Talk:World War I

Biased article

There is pro-Serbian biased information in this article. Please recheck sections about "liberation" of Bitolya. Macedonia was inhabited mostly by Bulgarians at that time, therefore it is strange that there could be things like "bulgarization" of the populace etc. Please compare the info in this article with more info regarding the Macedonian question. Please use independent sources like Encyclopedia Britannica and not sources originating from Balkan countries - especially such from Serbia, Macedonia and Romania. Those countries (especially the later two) have policy for changing and adopting Bulgarian history to match their own agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.21.223.180 (talk) 13:34, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Maybe we should have one discussion on bias. Unfortunately I did not read previous issues before I created my own bias issue requesting the article be flagged for bias in noticable text at the top of the article. Please see "How do I flag this article for bias". My concerns were with vilifying words, statement of opinion as fact, omission of key information from the summary of causes of the war, relegation of important information to the links, errors in the relation between cause and effect, and making comparisons between Germany's, Italy's and Japan's unification in the German Unification link. Regards.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 03:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Cause of War

Hi everyone, Saying that the main reason for war was industrial rivalry between Britain and Germany is at best erroneous. The British empire entered the war only because Belgium neutrality was not respected by the German army. A more commonly agreed cause is the Franco-German war of 1870 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine which led to a strong desire for revenge within the French 3rd republic. Within the german public this war is primarily seen as a Franco-German war. Overall this article overwhelmingly understates the involvment of the French army on the western front, which was arguably the major allied power fighting Germany. The supreme allied commander in 1918 was a Frenchman for that very reason - similar to Eisenhower being the supreme allied commander in 1944-5, which reflected the US army being the major player on the western front. British contribution to the western front was enormous and with Britain, the French army would probably have not been able to contain German advance. I do not mean to play down the enormous sacrifices from the British army, especially during the battle of the Somme. But playing down French involvement on the Western front is completely inaccurate. Just look at the number of troops involved during the first years of the war, as well as casualties, and it is pretty obvious that the war was overwhelmingly franco-german, and became more internationalised from 1917 - especially after the losses suffered by the French army in Verdun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zodiarel (talk • contribs) 16:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Not so simple, I'm afraid. Violation of Belgian neutrality was only the proximate cause, not the entire one. Had Germany not begun building BBs/CCs & threatening RN superiority, it's entirely possible (likely is another issue) Britain would've stayed out. German indl growth/rivalry was another underlying reason. As to the French contribution, you're undoubtedly right, & it also influenced British strategy (late war British attacks to take the pressure off a French Army on the brink of mutiny, just for instance), but it's partly an issue of sources in English/translation... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 08:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

In Britain many commentators were expecting conflict with Germany several years before the outbreak of war. The reason for this was that germany's economy was now bigger than Britain's and in string competition.If it had not been the issue of Belgium, there would have been another issue to cause serious conflict Johncmullen1960 (talk) 10:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, it's never just one issue. It's a "straw that breaks the camel's back", or sometimes, a country that's determined to have war & just wants an excuse, which applied in WW1. Austria demanded concessions from Serbia she expected would be refused, only to have Serbia accede to most (all?) of them, & declared war anyhow. As noted, it's maybe not likely Britain would have stayed out absent violation of Belgian neutrality, & it may've been nothing beyond a suitable excuse, but it was by no means certain, & there was strong opinion in Britain to stay out. We shouldn't fall into the common trap of thinking things had to go as they did. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 13:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I Agree with that. I think the present sentence, using the verb "includes" takes this into accountJohncmullen1960 (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

role of the US

It may be just me, but the following two quotes from the article seem contradictory to me:

Numerous other states joined these allies, most notably Italy in April 1915, and the United States in April 1917

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power".

Although the first sentence only says that the US joined the allies, it led me to believe they became a member of the Allies, whereas later in the article this turned out not to be the case. Bolle Hond (talk) 11:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing a song that should be listed on this page

In the section where you list songs/poems that refer to WWI, I couldn't help noticing that "1916" by Motorhead is missing. That just seems odd to me, considering that you do have a song by Iron Maiden listed. Anyone who hasn't heard "1916" should do so, and I mean ANYONE. It's hardly got any drums. It's almost all cello with some organ or some such instrument in the background. It's slow, somber, graceful, and it pays homage to pretty much everyone who has ever died in any war, though it refers to what is likely the Battle of Somme (the day not half over, and then thousand slain, and now there's nobody remembers our names, and that's how it is for a soldier). To the people administering this page, please consider adding "1916" in the list of songs.216.116.87.110 (talk) 22:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That German Declaration (again)

The document shown in the article is not a declaration of war in the ordinary, international sense. (Note that no foreign country is mentioned). Rather, it is an internal German declaration of a Kriegszustand - in effect a nationwide state of siege (except in Bavaria, which had extensive privileges and had to declare its own state of siege). The chief significance of such a declaration was that it allowed for press censorship and various other restrictions on personal liberty. It is a purely internal legal instrument, assuming wartime powers for the government. Norvo (talk) 22:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Princip and the Assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

It should be stated that Gavrilo Princip was trained by the Black Hand: an underground terrorist group for the independence of all South Slav peoples. I believe that would be more correct than "Young Bosnia". Also, while a minute correction it would probably be best to state that Archduke Franz Ferdinand's wife was also assassinated.

Catalyst101 (talk) 16:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

All that is in the linked articles. No real value in having it here. The Black Hand article is actually pretty good, but grossly lacking in citations. Perhaps you'd like to pitch in there?LeadSongDog (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I highly doubt a 21st century English Indie Rock band could be involved in the events leading up to World War I.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I seriously hope that is a joke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.3.66 (talk) 15:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Books

I’d added the following item to the Books – Fiction section: 1920 Dips into the Near Future (1917) by John A. Hobson. It was torpedoed, apparently by someone called LeadSongDog, who claims that it’s “spam.”

It’s not spam. It’s anti-war literature from the war by a famous (or infamous) British economist, and went through at least two editions after first being published as a serial in a well-known magazine. If you remove this item you’ll have to remove many others of less distinguished pedigree.

One suggestion: make a new category: Books - Against the War. It could include both books written during the war like the above and books critical of the war written afterwards. Onlinetexts (talk) 09:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If you can provide proper referencing for the book, that might be different. As is, you've just got a link to the ariwatch.com website, the same website you plastered across several other articles too. We refer to that as spam LeadSongDog (talk) 06:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not about a book, it's an important Italian film directed by Mario Monicelli that won the Venice film festival in 1959, The Great War (1959 film). Please, add it to the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.23.24.184 (talk) 16:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Command of the Sea

I've moved the following from the article:

Paul Kennedy pointed out that both nations believed Alfred Thayer Mahan's thesis of command of the sea as vital to great nation status; experience with guerre de course would prove Mahan wrong.

