# Talk:Operation Dragoon

In the top of the map  it is indicated that Dijon is 37 miles to the north. This cannot be correct - Dijon is more 200 km, 124 miles to the north - and most likely refers to Lyon which is approximately 40 miles to the north. Given the historical character of the map, I don't think it should be edited. I will try to add a note to the file to indicate that this is most likely an error.

VincentVandalon (talk) 16:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Ashley, with respect I will revert your deleting of Operation Span. The source is the official US Army History (the Green Book series) on this operation. Paul, in Saudi 16:47, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I use wikipedia alot, though this is my first time actually editing or suggesting something. I noticed the article said that the name change came form a quote from churchhill claiming he was "Dragooned into it"; in reality that was the common myth amoungst soldiers at the time but it turned out to be false. This is acourding to a reliable source, Airborne by E. M. Flanagan JR, Ballantine Books, Copyright 2002.
Since I'm new it would be apreciated if somebody else fixed this.
Lophoole 23:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)Lophoole
OK, I figured out how to edit adn add the fact, but not how to site it. (It's proubably common knowledge and is only a minor fact, but if somebody could please site it that would be helpfull.)

I've put the basic info into the para, surrounded by <ref></ref>.  It's not a complete citation, but it's best to capture the basic information as soon as you can.  Another editor can always clean up the citation style.  Welcome to editing!LeadSongDog 16:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be no sources to back up the casualties given. 2x4,500 versus 125,000 casualties also seems highly unlikely, US casualties were probably higher and German casualties lower. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.171.148.207 (talk) 09:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC).
Surely the casualties shouldn't be listed as "unknown" in the infobox.  That seems to imply that nobody knows, which I doubt is the case! -- SCZenz (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd add that the casualties don't list the British or Canadian casualty lists, surely they must be available somewhere?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.223.14 (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC) 

Note to any editors watching this page, though I doubt there are many. Please retain the books I've listed in the bibliography. I will come back to rewrite the article, but I feel that I need to gather more sources, particularly on the operations background. Skinny87 (talk) 20:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Winston Churchill was very opposed to this operation and wished instead for the Allies to make landings in Greece and/or the Balkans (to prevent further Soviet influence) yet Roosevelt and Stalin had the final say. Shouldn't the article mention this briefly?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.80.178 (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC) 

I think he was concerned more over the diversion of resources from Italy and Normandy. Operation Manna went ahead soon after Dragoon anyway. Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
It ist mentioned in the Background section. 2nd paragraph. StoneProphet (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
Monty was certainly opposed to it on the grounds that the Balkans would have been the better option. It's in his memoirs. Valetude (talk) 18:06, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mwiki3101: thanks for the work you're doing on this page, although having read some of the content I am not sure it's appropriate for Wikipedia. In particular suffering from issues of tone, sourcing and original research. Here's an example!

One would have expected the French to be overjoyed with "Dragoon" and many of the 230,000 French soldiers[33] and liberated civilians no doubt were, it was the largest French military action since 1940, but in the 1,000 page book of the WW2 Memoirs of De Gaulle, "Dragoon" has less than one page of coverage.[55]:626
"Wikipedia articles, and other encyclopedic content, should be written in a formal tone", and in  particular not in the first or second person. This sentence, as does some of the other content, suffers from informal tone and use of the incorrect narrative.
"Wikipedia articles must not contain original research"; or in other words, avoid bringing in your own analysis. "many of the 230,000 French soldiers[33] and liberated civilians no doubt were,"; is this the opinion of a source? " but in the 1,000 page book of the WW2 Memoirs of De Gaulle, "Dragoon" has less than one page of coverage"; why is this significant? You do need sources to say this before it can be added.
"Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources"; which ties to the past problem, reliable sourcing for your claim. It may certainly be factual that the De Gaulle memoirs only contains one page about Dragoon, however that this is significant, or unusual is not appropriate to cite to the book itself.
I hope this feedback is helpful, and I'm happy to answer questions! A lot of the content you are adding is fantastic, but there does seem to be a little bit of original research and opinion dispersed amongst the additions. --Errant (chat!) 13:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Thats OK, I was hoping I would come across something elsewhere to support it, but I have not yet found anything. I'll delete that para.
Its nice to know someone has read the article.
By the way, is there any way of telling how many people access any particular article ?
Some article stats can be found here: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Operation_Dragoon. --Errant (chat!) 13:54, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
There's also the basic info action. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, you learn something new every day on Wikipedia

