Talk:Battle of Waterloo/Archive 7

message: "Consequently, Ney now organised a combined arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry) attack on La Haye Sainte, which fell as the defending King's German Legion troops ran out of ammunition. Ney then moved artillery up to the allied centre and began to pulverise the infantry squares.[73]"
This is the final sentence of the French Cavalry attack section.
There seem to be several things wrong with it: first, attacking a building with cavalry is pointless, be they with infantry or not, second, field artillery have little effect on reasonably stout (like Belgian farmhouses) buildings, apart from shells setting them alight (which is what happened to the Chateau de Goumont, to little effect).
I think two events are being conflated here.  
Having become obvious that the cavalry on their own were achieving little, Ney organised a combined arms attack, using Bachelu's Division (Reille's Corps) and the remaining French cavalry in a fit enough state, towards the centre of Wellington's position, this was halted by the Household Brigade cavalry led by Uxbridge (who couldn't break the French infantry formations, and consequently the British cavalry then fell back). Uxbridge then tried to lead the Dutch-Belgian heavy cavalry into the attack but they refused to charge.  Meanwhile, Bachelu's men and their cavalry supports were being hard hit by artillery fire and eventually fell back themselves.  
Simultaneously, or thereabouts, elements of D'Erlon's Corps renewed the attack on La Haye Sainte, and were ultimately successful.
Urselius 13:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can reference all of that, be bold and put it in! -Kieran 17:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done (I'm bloody, bold and resolute - in Shakespeare's words ;)  )Urselius 14:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious sentence 

message: One omission and one challenge. 
We should say something about Wellington's tactic of having his gun crews seek shelter in the infantry squares during the cavalry attacks. There is also Mercer's account of not doing so because he reckoned if his men ran for the Brunswick squares next to them, the Brunswickers would run too. He gives a great eyewitness account of what happened to cuirassiers when you fired canister at them at point-blank range, too. 
Now the challenge. What's the source for there being only 54 guns in the Grand Battery? French "batteries" (field brigades, or companies, perhaps, more correctly) had eight guns. There should have been either 48 or 56, i.e. 6 or 7 batteries, as otherwise it would imply at least one incomplete unit, or that some weapons were detached for some reason. I don't recall any suggestion from elsewhere that that happened. Were there perhaps 54 guns east of the Brussels road? Tirailleur 12:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artillery 

message: In my internet explorer is the formating of the page rather strange. The text begins very late, almost beneath the infobox. Can this be changed, so that the article looks better? Anne-theater 01:36 CEST 6 September 2007  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anne-theater (talk • contribs) 23:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People have been mentioning this, but I haven't seen it on Firefox on Windows or Linux, or on IE 6. Maybe it's an IE7 quirk? Could we do a survey of what browser the people who are having this problem are using? -Kieran 20:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Format