...because although the links imply citation, in fact there's no such thing. This is essentially a POV piece of text: nothing proves that either nation had the stated belief, and nothing proves the opposite. --Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 22:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That claim (with some rewording) goes back at least to the 9 March 2006 version of the article. Back then the article had few inline citations to the references. In that version, the reference listed but not cited is Kennedy, Paul M. "The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914" (1981)
Implicit reference is made to Mahan, Alfred Thayer. "The Influence of Sea-power upon History" Boston: Little Brown, (1890).

“ The maintenance of naval supremacy is our whole foundation. Upon it stands not the empire only, not merely the commercial property of our people, not merely a fine place in the world's affairs; upon our naval supremacy stands our lives and the freedom we have guarded for nearly a thousand years. - Winston S. Churchill, first lord of the Admiralty. 10 November 1911 (quoted in Lambert, Nicholas A. "Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution", p.15) ”

UK English

Taking up LeadSongDog's gauntlet, let me agree. It's a mainly European conflict, & I default to Britlish (is that a word? ;) ) for Eur matters; also, U.S. participation was small & late. (Don't howl, see it in perspective. ;D) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 16:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Does that mean we should move the article to First World War as well, since that is the more common name in "Britlish"? Parsecboy (talk) 16:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's a very strong argument for a page move. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Folks, you have misunderstood our guidelines. They do not say that topics with a strong tie to Europe should be written in British English; they say that topics with a strong tie to the England (or, in most interpretations, the U.K.) should be written in British English. This was in no way a British civil war. The first stable version of this article was in American English (though it's not crystal-clear), so I think the "first major contributor" rule should apply here. In any event, let's keep the banner down until more people chime in. Best, Samuel Webster (talk) 09:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Which is the "first stable version" and the "first major contributor" for this article? I believe it predates the edit history which commenced December 2001, yet the article has been under more or less continual edit since that history has been kept. Should we refer to the version which first gained "A" class? Or use the more common-sense principle that most of the English speaking participants, authors, references and readers were from the then British Empire. Further, the variety of English used by the other European nationals (when they did use English) was almost always closer to BrE than AmE in that era. In either case, the tag is a proactive measure to identify the choice made to an editor who doesn't wish to go through hours of painstaking reverse analysis of the article in order to determine which engvar to use. One or other of the tags should be chosen.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You raise a number of important points, some of which I strongly agree with. Let me respond with a number of points/theses of my own, which won't directly address all of your points, but which I think will help. Upshot: I think you've raised enough general points -- i.e., points that speak to much more than this particular article -- that this discussion should be moved elsewhere. More on that at the end.

1) Wikipedia's spelling/dialectic guidelines don't work very well. I'd contend even that they're "broken". The primary problem is the contradiction between A) the guideline that says go with the first stable version (or the style used by the first major contributor), and B) the guideline that says that if dialect drift occurs over time (that is, if #A has been violated unnoticed), the dialect to which an article has drifted, if it's been there for a while, will override the dialect of the first stable version. This is sort of like saying: Northern Ireland belongs to (what later would become) the Republic of Ireland, but if enough Brits steal land and settle there, and stay there for long enough, and get away with it, Northern Ireland shall belong to the U.K. #A and #B contradict each other, and this contradiction is the primary cause of dialect wars here on Wikipedia.

2) Slapping up a Union flag -- or an American flag -- will rub a lot of people the wrong way, depending on the article, and I'm starting to think we may want to reconsider the use of these dialectic templates (something that should be discussed on the template page). This is especially true when it can be seen as an attempt to "lock in" dialect drift; drift which, according to one part of Wikipedia's guidelines, never should have happened. (And, regardless, having a national flag be part of the template is a mistake. My Irish father might well say "why the hell is the bloody Union Jack lording over an article about World War I?" A silly reaction perhaps, but we should be sensitive to people's feelings about empires, past or present -- the American flag would cause similar reactions among many. But this is perhaps a minor point.)

3a) I appreciate your desire to "set" the dialectic of this article, and agree it saves others much time. But it should be done correctly. My analysis shows that the article should be in American English, since 1) that's how it started out (and remained in American English for a quite a while), 2) this was discussed some time ago (though I can't find where just now), and no consensus was reached, and 3) the dialect hasn't drifted anywhere else yet (though it's mixed: Cromwell, if I may, has invaded, but not yet taken much territory). So if any dialect template should be put up, it should be American.

3b) You mention a different principle, which you refer to as a common-sense principle. The use of common-sense is often discouraged on Wikipedia (half-joke; half-smiley face -- but only half!); and, in the case at hand, I think you're incorrect on a number of points. First: I see no evidence that "most of the English speaking participants, authors, references and readers were from the then British Empire"; more importantly, that "the variety of English used by the other European nationals was almost always closer to BrE than AmE in that era" is irrelevant, according to current Wikipedia guidelines. What matters (since this isn't about an English civil war, an English politician, an English city, etc.) is the dialect of the original contributors, and this was clearly mostly American. Moreover, the dialectic used by current contributors who are non-native speakers -- and remember, the English Wikipedia has many contributors who aren't native speakers of English -- varies widely. I'm German (though I have an Irish parent), and I use American English (because, as a linguist, I think it's more suited to international use, but that's a different story). Most Germans I know use American English (though it's only a slight majority). I now live in Scandinavia. Swedes born in the 1970s or later generally use American English (especially academics); Norwegians, regardless of age, generally use British English. And Eastern Europeans generally use American English. The French strongly prefer British English. It's really quite varied across Europe. And there were many non-Europeans involved in World War I, from whose countries there are many Wikipedia contributors.

So, in sum: why don't we try to solve the more general problem of the Wikipedia dialect mess first? In the meantime, let's not have a dialectic "flag" here, or put up the American English tmeplate -- if we really need one -- since it's the more sensible choice. Or, perhaps best: create a new dialectic template: {{Unknown-English}}, {{English-Dialectic-under-discussion}}, or the like.

Pardon any lack of clarity. A bit rushed. Must head out for a few hours. I'll try to check back later tonight (European time). Samuel Webster (talk) 19:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the clear and reasoned response, much of which I agree with. The guideline is broken in several ways and serves a purpose which is itself broken. The approach I contend WP should follow is "Dialects are a real part of a world-wide activity. WP does not pursue technical means of "l10n". Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not just accomplished linguists. Edits will use whatever mix of variations the collaborators happened to individually choose, even within sentences. Deal with it. Embrace the variety. Do not change one valid dialect for another." Unfortunately this is not the approach ENGVAR uses, so within the present approach we have to establish which variant to "lock in" independently for each article to prevent conflicting ENGVAR. The use of templates to communicate that selection between editors may not be the only way, but it certainly fits the method of collaboration used at WP. I'd support changes to those templates to remove or shrink the flags, which serve little if any purpose. I'd also support your suggestion of dialect-under-discussion templates provided they had a time limit parameter to eventually close the discussion. I'd propose an additional we-chose-to-mix-dialects template which would serve well for articles like this one. Without seeking to forum shop, further on the general discussion should probably be pursued at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style which is the talk page for ENGVAR. The flags-in-templates discussion should go to the respective template talk pages. LeadSongDog (talk) 18:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly enough WP:ENGVAR cites European Union institutions as an example of where British or Irish English is called for. If we have to pick a variety I would go for British English on the basis that of English-speaking nations, the War had by far the most profound impact on the UK. I also think there is a slight bias towards British English as things stand - "armour" predominates over "armor" and "defence" has a slight edge over "defense". I do, however, agree that the MOS's insistence on one kind of English or the other is flawed and certainly not something to worry about right now. The Land (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

