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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Kunersdorf

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

Article promoted by Zawed (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 10:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Battle of Kunersdorf edit

Nominator(s): Auntieruth55 (talk)

Battle of Kunersdorf (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Second of a four-part series on Frederick the Great's battles (others being Battle of Hochkirch, presently here for review, Battle of Leuthen, awaiting GA review, and Battle of Rossbach, still in puberty). auntieruth (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:SchlachtbeiKunersdorf.jpg needs a US PD tag. Same with File:Joachim-Bernhard-vp-2.jpg, File:Kleist-fällt-bei-kunersdorf.jpg, File:Brief_von_Friedrich_der_Große.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nikki, I added PD-old-70-1923 to the files. Is that the correct tag? auntieruth (talk) 14:09, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the work was published before 1923 - is that true for all of these? (And if you're using that tag you don't also need to keep the separate life+70 tag). Nikkimaria (talk) 02:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • yes it's true for all. I didn't want to remove a tag that someone else had put on though.  :( auntieruth (talk) 18:05, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Lingzhi edit

  • Citations formatting inconsistent.
  • Standard offer: I will happily replace your citations with {{sfn}} and your references with {{cite book}} or other as needed. Your choice.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 11:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the offer! I don't see inconsistencies, though. First citation has full information. Second citation I use the shortened "refname=" form or, if page numbers are not the same, I state the author and page number, and use refname= for further notations on that one. I do them this way all the time, too. auntieruth (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I acknowledge that you declined. For conversational purposes only: there are four reasons to do so, all four of which apply to this article. The first reason is to standardize the formatting. [Will discuss below] Many articles – especially longer ones – are very far from being so well-tended... The second reason is that Ucucha's harv tools can help find citations without a book in the bibliography, and vice versa. [Will discuss below].. The third and perhaps least important reason is simply to provide a clickable link from each citation to the corresponding bibliography entry. The fourth reason is that it provides a rigid system for other editors, who may come along months later, to follow paint-by-numbers.
  • Alas, there seem to be many inconsistencies. I could point them out and you could fix them, but then, the next time we have a nom like this we'd have to check them manually again and if any are found then you'd have to fix them again, etc. Why do so much extra work?
  • What is Duffy, A life? Not in Bibliography.
  • Walther Killy, Dictionary of German Biography... Not in Bibliography.
  • Redman in citations seven times; not in Bibliography
  • "Scott, p. 15; Duffy, here. " .... doesn't say which Duffy
  • Hedburg in Bibliography, not in citations. it is in the notes
  • Ditto Hoezsch. also cited
  • Ditto Jones.
  • Ditto Longman. removed
  • is Duffy's middle name Duffy also? "Duffy, Christopher Duffy. Frederick the Great:"
  • You said first mention (only?) has full information, but full info twice for Szabo; for Duffy, The army of Frederick the Great, (which has inconsistent capitalization); twice for Blanning (once as Tim Blanning and once as TCW Blanning)
  • Weigley is given in Bibliography as a chapter, but in citations as a book title. (Meanwhile, Horn is given consistently as a chapter in the citations and the Bibliography, so Horn's formatting is inconsistent with Weigley's)