message: I saw on the GAC report that this article has been on hold for quite a few days. In order to speed up this process, I've begun helping out with the necessary changes. I also noticed, in looking over this page, that FA is a goal. I'll take care of copy-editing, merging/condensing, and FA nit-picks. I'll also tweak the references, which are pretty much done, but there's a few inconsistencies that I'll clear up. Hopefully, this will get the GA pass and help you on to FA. Regards, LaraLove♥ 13:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I reordered the notes and references; per WP:LAYOUT, they should be next to each other. I also separated (references are all under that section and Footnotes section contains only notes) and correctly formatted them. Sorry it took like a hundred edits. First time I've done that before. LaraLove 19:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Layout is a mess. I don't agree with it. This is why these GA and FA are a pain. Someone comes a long and decides that they want it this way or that and then alter the guidelines. Then if an article is up for GA of FA people say but the guideline says so. For example have a look at WP:FOOT and WP:CITE. SlimVirgin put in a prohibition on where reference tags should go without any consensus to do so, and yet I presume that anyone who wanted to have an article as an FA would be forced to use a format for reference tags for which there is no consensus "because the guidelines say so". --Philip Baird Shearer 16:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure I just moved the notes to be under the references and sorted them. If I remember correctly, WP:LAYOUT says that those can be in any order, as long as notes and references are next to one another. That aside, I can't really tell if you're being rude to me or just voicing frustration at the process. SlimVirgin's changes were unrelated to GA or FA, as far as I am aware. As far as FA's footnotes requirement, FAs represent WP's work of publishable quality; It makes sense that there would be consistency within that regarding footnotes, in my opinion. Although, I don't think I've ever seen a featured article that didn't have inline citations after punctuation, which is not to say none exist. I've also not seen GAs with inlines anywhere other than after the punc. And I've seen hundreds of GAs. LaraLove 17:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No I assume that you are working in good faith, it is the process of GA and FA that I am not particularly enamoured by. Please see the discussions on this point on WP:CITE and WP:FOOT that you have not seen any (when scientists who read journals such as Nature are familiar with and use them) is proof of what I am talking about, one would have thought that some scientific articles would use footnoting as is used by Nature! If you argue that " FAs represent WP's work of publishable quality; It makes sense that there would be consistency within that regarding footnotes" then presumably such things as spelling should also be consistent across articles? I would disagree with that should be consistent is the spelling in and article and likewise the footnoting. I tend to keep clear of WP:LAYOUT (although I have contributed to it in the past) where do you think (at the moment) it states that references and footnotes should be next to each other?  Unless you have any strong objections I wish to move the Footnotes back below further reading --Philip Baird Shearer 19:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your argument and can see it from your point of view. I can also see a similarity between the difference in spelling and the difference in use of footnotes style, to a point. While I don't join you in your opposition to the current standard for this, I do understand your frustration. As far as notes and refs being next to each other, WP:LAYOUT#Standard_appendices_and_descriptions note 1. I agree with this because the notes cite the references, so it makes sense to me that they be next to each other to allow the reader to quickly and easily see which book or whatever each citation is referring to. What are your reasons for wanting to change this? If you really would like the notes at the bottom, perhaps do that and move references above that. Have it be See also, Further reading, References, Notes. That seems completely acceptable to me per WP:LAYOUT. LaraLove 15:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Helping out

message: I have very mixed feelings about FA status, I was the one that got Battle of Shiloh its FA status and had cause to regret it.  I worked for a month on the T-38 and F-86 articles after FA status fixing things that the  Bombers had a fieldday with.  Always amazed me how many muppets show up with a determination to enforce their ideal upon the editors (and even more amusing to see how little they contribute themselves while demanding weeks worth of work) all in the name of the highest ideals of Wikipedia.  This article has had more than it's share of the attack of the muppets and you may very well want to consider if we are willing to do that all over again. Tirronan 21:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes on FA 

message: We have two books in the references:
# Hofschröer, Peter (1815). The Waterloo Campaign: The German Victory. London: Greenhill Books. 
# Hofschröer, Peter (2004). Wellington's Smallest Victory: The Duke, the Model Maker and the Secret of Waterloo. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN
So the citations need a disambiguation on title like "German victory" and "Smallest victory"
--Philip Baird Shearer 21:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References and citations

message: Capitalization, especially of unit names, is somewhat nonstandardised in the article. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't currently have style guidelines for this, so I've proposed some on the relevant MoS page. Please have a look and see if you agree. Once they're stable, I'm going to go through and standardise. -Kieran 23:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As this is a project wide issue please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital_letters)#Military terms --Philip Baird Shearer 06:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear. Please feel free to join in. I think we can probably have the issue deferred for GA purposed for now, although if we go for FA, it needs to be resolved and the article edited to match. -Kieran 21:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization

message: It isn't obvious in the text that the attack by 5 battalions actually split into two parts (of 2 and 3 battalions) before it reached the Allied line. One part was defeated by Chasse's counter attack, the other by Maitland's guards and the flanking fire of Adam's 52nd Light Infantry.
As it stands at the moment it reads as though the same battallions of French guardsmen were somehow defeated twice.  This really needs addressing.Urselius 08:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually what the section implied is that the attack split into three parts, one repulsed by Chasse and a second that the British guards repulsed; the latter was then reinforced by another Chasseur battalion coming up, and it was the latter that was defeated by flanking fire from the 52nd LI. I have reworded the article so that it now explicitly says this. I haven't put in citations because I haven't altered the facts we give. I have also made it clear that each prong was defeated - in the previous version this wasn't quite there. Tirailleur 10:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attack of the Imperial Guard 

message: References  67 and 68 no longer make sense.  I took the pre-casualty brigade strengths from Adkin and the numbers of casualties from Smith.  I did this as neither book shows the full 'before and after' picture.
My poor old brain (which dates from the days of fountain pens) can't cope with re-arranging the code to make the thing sensible again (in the Jane Austin sense of the word).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urselius (talk • contribs) 19:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not too sure what to do there. Is it not possible that you could split the reference, or maybe give an unformatted version here? -Kieran 08:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muddled references 

message: Landwehr or Landwehr? - I think the latter as it's not an English word.
Cuirassier or cuirassier? - I think the former as there have been cuirassiers back to the English Civil War.
Carabinier or carabinier? - I think the latter as it's not an English word.
La Haye or La Haie? - I think the latter for consistency with the map.  
Zieten or Ziethen? - I think the latter for consistency with the map.  
Regiment / regiment, Brigade / brigade, Corps / corps - we are all over the place with this. I think it should be uppercase when describing a specific formation (2nd Brigade) but lowercase when describing one generally (Lobau's corps, but VI Corps). Tirailleur 13:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am happy to work through making the above consistent. The main issue I think is with proper names - it is easier to change the article than to change the map and as the spellings in the map are uncontentious I think we go with those. Tirailleur 21:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's necessary to provide citations to back up the italicisation of non-English terms. A talk page discussion should suffice, if there's a dispute. On the topic of capitalisation, please read Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28capital_letters%29#Military_terms. (Also note that the guide was only recently finalised, so if you disagree with a detail of it, please discuss and modify the guideline.) More or less, the guideline states that formal names of units need to be capitalised, as well as abbreviations of these names (at least where the abbreviation remains specific). I think that's pretty much in line with what you're proposing. I definitely agree that there needs to be standardisation in this article - that was a large motivation for my efforts to create the guideline -Kieran 14:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling consistency 

message: I see someone has had the bravura to reference Hamilton-Williams, note 5, but his book isn't in the references section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urselius (talk • contribs) 10:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't add the note, but I think I've found the reference and have added it. -Kieran 15:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note 5 

message: I have noticed the article's getting quite long (around 87kb). According to Wikipedia:Article_size, we should be aiming for 32-50kb, although this is only for "readable prose", of which I think this article probably isn't too far off that. There are also provisions for exceptions, and in this case I think it might be difficult to start splitting the article up. (Well, actually, maybe it would be ok to have an individual article for each of the major phases of the battle ...) Anyway, I think we need to be careful about adding too much more detail at the moment, and focus on getting the right details in, and on the quality of those details. What does everyone else think? -Kieran 15:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Down from 10,900-ish to 9,800-ish article words (excluding footnotes, etc). --ROGER DAVIES TALK 08:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article length 

message: I've amended the new mention of lancers in the final section to be less universal.  Although the lance became more popular in the early-mid 19th century it was far from universally adopted.  Of the regiments in the charge of the British Light Brigade at Balaclava (1853-ish) only one out of five carried the lance, and none of the regiments of the Heavy Brigade in the same battle carried lances.
It is true that in some services, the Imperial German for example, the experiment of arming  the first rank of some non-lancer regiments with lances was tried, even so the majority of the troopers in such regiments would not have had lances and would have retained the sword as their main weapon. Urselius 21:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lancers