US Entry into the War

The article mentions Woodrow Wilson mourning the loss of the RMS Lusitania. What is not mentioned here, but is resourced in the article about the RMS Lusitania, was that it was delivering American armament shipments to Britain to fight in a war it had vowed not to enter -- and that it had done so with a civilian carrier, technically considered to a war crime, by all means. Jack Reed said it best, "Why is America entering the war? Profits." —Preceding unsigned comment added by AnarchistAssassin (talk • contribs) 13:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Let me better extrapolate on this. The following sentence, from the article, is historically wrong: "When a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson vowed, 'America was too proud to fight' and demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships." This is the *CORRECT* version: "After committing war-crimes by using civilian vessels for transporting arms, Woodrow Wilson declared war and expanded Manifest Destiny into Europe." Or, maybe we should just write EVERYTHING out of the history books, and deny that the Manifest Destiny attitude of Imperialists never existed, despite it being mentioned by our history books. Otherwise, Wikipedia is a trashy mag. "I read the world war 1 article, and it said that Germany started the war with America!" Yeap, factually incorrect, but thanks, loseeeeeeers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by AnarchistAssassin (talk • contribs) 13:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Under the Hague Conventions, nuetral countries were allowed to sell ammunition and weaponry to combatants. Germany sold weapons and ammunition to the Boers in 1900 and to the Russians in 1905 and yet Germany never felt that she was violating any nuetrality laws. The Germans did buy weapons and ammunition from America during WW1. They were transported to Germany via Submarine, the Duetchland. Unfortunately for Germany the super large Duetchland submarine was not economical and only two such shipments were made. Of course the British would take full advantage of their enormous fleet. This was allowed under the international law at the time.76.94.18.217 (talk) 09:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)edwardlovette76.94.18.217 (talk) 09:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Selling weaps never qualified as a war crime. Do you mean selling only to Britain was? And it wasn't Wilson or the U.S. which was "using civilian vessels for transporting arms", it was the British. Also, just to be clear, all the freighters used to deliver weapons & ammunition across the Atlantic to Britain, whoever produced them, were "civilian vessels", not owned or operated by HMG or RN. (Some of the troopers may've had RN crews, but that's not what Lusitania was.) They worked under RN orders, but with merchant crews, & that has led to accusations the Germans committed war crimes by sinking them. This is also untrue (& would be in WW2, also, tho the same claim was made, for the same reason), because a) they were armed & b) they were instructed to report sighting enemy submarines. Either of these 2 things, let alone both, made them de facto naval auxiliaries, not protected by the "cruiser rules" designed to protect unarmed merchantmen (like Lusitania) which didn't report sightings (unlike Lusitania?) & weren't carrying military equipment or troops (unlike Lusitania).... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 20:09, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course the ships were primarily if not entirely, civilian. It was 'civilian' private manufacturers who were producing AND shipping these weapons. They were not produced by the U.S. government nor shipped by the U.S. government nor shipped by the British government. It was simply a matter of profiteering, which is completely legal according to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Germany could have and would have purchased a similar amount of weaponry from the U.S. except for the fact that the British Navy had naval supremacy. When WW1 started, the Germans had about a 9 month max supply of saltpeter and nitrates for making gunpowder and high explosives. They banked on a short 6 month campaign and almost ran out of high explosives. Read 'Hell's Cartel' by Jeffreys about the I.G. Farben cartel which was able luckily for the Germans to manufacture synthetic nitrates and synthetic ammonia for explosives production.76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)edwardlovette76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, given pro-Allied bias in U.S., there's small chance weaps'd be sold to Germany... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 03:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello Trekphiler. There was a large German-American population in America. There was also a large Irish-American population in America. It was because of this diversity of ethnicity in America that Wilson said Americans should 'be nuetral in thought as well as in action'. There are some wonderful books available for free at archive.org on WW1. These are rare books that you will never find in a library. Many of the books published in America during WW1 were pro-German and many were pro-Allies. I recommend you read 'Evidence in the Case' by Beck, 'J'accuse' by Greiling, The vandal of Europe by muehlon. Beck explains international law in detail because he was U.S. solicitor general of the u.S. I also recommend books by james Gerard. He was American ambassador to Germany from 1913 to 1917. Also keep in mind that if the U.S. really had a pro-allied bias, it would have immediately declared war on Germany for violating Belgium's neutrality because the U.S. as a signatory to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 had declared that 'treatys were inviolable'.76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)edwardlovette76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't dispute that. Recall, tho, the money was in Br/Fr banks, not Ger ones. It's why there was such a willingness to go EZ on Br/Fr on repayment postwar. Also, AFAIK, Ger had no (or less) ability to pay for weaps, & slim hope of delivery if bought from the U.S. (so little point). Even shipping nitrates was a problem, whence (as already mentioned) the Haber process. And "bias" doesn't mean "active support". Nor could Wilson, or Congress, dismiss public opinion (which Churchill & Japan both seemed to in WW2). More to point, tho, despite the (admittedly large) Ger immigrant community (recall Centennial? My grandparents were part of it, BTW.), the Brit/Anglo community was enormously larger. Not to mention British propaganda was better. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 04:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with you that financially the Germans had little chance of winning. First of all, then as now, London and NYC were the centers of finance. Secondly, by way of the British Navy, the Germans were cut off from virtually all trade with the rest of the world. This was legal under the rules of war at the time. The british had the strongest fleet in the world and took full advantage of it. The blockade was legal. Just as the U.S. blockaded the South during the Civil War and the British had blockaded Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The Germans financed WW1 primarily thru loans(anticipating that they would get large indemnities from the allies as they did from France in 1870) not taxes. The allies on the other hand, used a mixture of tax increases and loans. This is why Germany suffered hyper inflation in the 20's. It was not because of reparations. It was because they were over-leveraged(just like the U.S. is now). Germany never did pay very much of the reparation bill. I believe they paid about 15 or 20% of what they were supposed to pay. And much of what they did pay, was paid with American loans to them in the 20's. The evidence in the case from the beginning was that Germany had refused to let the matter of the Serbian Ultimatum be taken to arbitration. And also the years leading up to the war, Germany was the ONLY country in Europe to oppose efforts at disarmament and courts of arbitration during the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Read the German ambassador to America, von Bernstorff's 'My three years in America'. He states in the book that Americans were forever asking him why every country America negotiated with agreed to 'arbitration' for settling international disputes except for Germany.76.94.18.217 (talk) 05:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)edwardlovette76.94.18.217 (talk) 05:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Another Bias page