  • And perhaps more, but it's time for me to go do something...more later.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I don't understand what you are suggesting. Now that you point them out I see the issues! Are you saying that there is something that will automatically construct all this ? It took me two years to accept the ref name short cut. I don't easlly like the author name parens page number thing auntieruth (talk) 02:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(←) yes there are many tools to make things easier and more consistent. I personally favor {{sfn}} (and I also use {{sfnm}} extensively, but many editors seem to want to avoid that) and {{cite book}} and {{cite journal}}. It ain't as hard as it looks (tools help, will explain) and it has all the advantages I explained above. Forex, User:Ucucha/HarvErrors in your Special:MyPage/common.js. displays an error every time there is a citation not in the bibliography, or a book in the bibliography not in the citations. And making all those cite books templates can be done automagically as well... I have to run now for an hour or two but books... if you copy the url from google books, you can paste it into the tool that's linked on the bottom-most userbox on my userpage, the Wikipedia Citation Tool for Google Books. There's another for journals, I'm told, but I have never used it. More later, gotta run.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Prose: "He assumed he could use his trade-mark oblique order attack, but his reconnaissance had be incomplete. He acted on ground of his enemy's choosing, not his own. His enemy expected him to attempt the oblique order attack, so effective at Rossbach and Leuthen, was no longer a surprise."  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 12:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Things are looking good. I'm confused by the Miracle. The Miracle is mentioned in this article as though it were immediately after the battle, but the Miracle article says that the miracle was Elizabeth's death perhaps 3 years later. This article also says E's death saved Prussia. So... why didn't the Russians press their advantage? It doesn't seem to be because of E's death...?  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:54, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Took out "miracle" I was never happy with it--a relict of the old edits.
  • However, that said, the Russians were constantly pulling back for a variety of reasons:
  • Elizabeth was ailing for a long time, and the generals were all concerned about a palace coup. Several times word would come that she had died, or was dying, and everyone would rush back ...and then she actually hadn't died, no need to panic.
  • Ultimately, Elizabeth's death did save Prussia, because her heir was a big fan of Frederick's. and he pulled Russia out of the war.
  • Russian participation was always problematic for the Russians. It was a long way to East Prussia, must less to Prussia proper. After the primary battle in East Prussia Battle of Gross-Jaegersdorf, which the Russians "won", they with drew back to Russia. The length of the supply line was great, and to extend the army into Brandenburg itself, another 300 miles, was very difficult. The Austrians were supposed to
  • OK, I'm looking for the answer to my questions. Didn't find it in my first source (Podruczny, Grzegorz, and Jakub Wrzosek. "Lone Grenadier: An Episode from the Battle of Kunersdorf, 12 August 1759." Journal of Conflict Archaeology 9.1 (2014): 33-47.) Did, however, find tons of good background info. If you cannot get this source, I can email it to you.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:56, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mmmm, is this it? Was Liegnitz the reason the Russians didn't press forward?:

The pivotal moment came on August 15, 1760, at Liegnitz, a battle Frederick could not afford to lose. Defeat would have been more catastrophic than at Kunersdorf. Instead, Frederick coerced a much larger Austrian force into retreat after a short, sharp engagement. Liegnitz broke an almost-two year-long pattern of defeats, saving Prussian morale and Frederick’s prestige. The Austrians and Russians knew they had lost their best chance to end the war swiftly and they never regained the strategic initiative

— Book review by William Anthony Hay of Blanning, Tim Frederick the Great: King of Prussia
  • This book (p. 143) says there was "no quarter" given at Kunersdorf, tho it doesn't say who gave no quarter: Gillespie, A. (2011). A History of the Laws of War: Volume 1: The Customs and Laws of War with Regards to Combatants and Captives (Vol. 1). Bloomsbury Publishing.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:31, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • no quarter, definitely. Lots of men were killed--Cossacks often slit the throats of the wounded. There were accounts of atrocities, but unspecified as to what they were. But I found no military source on it that I considered reliable....so....
  • OK, maybe these are the reasons: the Lone Greanadier" article states that "...at the Battle of Kay by a much larger Russian army, losing roughly a third of his army in the fighting. This allied victory allowed the Russians and Austrians to link up and threaten the heart of the Prussian state, the city of Berlin. This was certainly the goal of the Russians, although the Austrians wanted the Russian army to move south with them into Silesia and Saxony." So the Allies had disparate goals. This si supported by Thackeray, F. W., & Findling, J. E. (1998). Events That Changed the World in the Eighteenth Century. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Group. PP 71 (it continues on to 72 but this quote is from 71) says, "The allied war effort, in turn, was hampered by two critical problems. The first was the natural strains to which an alliance, whose partners frequently had mutually exclusive objectives and different regional priorities, was subjected. As a result, the coordination of allied operations was always only tentative at best. The second, which has received much less attention from historians, was the problem of finding safe winter quarters between campaign seasons. Forage and supply were such critical dimensions of eighteenth century warfare that allied armies often had to retreat to home bases even after victories had been won in the field."  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:11, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Going back to the "Lone Grenadier" article, in addition to offering numerous details about geography, placement, etc., it disagrees with ours about the effect of the bombardment:"... creating an enfilading fire that inflicted heavy casualties on the Russian left wing...assault was aided by the destruction of the abatis by the bombardment and the chaos caused amongst the Russians by the severity of the shelling..."  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • yes, Redman says that the distance was too great for there to be much damage. I'd like to read this article.  :) auntieruth (talk) 23:09, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, the Grenadier article disagrees with ours again, this time about troop strength. This one could be the normal inaccuracy of troop counts, or could be an error in the Grenadier article. It does look a tiny bit suspicious because the discrepancy is really pretty large: "...The Russian army alone had 59,800 soldiers augmented by 19,200 Austrians. The Russians had 359 cannons (of which 158 were regimental guns), and the Austrians had 64 cannons (of which 54 were regimental guns). Combined, the opponents of Frederick the Great had 79,000 troops and 423 cannons. The Prussian army was much smaller at 49,900 men with 280 cannons, of which 126 were battalion guns (Großer Generalstab, 1912: 357–67)."  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • quite possibly the armies were bigger. It was customary to send corps to different parts of the locale to protect supply lines, field bakeries, and such. There was a Russian detachment on the west side of the river near Frankfurt, for example. Those numbers wouldn't be counted in the army actually at the battlefield. The discrepancy is the size of the Austrian force, so I think there is no discrepancy. I suspect that the total is the total, and the Russians had about 41k and the Austrians brought the rest. I checked two more sources, and found, again, other numbers, so I've documented those, with notations.
  • As for the Prussian size, Frederick might have fielded 79k in total at the beginning of the year--the General staff book could suggest that--but he certainly wouldn't have that many left by August. He also had armies in the Baltic coast and in Saxony. Typically, he divided his army into groups and sent some off to different locations to defend approaches into Brandenburg. auntieruth (talk) 23:09, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lingzhi, thank you for sending me that article. Fascinating (as Mr. Spock would say). I've incorporated some info into this. Would you have another look, please? auntieruth (talk) 18:58, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with one comment: You've sourced troop strengths to Stephenson, but Stephenson in turn sources them to Duffy "Military Life" p. 183. I suggest that Duffy is more reliable that Stephenson; strongly suggest you find every Stephenson cite in this article, track it down in Stephenson's text and see who Stephenson cites it to. Then you might be able to remove Stephenson altogether.   Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tried to sort out the troop strengths, but none of them actually agree. Anyway, added a continued explanation of troop strength in dispositions. The only group in question is Allied army. auntieruth (talk) 20:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from AustralianRupert edit