[This discussion copied from User talk:Natalie.Desautels#Need a translation.] 

Hello, Natalie! I guess you are back home now and settling into your fall schedule. Welcome back to Wikipedia! It's nice to see you editing again. I'm just now finishing a copy-edit of Operation Dragoon. In that article there is a photo of a procession after the liberation of Marseilles in 1944. I see in the file description that the only description of the photo is in French. Since the officer Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is a key figure in the article, and there are a number of people in the photo, I think it would be nice to have the description also in English so that readers who do not know French can read it and see which one is de Tassigny. I wonder if you feel like translating the description and adding it (if that is permitted). I understand most of it but would not be able to do as good a job as you could. Here is the image:   – Corinne (talk) 18:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne, 
In her reply in the section immediately above, Natalie told me yesterday that she's currently in Paris for a few weeks. I hope she/you won't mind that I jumped in... 
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 19:43, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
P.S. I have been thinking about your idea of adding the translation into the description of the file itself, but I don't know whether that's allowable. I would suggest the obvious: add a summary of the (long-ish) translation into the caption (see the article on the Yalta Conference, for an example of a photo with a long caption). I have added such a summary in the third subsection below.
Hope this helped some more. Best wishes, Corinne.
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 22:46, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


### Original description
André Diethelm [Identifié par ressemblance avec le portrait disponible sur senat.fr] passe en revue des troupes dans Marseille libérée en août 1944. On reconnaît, derrière Diethelm, le général de Lattre de Tassigny (en pantalon et chemise d'uniforme, sans veste, regardant sur sa droite les soldats) et Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie, à droite de la photo. Entre les deux précédents, derrière Diethelm, en képi à feuilles de chêne, le général de Monsabert. Photographie prise sur le quai de Rive-Neuve à l'angle avec le cours Jean-Ballard<ref>Localisation faite en reconnaissant les traits des bâtiments, qui n'ont guère changé depuis.


### Translation
André Diethelm [identified by resemblance with the portrait available at senat.fr] reviewing troops in Marseille, liberated in August 1944. Behind Diethelm are: general de Lattre de Tassigny (in uniform trousers and shirt, without jacket, looking at soldiers to his right) and Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie, far right in the photo. Between the latter two and behind Diethelm, is général de Monsabert (in kepi with oak leaf). Photo shot (by an unknown author) on the quay de Rive-Neuve at the angle with Cours Jean-Ballard. Location identified through recognition of local buildings, which have not changed much since then.


### Suggested caption
André Diethelm reviewing troops in Marseille, liberated in August 1944. Behind Diethelm are: general de Lattre de Tassigny (in uniform trousers and shirt, without jacket, looking at soldiers to his right) and Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie, far right in the photo. Between the latter two and behind Diethelm, is général de Monsabert (in kepi with oak leaf).