I have read a lot history of the years and this is just another example of bias entries and distorted facts. I have studied World War Two history for over 30 years and consider myself fairly knowledgeable in the historical content and events that occurred during that period. When reading this page, it seem obvious that the page is written in such a bias manner that leaves little or no room that, “Britain and its empire nations” were the only contributors. In fact when reading the three entries on the US involvement, it leaves the reader with the impression that the United States sent a few divisions in the closing months. In reading this and knowing a little about this War, I started to conduct a little research on the US involvement during WW1 and compared it to the entries that have been contributed on this subject. As most British bias pages, my findings were correct. Facts and figures have been distorted and or completely left out. In reviewing the entry on the Puerto Rico involvement, this is a false and untrue statement. The Jones act did not impose citizenship on the people of Puerto Rico. When the reader reads the entry, he comes away thinking the US imposed Citizenship so they could draft men from Puerto Rican. This is the furthest from the truth. The Jones Act was actual created well before WW1 and was actively discussed prior the conflict. Although it was not passed until 1917, it has no bearing on the subject matter, as 236,000 Puerto Rican men registered for the draft, just like every other man living in the US, citizen or not. Of which 18,000 served, mostly in the Panama Canal Zone (6000) and remaining amount in homeland defense. Of the Puerto Rican men that serve in Europe (combat) most if not all were currently living in the main land US and served with men that were not even Citizens. I suggest that this entry be rewritten or removed based on its relevance to the subject. In reviewing the American involvement and granted “late entry” into the War. You really need to look at the timing, 1917, BEF and French forces, basically a stalemate after 2 ¾ years of fighting on the western front. The British and French had already lost more men then Germans at that time, peace was made with Russia and Germany was back to a single front. The US enters April 1917 and starts sending troops and equipment. Over 4.3 million men are called and serve. This page does an injustice to the memory of the 116,000 that died there. There is no mention of the dough boys, which still remains a phase that most people can relate with. There was actually a time when the Americans were landing 10,000 troops a day in France. This is an incredible feet in 1917 (logistically)and yet there is no mention. There is also no mention of the 866,000,000 GBP that was loaned to Britain during WW1. Payments were made until 1934, but then stopped and remain unpaid to this day. Britain, on today’s exchange owes the US over 4.3 billion USD of unpaid debt, again no mention. The US provided funds, ammunition and food towards the British war effort. This, as in WW2 almost always goes unmentioned. As if it was the duty of the US to provide this support without question or repayment. In closing, this page lacks the current events and truths that can be found with a little research, as there are thousands of books and documents related to this period. I am not asking that this page debate the American involvement as a leading cause for the end of the war. I ask that you include facts and let the reader decide. By leaving out key points and statistics you move the reader to your way of ideas and beliefs. That is not what these pages are about, it is about history, the way it happended not the way you tell it. My Great Grand Father fought in the Highland Light Infantry(HLI-Flanders 1914)and was wounded, I am very proud of his service and dedication to my country. But I also I think, Americans are just as proudJacob805 (talk) 09:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

No, your just bias against the British. Edit: And on that, Wikipedia is almost always bias towards the US. Also, did you even read the section on "Entry of the United States"? it clearly states all what you have said. 88.109.119.161 (talk) 14:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• • I am British, so how can I be against the British, what I am against is the mindset that you follow, that the British empire was this and that and we change history to reflect our views. That is wrong. Give credit where credit is due. If not for the amercians my german would be perfect and you are also incorrect, the page WW1 make no mention of what have writtenJacob805 (talk) 14:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• • Alright, well show us your sources, and we can change the page to make it have a more world centric view rather then an british empire based one. Also being British means nothing when it comes to being anti-british or not. Otonabee (talk) 05:05, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

• • Maybe we should have one discussion on bias. Unfortunately I did not read previous issues before I created my own bias issue requesting the article be flagged for bias in noticable text at the top of the article. Please see "How do I flag this article for bias". My concerns were with vilifying words, statement of opinion as fact, omission of key information from the summary of causes of the war, relegation of important information to the links, errors in the relation between cause and effect, and making comparisons between Germany's, Italy's and Japan's unification in the German Unification link. Regards.

69.31.240.92 (talk) 03:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Tannenberg question

I'll agree with some of the other posts here that this article is a bit of a jumble. I'm mostly a commas and spelling guy though, so I'm not taking on a significant rewrite. I would like to point out what I think is an inaccuracy in the article, however. It says that Tannenberg "diverted German forces intended for the Western Front," but as I recollect (mainly from Barbara Tuchman), the armies left at Tannenberg to face the Russians were manifestly *not* intended for the Western Front. It was, in fact, part of the German plan to quickly defeat the Russians and *then* move those armies West. The article seems to imply that the Germans hadn't anticipated a Russian advance, which is certainly not true. Generations of high school term paper writers could be led astray! Think of the children!

Afraid I can't conjure up a citation at the moment, but I'm hoping that someone with more time will take a look at this in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CrackWilding (talk • contribs) 01:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I fear you have it backward. Schleiffen's plan always called for massive forces to rapidly smash the French (and if necessary the British) while weaker forces worked with the Austro-Hungarians to hold back the Russians, who needed (it was projected) six weeks to fully mobilize. In the end, for various reasons, Moltke did make the (perhaps momentous) decision to redeploy approximately ten divisions from west to east. The Mink Ermine Fox (talk) 19:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Andorra

In the introduction to this article it states that Andorra remained neutral during the war. However in this article it lists Andorra has being an Allied country which declared war but did not take part. Which is it? David (talk) 22:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. The History of Andorra cites a September 25, 1958 NY Times announcement that Andorra was no longer at war, the delay due to the lack of an invitation to sign the Treaty of Versailles. I checked that newspaper's archives and found an article from January 17, 1919, quoting a French newspaper complaining about the exclusion of Andorra and San Marino from the peace talks even though they had declared war. On the basis of those two citations, and since the assertion of neutrality is unsourced, I'm going to remove it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph on alliances

I've just read the paragraph early on the page, which describes the two alliances involved in the war:

The war was fought between two major alliances. The Entente Powers initially consisted of France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and their associated empires and dependencies. Numerous other states joined these allies, most notably Japan in August 1914, Italy in April 1915, and the United States in April 1917. The Central Powers, so named because of their central location on the European continent, initially consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary and their associated empires. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, followed a year later by Bulgaria.

Nothing to argue with there, and I wouldn't want to get into trying to list every warring nation. But I wonder if it is worth mentioning Serbia and Belgium in there as well, as it was their respective invasions that started the war. I don't know if both were formally part of the Entente though. Saying that, neither was the US - I believe that they were officially an "Associated Power" to avoid having to put their troops under French command.

I'm inclined to edit the paragraph as below, but I'm not sure on the wording. I like "precipitated" because the attack on Serbia triggered the Serbian-Russian alliance and in turn the Franco-Russian alliance, which brought in Germany. The attack on Belgium in turn brought in Great Britain. So it doesn't seem a stretch to say that those two invasions "preciptitated the war". Any comments, better ideas etc?