Support: G'day Ruth, nice work. I have the following suggestions/observations: AustralianRupert (talk) 05:34, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • inconsistent caps, compare "allied" v. "Allied" ooops, fixed
  • in the Bibliography, is there an ISBN for the Asprey work? fixed
  • is there an OCLC for the Bodart & Kellogg, Laubert, Petersdorff works? no. Laubert was a dissertation, Petersdorff also I think
    • This is all i could find: Die Schlacht bei Kunersdorf am 12. August 1759. Von M. Laubert. Berlin, Mittler u. Sohn, XII u. 131 S. mit 3 Karten.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • suggest translating the foreign language titles (the cite book template has a field for this if you wishing to use it: |trans_title=
  • "Germany at War: 400 Years of Military History [4 volumes]: 400 Years of Military History" --> I'm not sure about the second "400 Years of Military History", looking at the front cover, I think this might be a typo yes, this appears to be a harvtext hiccup
  • yes, I fixed it.
  • the year of publication for the work by Clark appears to be missing a digit fixed
  • suggest in text attribution for this quote: "It was actually more than that. "...[S]eldom in military history..."" hmmm, it is already fixed.....
  • a couple of terms appear to have duplicate links: Carl Heinrich von Wedel, Battle of Rossbach, Battle of Leuthen, and Battle of Hochkirch
  • "regiment reported the following: Dead are Major von Heinicke, Rittmeister von Frankenberg, Lieutenant von Möllendorf, Kornet Offenius. Badly wounded, Rittmeister von Reitzenstein, Lieutenants von Schenk, Korshagen, von Gröben, von Bohlse, and von Schulz, and the Kornet von Schulz. Lightly wounded are nine others; 21 officers are out of action. Of the non commissioned officers and hussars are 140 dead or wounded. 109 horses dead, 65 wounded, 20 missing. Geschichte, p.133"... Not sure of the grammar/tense here, specifically "Dead are" and "are out of action" etc." it was a letter/report was written at the time, so it's dead are, but ....
  • typo: "reconnaissance had be incomplete..." --> "reconnaissance had been incomplete"? fixed
  • typo: "Seeing, through his telescope, a some wooded hills..." --> Seeing, through his telescope, some wooded hills..." fixed

Linghzi persuaded me to try to the harvard text, and I'm unconvinced. I'm certainly not convinced about translating titles into english. Seems to me to make it unnecessarily long. Especially since some of these German titles are already 50-80 words long....auntieruth (talk) 14:11, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • No worries, I'm not going to die in a ditch over translations or the citation style (so long as it is consistent). I've added the OCLCs for you (except for the Additional reading section, which I will leave up to you if choose) and tried to make the language icons consistent, but I'm not wedded to the solution. The "|language=" field could also be used if you don't like the icons. Nice work. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:55, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Anotherclown edit

  • All tool checks ok (no dabs, external links ok, no unnecessary duplicate links, no citation errors, Earwig tool reports no issues [1]) (no action req'd).
  • Image captions:
    • "Painting by Alexander Kotzebue, 1848" - I wonder if the name of the painting should be included? (suggestion only) description added.
    • "Map #2: The Allied troops were entrenched in the highest ground around Kundersdorf" - if there is a "Map #2" shouldn't there also be a "Map #1"? The first map you use doesn't have such a label so might seem a little inconsistent if used in one and not the other (query only there is no policy that I'm aware of that covers this). There are two maps, but only one referred to inthe text.
  • "...disintegrated into a completely undisciplined mass...", it be more simply worded as "...disintegrated into an undisciplined mass..." as "completely" seems a little redundant here and might be viewed as a mild form of hyperbole (suggestion only though - its a minor nitpick). done
  • "could fire at least four volleys a minute, and some of them could fire five..." - would a comparison with the standard achieved by other armies of this era be helpful here? (suggestion only) fixed
  • Possible typo here: "to remain in its staging army..." I assume "army" should be "area" here? fixed
  • "... the Prussians would deploy a oblique order pincer..." → "... the Prussians would deploy an oblique order pincer...". fixed
  • Possible missing word here: "...Prussian infantry had been on its feet for 16 hours..." → "The Prussian infantry had been on its feet for 16 hours..."? fixed
  • Repetitive prose here: "commander of the Puttkamer Hussars, lay among the dead.[44][45] Among the dying..." ("among the dead" and then "among the dying" in close proximity). Perhaps reword one instance? Among the dying makes sense to me--those guys were soon to be dead, but hadn't died yet.
  • I made a few changes / copy-edits etc [2]. Pls review and feel free to revert anything I might have botched.
  • Otherwise this looks in very good shape to me. Anotherclown (talk) 09:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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