Patrick, thank you so much for your reply and for undertaking the translation. This is well written and fine. I'm just wondering – even though the phrase, "liberated in August 1944", is a perfect translation of the phrase in the French description, it does not indicate at all that this review of the troops took place immediately following the liberation of Marseilles, which, given the subject matter of the article, would be more pertinent. I mean, can we not assume that that was when the photo was taken? Can we safely write:
André Diethelm reviewing troops in Marseille, following the liberation of the city in August 1944...., or
André Diethelm reviewing troops in Marseille, upon liberation of the city in August 1944....?
Or do you prefer the original (i.e., your) wording?
Also, when I was editing the article, I was struck by the spelling "Marseille", so I looked at the WP article Marseille, and I saw that "Marseille" is the French spelling and that "Marseilles" is generally used in English. That's why I paused at "Marseille". I was used to seeing "Marseilles". That's really interesting because it's the opposite of what one would expect. One would expect a silent final "s" (found on many French words), left off in the English spelling. I wonder how in the world an "s" found its way onto the English spelling of the name of the city. Do you think the English spelling, "Marseilles", should be used throughout the article Operation Dragoon or the French spelling, "Marseille"?   – Corinne (talk) 14:41, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne, 
You're most welcome, of course; it's always a pleasure.
Well, I simply translated the original description provided by the Wikipedian who uploaded the digital photo into the Wikipedia file. Your query addresses two different events:
the date of the liberation of Marseille, which an existing article records as taking place on 29 August 1944;
the date when the photograph was taken, which is not on record; so, we simply don't know.
Therefore, what I would do in this case is to refine the date in the first sentence of the caption to:
André Diethelm reviewing troops in Marseille, liberated on 29 August 1944. ...
This would provide more precision, even though it does not address your suggestion to change the translation to "following the liberation of the city" or "upon the liberation of the city", which is nonetheless very strongly implied. One could of course assume that these important and very busy officials would not have chosen to hang around in Marseille for very long. Therefore, one could further assume the photo to have been shot in late August (29, 30, 31) or in early September. However, we simply don't know. The article on fr:André Diethelm does not provide a date for this parade either; so: we simply cannot date the photo without first searching for a verifiable source that provides the date of this parade, on the supposition that this specific event was ever recorded and documented by historians.
As you already know, the article (at our en Wiki) does not have the final 's' in the spelling of Marseille, but does mention the English spelling in the first sentence of the lead section. Therefore, both spellings are available to the reader in a single source, and I am happy to let you decide how to spell it in the caption: Marseille or Marseilles.
With kindest regards, as always; 
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 19:37, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
P.S. Maybe you could consider copying this entire section into the talk page of the article on Operation Dragoon, for our accountability to other editors? Thank you, Corinne.
 – Corinne (talk) 21:00, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Pdebee I don't know which spelling of the city to use. Does anyone have an opinion?
Regarding the photo, I wonder if there is a way to track down the date on which the photo was taken.  – Corinne (talk) 21:01, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne;
Since it's about events in France, I'd go for the French spelling: Marseille, as per the photo's file description.
The editor who uploaded the photo is User:Rama, as per the file description. S/he might know more about it.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 21:39, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello, i am new but this video talks about the participation of italian POW and volunteers for this operation.
should this be included?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39BhaqucJzg
Sources: 'History of Prisoner-of-War Utilisation by the United States Army, 1776-1945' by George Glover Lewis & John Mewha (1978); 'Italian Service Unit Insignia' by Militarytrader.com; 'Italian Service Units' Wikipedia entry.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.216.180.25 (talk) 20:55, 11 July 2020 (UTC) 

In the Aftermath section of the article, it says Stalin was given "a free hand to pursue his offensive efforts with more determination, allowing him to win the race towards Berlin and occupy the Balkans."
The part where it says, "allowing him to win the race towards Berlin." That's where I have a problem. As far as I'm aware of, Eisenhower and the other generals on the Western Front were not engaged in a race with Stalin for Berlin. I thought it had already been decided at a conference that Stalin and the Red Army would be the ones marching into Berlin?
Ilikelegosandroblox (talk) 04:51, 28 March 2021 (UTC)ilikelegosandroblox

This is a Cold War-era thesis put forward by Chester Wilmot in The Struggle for Europe in 1950. It is not accepted by historians today. See Broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II. And yes, it had already been decided at Tehran that the Red Army would be the one marching into Berlin. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:04, 28 March 2021 (UTC)