The war was fought between two major alliances. The Entente Powers initially consisted of France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and their associated empires and dependencies alongside Serbia and Belgium, whose invasions had precipitated the war. Numerous other states joined these allies, most notably Japan in August 1914, Italy in April 1915, and the United States in April 1917. The Central Powers, so named because of their central location on the European continent, initially consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary and their associated empires. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, followed a year later by Bulgaria.

Actually, replace "whose invasions" with "the invasions of which". Otherwise it reads like Belgium and Serbia invaded other people.

Brickie (talk) 13:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing Front: Patagonia

Image text (at the very beginning of the page)

LOCATION:

Location: Europe, Africa and the Middle East (briefly in China and the Pacific Islands)

but should read

Europe, Africa and the Middle East (briefly in China, the Pacific Islands and Patagonia)

Don't forget the naval battles of Colonel and Falklands!

Since they weren't actually in Patagonia...no. (I consider it the land, not the ocean...) "South Atlantic", yes. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 02:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Toolong tag

Rather than reintroduce the tag, please see /Archive_6#Remove "Too long" box? and /Archive_5#Article Size then discuss. For a topic of this significance and complexity most encyclopediae have longer articles. The 166K shown for this article includes a very substantial reference list, which is not counted in the 100K threshold (which is outdated in any case). LeadSongDog (talk) 16:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

100K is not "outdated" at all: even the guidelines at WP:LENGTH (which are staggeringly permissive) make it evident that this article is very long indeed. On my current system editing the full page is almost impossible, and this cannot be that uncommon. This was brought up yet again in /Archive 10#Way too long and scattered, and handwaved away. None of the arguments used (that the article is "important", for instance) explain why this is fundamentally incompatible with the WP:SUMMARY format. I'm going to work on cutting this down (as best I can, what with the horrendous performance issues) but I don't expect that if it is re-tagged again that this will be summarily dismissed without a compelling argument. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Why would one wish to edit the entire page? Check your setting at "My Preferences"/"Editing"/"Enable section editing via [edit] links" so you can edit one section at a time, including the lead.

The guideline at WP:LENGTH#Very long articles, in discussing articles of more than 400K, says "Avoid arbitrarily splitting mainspace articles unless there is a demonstrated technical problem loading the page on at least one major browser." Looking at Special:LongPages (which uses a crude measure including references, table of contents, etc) we see that there are 140 longer articles, some by a substantial margin. Checking the true length (less tables etc) this article is only 107K long.

Still, I'm not fundamentally averse to splitting. It's just that for articles with complex referencing a split almost always loses references and so turns into an ugly mess. If you can do it in a way that avoids that happening, I'd love to know how.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Isolationism vs Non-interventionism

Isolationism generally means closing off all alliances and all trade with foreign nations. It is a combination of non-interventionism and protectionism. Since the U.S. wasn't protectionist (it traded with other countries and allowed immigration) should the heading under "Entry of the United States" be changed to "Non-interventionism"? (Blackrx (talk) 22:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC))

At a first glance, I'd say no. The usual description of the U.S. as isolationist, while perhaps not strictly accurate, is commonly known. Link to isolationism & let people who want to know more read for themselves. Of course, my style of preferring the most accessible hasn't gained a lot of supporters.... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 00:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Commander Rupinder Jazzar

The opening paragraph of this article contains some statements on Commander Rupinder Jazzar. These seem irrelevant and incoherent, and certainly don't belong in the opening paragraph.

JOZeldenrust (talk) 03:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It was vandalism, thanks for letting us know. Regards, Woody (talk) 13:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Side Notes

I think the song "Over there" should be mentioned, as well as the use of flamethrowers. You should also mention how the HMS Lusitania was transporting munitions and contraband. The Sussex Pledge should be mentioned too. The last things I'd add are war bonds, and meatless and wheatless nights. And the reason for the war was everyone's treaties tied them all together so two nations declared war on each other and dragged everyone else in one by one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.253.105.177 (talk) 21:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

lack of information concerning Royal Flying Corps officers

According to information received from the British National Archives: "If members of the Royal Flying Corps did not see service overseas until 1916.... no regimental number (would) be recorded, (particularly) if the person was an officer. The Air Ministry maintained these records and they have not been transferred to The National Archives." So how would a person get such information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.72.64 (talk) 23:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Harvard referencing

I've finally started this conversion to permit two-level referencing to work properly. Titles appearing in the Notes section need to move to the references section. Best done with two edit windows open. See the sequence of edits recently and then feel free to dig in. Edit pattern is, e.g., [1] and [2] were done in two separate windows. Mostly copy from inline, paste to the other window in alpha sequence, edit the inline to make it {{harvnb}} and edit the references to make it {{citation}} without pages parameter. If somebody wants to automate this, I suspect it would be useful other places.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

US war boilerplate

Currently at hte foot of this article there is a boilerplate for major conflicts that the US has taken part in. While it is true that they were in this war, I feel that this should be removed as leaving it in as the only national boilerplate on this page, if we were to leave it then similar boilerplates for the British, German, Austro-hungarian and French emipers should be placed at the end of this as well.Otonabee (talk) 18:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It's undue weight for U.S. involvement. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 01:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed. The Land (talk) 17:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Civilian casualties

Why aren't any civilian casualties listed in the infobox? The way it is now gives the impression that no civilians died in the war, which is of course not true. 96T (talk) 22:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Parsing this necessarily LARGE subject

This article has grown to a size which is unwieldy. Perhaps it may help to compare the way a similar article has been parsed, e.g., World War II ...?

Maybe something in the way that the WWII-article is organized organized can suggest a better model in a process of streamlining that overview of the First World War?

In like manner, it could be that some of the WWI-article sub-sections should be mirrored in an expanded overview of the Second World War? --Tenmei (talk) 18:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

First World War

• 1 Causes
  • 1.1 Arms race
  • 1.2 Plans, distrust, and mobilization
  • 1.3 Militarism and autocracy
  • 1.4 Balance of power
  • 1.5 Economic imperialism
  • 1.6 Trade barriers
  • 1.7 Ethnic and political rivalries
• 2 July crisis and declarations of war
• 3 Chronology
  • 3.1 Opening hostilities
    • 3.1.1 Confusion among the Central Powers ^‡
    • 3.1.2 African campaigns
    • 3.1.3 Serbian campaign
    • 3.1.4 German forces in Belgium and France
    • 3.1.5 Asia and the Pacific
  • 3.2 Early stages
    • 3.2.1 Trench warfare begins
  • 3.3 Naval war
  • 3.4 Southern theatres
    • 3.4.1 War in the Balkans
    • 3.4.2 Ottoman Empire
    • 3.4.3 Italian participation
    • 3.4.4 Fighting in India
    • 3.4.4.1 Indian independence movement
  • 3.5 Eastern Front
    • 3.5.1 Initial actions
    • 3.5.2 Ukrainian oppression
    • 3.5.3 Russian Revolution
  • 3.6 1917–1918
    • 3.6.1 Entry of the United States
      • 3.6.1.1 Isolationism
      • 3.6.1.2 Making the case
      • 3.6.1.3 U.S. declaration of war on Germany
      • 3.6.1.4 First active U.S. participation
    • 3.6.2 German Spring Offensive of 1918
    • 3.6.3 New states under war zone
    • 3.6.4 Allied victory: summer and autumn 1918
    • 3.6.5 Allied superiority and the stab-in-the-back legend, November 1918
  • 3.7 End of war
• 4 Technology
• 5 Trying to comprehend
  • 5.1 Soldiers' experiences
    • 5.1.1 Prisoners of war
  • 5.2 Military attachés and war correspondents
  • 5.3 Opposition to the war
• 6 War crimes
  • 6.1 Genocide
  • 6.2 Rape of Belgium
• 7 Aftermath
  • 7.1 Later conflicts
  • 7.2 Peace treaties
  • 7.3 New national identities
  • 7.4 Social trauma
  • 7.5 Macro- and micro-economic effects
• 8 Cognate names for the war ^‡
• 9 See also
  • 9.1 Media
  • 9.2 Animated maps
• 10 Notes
• 11 References
• 12 External links

