he was only a corps commander. Nick-D (talk) 03:46, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- ^ Macksey 1997, pp. 61–3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMacksey1997 (help)
- Clogg 2002, p. 118. sfn error: no target: CITEREFClogg2002 (help)
- Evans 2008, pp. 146, 152 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEvans2008 (help); US Army 1986, pp. 4–6 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFUS_Army1986 (help)
- Jowett 2001, pp. 9–10. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJowett2001 (help)
- Jackson 2006, p. 106. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJackson2006 (help)
- Laurier 2001, pp. 7–8. sfn error: no target: CITEREFLaurier2001 (help)
- Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 263–7. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMurrayMillett2001 (help)
- Weinberg 2005, p. 229. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWeinberg2005 (help)
- Watson 2003, p. 80. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWatson2003 (help)
- Jackson 2006, p. 154. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJackson2006 (help)
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