_______________

^‡Bold italic emphasis added 29 December 2008 by Tenmei

Second World War

• 1 Background
• 2 Chronology
• 3 Course of the war
  • 3.1 War in China
  • 3.2 War breaks out in Europe
  • 3.3 Axis advances
  • 3.4 The war becomes global
  • 3.5 The tide turns
  • 3.6 Allies gain momentum
  • 3.7 Allies close in
  • 3.8 Axis collapse, Allied victory
• 4 Aftermath
  • 5 Impact of the war
  • 5.1 Casualties and war crimes
  • 5.2 Concentration camps and slave work
  • 5.3 Home fronts and production
  • 5.4 War time occupation
  • 5.5 Advances in technology and warfare
• 6 Historical era
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 External links

I think you're right that the TOC for this article is bloated. There is quite a lot of material which is only marginally relevant to this article and should be split off into other articles. There are also quite a lot of sections which are far too short to warrant inclusion on their own. Some sections are simply laughably weak - look at the section on "Eastern Front". There some which are really imbalanced. For instance, we have four sections on why the USA joined the war but one sentence on why the UK did. This always tends to happen when there is a big article which isn't realyl being maintained very well. So I agree, and think the answer is a substantial rewrite. The Land (talk) 20:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

A mirror of this posting at Talk:World War II#Parsing this necessarily LARGE subject produced a helpful response from Nick-D -- see diff. --Tenmei (talk) 05:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Looking a this in a broad overview, there are several sections that can be cut altogether (notably the four sections on why the USofA joined). Examining the headers, it would appear that these two articles are structured completely differently. WWI examines the actions of each front separately, while the WWII article examines the larger conflict as a whole in chronological order. It still covers all of the necessary information, but the formatting is much better. May I suggest that we reformat this article along broader chronological lines rather than individual fronts analysis? Cam ^(Chat) 18:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I think a front-by-front approach is equally viable. The Land (talk) 19:37, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the chrono approach is easier to follow for the casual reader. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 21:58, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

As a reader with no more than a casual knowledge of WWI, I would agree that a chronological approach is probably easier to follow. As an editer, I heartily support the hiving off of sections into daughter articles, with a brief summary and a pointer remaining here. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's a possible structure for the entire article, based off of the format of H.P. Willmott's World War I chapter headers:

• Background
  • Causes of War
• Course of the War
  • The Outbreak of War: 1914
  • The War becomes Global: 1915
    • Western Front
    • Eastern Front
    • Other Fronts
      • African Front
      • Asian Front
  • The Attrition Battles: 1916
    • Western Front
    • Eastern Front
  • Mutiny and Revolution: 1917
    • Western Front
    • Eastern Front
  • The Tide Turns: 1918
    • Western Front
    • Eastern Front
• Aftermath
  • Impact of the War
  • Casualties
  • Ending Treaties
  • National Identities
  • War Crimes
  • Advances in Technology and Warfare ^‡

_______________

^‡Bold italic emphasis added 29 December 2008 by Tenmei

this would format the entire page along similar lines as the one for World War II, as well as better organize and condense the massive article. Cam ^(Chat) 04:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

In my view, the Wilmot format is superior a priori in comparison with the otherwise admirable organizing model of the article about World War II. As we now know, neither contemporary combatants nor scholars adequately appreciated the scale and consequences of "modern" warfare in 1914; and the subsequent step-by-step process through which everyone came to recognize that technology had changed the face of battle is conceptually significant. The "learning curve" of the participants was significantly different in WWI as compared/contrasted with the "learning curve" in WWII. For this reason, I would imagine that the narrative and analytical arc of an article about WWI will be necessarily different in a number of crucial respects? In addition, Cam's proposal has merit because it arises from a context anticipated by WP:V.

• H. P. Willmott, H.P. (2007). World War I. New York: Dorling Kindersley. 10-ISBN 0-756-62967-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-756-62967-0; OCLC 52541937

Perhaps consensus will prefer the parsing logic of another author; but the revealed strategy here implies an approach and a process I hadn't quite managed to grasp on my own. I see this as a helpful step forward; and in future, I would hope to figure out how to employ something similar to Cam's strategy in other contexts. --Tenmei (talk) 06:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The Willmott approach, as described, looks sensible to me. I'd make only one change, moving "Advances" above "Impact", because it's more a part of the war (& the previous sections) than an aftereffect. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 22:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I also concur that is a sensible way to go about it. I would make one change: I would put the "Treaties" section in the chronological account, i.e. add "1919-22: The Treaties" as the last chronological section. To Trekphiler's suggestion, I am not sure 'technology' should go above 'impact' - in fact I think there is a strong case that 'impact' should focus first on the long-term, political and cultural impacts rather than the military ones. However I would say that throughout the chronological account we must refer to both technological progress and to casualties, cultural impact etc where appropriate, as well as the 'aftermath' sections. The Land (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree completely we should mention advances passim as they come into play. I only say "advances" before "impact" to keep more/less within what I see as the chrono coverage implied by the structure; putting the "advances" last, IMO, minimizes the ongoing nature of the changes, while the "impacts" are felt postwar, not during. Not to say some of the "impacts" (aviation, camo, aircraft carriers, machineguns, so on) wouldn't be felt postwar, too...& that might do with mention, also. A ref to sub war/ASW, certainly, given the Battle of the Atlantic... And, if people think it's merited, a mention of the argument WW1 & WW2 are just one long war, sep by an interregnum (something I think Van Der Vat raises in Atlantic Campaign). TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 02:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed he does. Cam ^(Chat) 06:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

• Van der Vat, Dan. 1988. The Atlantic Campaign: World War II's Great Struggle at Sea. New York: Harper & Row. 10-ISBN 0-060-15967-7; 13-ISBN 978-0-060-15967-2; OCLC 18164630

A crucial difference post-WWI is that the participants in other wars, not only WWII, were keenly aware that the very idea of a "world at war" was a fait accompli, an already achieved and documented reality. Prior to WWI, neither combatants nor scholars had envisioned the possibility of "world war" -- and indeed, the earliest cited references to "world war" are not found earlier than 1918. In that context, the current Wikipedia article seems superior to Wilmott's organizational structure in at least two or three respects:

• Confusion among the Central Powers ...?

... And if Gen. Pershing were a Wikipedia contributor, don't you think that he would argue that any article about WWI needs to encompass the "Confusion amongst the Allied Powers" -- especially amongst the touchy personalities of the Allied commanders ...?

• Cognate names for the war ...?

WP:POV? -- ASIDE: Perhaps it becomes timely and appropriate to explain that my personal point-of-view in analyzing this article is informed by an interest in lessons not learned from military analysis of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) ...? From that perspective, the mild exchange of views between The Land and Trekphiler does miss a plausibly significant aspect of the First World War, especially during 1914-1915.

I would not hesitate to remove all the sctions you have just mentioned. Of course, the difficulties in running the war of all powers should be referred to (not least the fact that British politicians often seemed to be fighting a totally different war to British geerals). The Land (talk) 10:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

From today's hindsight perspective, I would want to argue for a re-assessment of Wilmott's Advances in Technology and Warfare. Rather than being part of the war's "Aftermath"-section, I would argue that this subject deserves to be re-positioned as a subset of the "Causes-of-War"-section. The General Staffs on each side in 1914-1915 misconstrued the potential effects of technological advances in warfare; and the results of those misjudgments were profound and tragic. Despite reports and analyses from military attachés observing both sides of the Russo-Japanese War, the General Staffs of the major powers mis-applied 19th-century strategic presumptions to a contest in which 20th-century technological advancements would ultimately prove decisive. These errors in judgment on all sides were significant factors in the decisions to go to war. No less important, these errors affected the progress of the stalemate war which unfolded in 1914-1915 ....

I think that runs the risk of being too clever after the event. We can't really say "The cause of World War I was that people back then were too stupid to know things that become obvious after you spend 100 years analysing thier experiences...." The Land (talk) 10:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

In other words, despite the admitted flaws in this article, it is important for us to acknowledge the very good work which went into crafting it. --Tenmei (talk) 07:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) That structure looks good, but I think that a separate section on the war in Africa and Asia is needed (while the war in Asia was over in a few months, modern scholarship has shown that the fighting in Africa involved hundreds of thousands of Africans and lasted until the end of the war). Also, on which 'front' will the Ottoman Empire's wars be classified? - as the Turks were simultaneously fighting the British and Russians in Palestine and the Caucasus, they don't fit neatly into that structure. Nick-D (talk) 09:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that in each year we add additional headings for other relevant Fronts (plus, of course, naval battles) The Land (talk) 10:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Given The Land's entirely correct remarks on the misjudgments, I'd be very willing to see "Advances" moved. I have a problem with it being in "Causes", tho, since I don't see the tech misjudgments as causal to the war itself, absent some evidence it led the generals govts to start something; enormously influential on its course & outcome, yes. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 01:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll put those in under 1915, just to fit in thematically with the title of the section (The war becomes global). Cam ^(Chat) 18:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Austria-Hungary wanted "revenge" ?

Hi. I was reading this article for causes of WW1 and I have a question. It states that Austria-Hungary wanted revenge on the Kingdom of Serbia as one cause of the war. I also looked at the link to the assassination of the Archduke and it states that the Kingdom of Serbia was at times a supporter of assassination against Austria-Hungary especially in the Balkans. I believe that the use of revenge is inappropriate. Today we would call the Kingdom of Serbia a sponsor of terrorism. Take for example Afghanistan and the Taliban. Was not it right to go after Bin Laden and who ever supported him. And what about today's policy of not negotiating with terrorists; I think today nations like that would simply be sacked to rid the world of terrorists. Since their government was put into place through assassinating their own monarch, how trustworthy could they be (the Kingdom of Serbia). Sounds like a hotbed of terrorism to me. If a British monarch was assassinated in the same circumstances, I would not call it revenge; I would call it justice. My question is, why the word "revenge". I know I am judging events with the morals of today, but I don't see why it is not appropriate to wage war on a nation that is intent on inflicting terrorism on and trying to destablise its neighbours.

I would also categorise the Kingdom of Serbia as being either unwilling or unable to curb the terrorists operating within their own borders, so in my mind they forfeited their sovereignty rights. I would say more but I will wait for other's comments.

Please pardon any spelling errors (iPod written) and no I have no ancestral to the Central Powers. Also pardon me if I break any wiki conventions (first wiki post) Respectfully Spinnaker gybe (talk) 08:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

This comes from the general need of a rewrite. As you can see, we're discussing such a rewrite above, and this article should smooth itself out within the next month or so. Cam ^(Chat) 00:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

How do I flag this article for bias?

Hi. I have read the beginning portions of both WW1 and WW2 articles and have found the WW1 posting to be loaded with bias due to wording, and burying important facts in the links. This is based on information provided within the article itself and the links provided. In contrast, the WW2 article for the most part sticks to the facts; we all know who the bad guys are in WW2 so the writers of the WW2 article don't have to convince anyone who the good guys are I suppose :-).

One has to realize that most people do not take the time to go into the links to get the facts they need to make up their own minds. For example, the first cause given for starting WW1 I German Unification. The first thing that pops to mind is a bunch of nationalist Nazis marching down the street. Using your own facts, it was French attempts to reduce the German Territories' influence that was the cause. How can you blame the German's for wanting to form their own nation. And besides, it is none of France's business.

Also, you make it seem as if one guy was killed and Austria-Hungary was so trivial enough to seek "revenge". It's like saying the US was seeking revenge for 9/11. Given your own link's information, the Kingdom of Serbia was equivalent to a sponsor of terrorism committing numerous acts of terrorism; certain not a normal interaction between states now or then. Again, 9/11 comes to mind. Since Britain and France were allies of Serbia, does this make them supporters of terrorists at the time? Maybe you should put that as a cause in the main article.

Also in the German unification link the comparison's to Italy and Japan are nothing but an attempt to villify Germany in WW1 using later events, WW2.

This kind of article presenting opinion as fact is not acceptable posing as encyclopedia caliber material. Please add in noticable text at the top of the article that complaints have been made concerning bias about this article. I will pursue my complaints with the dispute mechanism otherwise. Spinnaker gybe (talk) 05:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

You add {{npov}}. ~Richmond96 t • c 05:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

...and should expect to see the tag removed. You say that "the first cause given for starting WW1 I German Unification"; this is a commonly identified as one of the factors which ultimately caused the war - no 'blame' is necessarily associated with this given that it did greatly disrupt the European order, and there's also a consensus that French desire to seek revenge for their defeat in the War of 1870 played a large part in causing the war. Similarly, the results of Austria's decision to seek revenge against the Serbian Government is almost always identified as the factor which caused a general war to break out. Removing this material would introduce bias. Nick-D (talk) 07:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

....And would decrease the factual accuracy (and therefore the quality) of the article as a whole. Cam ^(Chat) 18:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

May I say first that I do not intend to insult anyone with what I am about to say. Also I sometimes use humour in order to make a point so please do not take my jokes as belittling.

My first comment to Cam's claim of German Unification being commonly identified as the cause is this. Just because something is commonly identified does not make the assertion not biased or the truth. For example, the earth was at one point commonly identified as being flat. You can still maintain that the earth is flat if you wish, but I should have the right to contest that assertion with evidence of my own. If Galileo Galilei's did not contest this "commonly identified" notion, the people of the world may still be believing a lie. On wikipedia, if something is contested, the article should have a notification that it is being contested for what ever reason.

My second point is this. You may think German Unification was the cause, but I offer up another root cause; European Imperialism. Note that I am not making the connection that Britian was the lead agent of Imperialism and therefore Unification of the United Kingdom is the cause of WW1. To do so in my opinion would be wrong and a statement of opinion not a statement of fact. If there were not desires for European nations to satisfy their imperialism, we would not have had a conflict at all.

Also noting German Unification as a cause does assign blame if you omit important facts from your summarisation. Facts like Serbian Nationalism and their beyond-the-norm actions to obtain their goals.

When writing history, one should use language that does not have any value judgements associated with them. Words like "resentment" and "revenge" have negative connotatons, at least in my mind. I have no idea what faith you are, but as a Christian, these feeling are sins. Revenge implies that you get personal gratification or enjoyment from it. In some cases, revenge means you have attained unethically damages beyond what justice would have provided. The same can be said about resentment.

If you want to keep using words that are value judgements, I suggest the following: Please have as a cause the British's "opportunism" in using the crisis to diminish German influence and the Canadian's "stupidity" to have gone to war mindlessly as the Brits lackey. One should also mention that the war was made worse by US "greed" because they sold arms to both sides; today we call this war profiteering. To the credit of the States, they seemed to have realized their mistake and enacted the Neutrality Act.

Again, I ask for this article to have a warning for bias until it has been reworded.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 00:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me the credentials of the writers of this article? Spinnaker gybe (talk) 04:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any need to remove material on what are common explanations for the causes of World War I or replace it with nonsense. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and you can tag the article as being biased by adding {{npov}} at the top of the article, but this tag will be removed as you seem to be trying to whitewash material you disagree with - please review Wikipedia:About for information on Wikipedia's policies. Nick-D (talk) 04:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

No, we can't tell you the credentials of the writer of this article, because that's the whole point of Wikipedia. You have to prove yourself here, not by what you've done outside of Wikipedia. Cam ^(Chat) 05:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I have placed the usual {{POV}} template as per Spinnaker gybe's issues and request for "how to tag", and also placed a fact template on his main objection re German unification, which I agree with (i.e. that that's not the only/primary cause); that 1871 also marks the defeat of France and taht German unification was signed into being in conquered France is also conencted to the revanichist agenda mentioned separately, which it shouldn't be. There are too many sweeping, and sometimes rather banal, statements in the opening paragraphs and much is said that phrase-by-phrase needs citation tags. I admit to being a Taylorite and am generally hostile to most cliches and generlizations of hte kind found in popular rehashes of the war, and two main intertwining factors beginning in 1848 tend to outweigh completely the incidental events of 1871 which were part of a larger process that began in 1848 and earlier. To whit, the rise of nationalism and democratic ideals on the one side and the swirl and complexity of diplomatic intrigue and treaty/alliance-making on the other; the interaction of the two almost led to "total war" a good dozen times or more in the half-century leading up to 1914. {{globalize}} is also a consideration as, since "history is written by the victors" it does tend to be POV and also written from one perspective (in this case, that of the Entente). There are too many dispuating historians' views on the causes of teh war for any one collection of them to be stated as if fact; all should be stated as opinions, with the sources of those opinions cited/"facted". Opinions and analyses are not facts, they are theories, and most often they represent political agendas. Taylor notes that even in the weeks after the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, and Russia's counter-mobilization, Britain was still deliberating which side to take; it was German sinkings in the North Atlantic that tipped their hand. Granted, Taylor's views are not widely held in the historiographical community, especially not by "national historians" but he's not alone in having differing views/analyses....another would be Solzhenitsyn, and of course Count Tolstoy, to name only "celebrity historians". Not sure Toynbee's opinions....to Spinnaker gybe I recommend you look fro Taylor's An Illustrated History of the Great War, which is short and more than a bit tragic in spots, with some interesting vignettes, yet even in brief form Taylor doesn't pull punches; he points to the diplomats and the generals as being at fault for precipitating the war, yet at the same time his other work - much longer, very dense and hard to read The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918 - lays out the gory details of the diplomatic danse macabrs which produced the Franco-Prussian War and the Great Eastern Crisis and the Balkan Wars; I believe it was his analysis which first styled World War I as "the Third Balkan War", i.e. the sequel to teh First and Second Balkan Wars. Ultimately it was about the arms race - build guns and somebody will want to shoot them. I'l rest my own thoughts here, I've only provided them to demonstrate how different POVs can be from the "mainstream" views in the article at present...which, frankly, read like a high school textbook, and not that intersting a one either. I may yet place more fact templates (Spinnaker gybe - those are {{fact}} and they're requests for item-specific citations) and perform some more tweakings, though I don't have any texts here and given the volatile nature of this article would rather not make major edits, even semantic edits, without having citations to back them up. Well, except here on the talkpage, that is. Nationalism, imperialism, militarism/industrial politicking and diplomatic intrigues are what led to the war, and it cant' be saddled on Germany alone; Germany, as Taylor points out, thought it had agreed only to an armistice at the war's end; it was instead saddled with blame for all that had been done, and punished....and so we have the rationale (in Taylor's analysis) for what Germany became in the next decades after....for those interested Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War tend to put the blame for that war on Britain and France.....another factor in diplomatic terms, equal to and maybe more important than the affairs of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, was the Eastern Question, the jockeying for surgical dismantlign of hte Ottoman Empire....it all depends on which country you're looking at this war from, also; the Russian POV is very different from the British or French, for instance.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

And re the credentials of the editors here, that's not the issue so much as the credentials of the sources used: see WP:RS and WP:Weight.Skookum1 (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Skookum1. I'll get the book; it seems like it will be an interesting read.

BTW. I am born and bred in the Commonwealth. I used the "stupidity" label on myself; I am a Canadian. In fact, before I read this article, I was expecting to have my bias against the WW1 Germans confirmed, but after reading the facts presented, even I can see what is going on here. Cam's attitude about removing the tag without having provided sufficient evidence is also of concern. Are people allowed to just highjack wikipedia or something? I sure hope Cam is not on the dispute board because his neutrality is seriously in question.

Here are my concerns. First Wikipedia should tag every history article with the neutrality warning. I dislike for example human rights abusers. Can some neo-nazi make the claim that I am biased? You are darn right he can! And he would be right!

Secondly, I am afraid that this article would not pass an academic review at any self respecting history faculty. That is why I asked about credentials. I don't have a degree in history myself, but I am quite sure there are some rules to insure impartiality. Wiki says it is an encyclopedia and I am quite sure encyclopedia writers have rules as well. If you do not wish to follow these rules, maybe the writers should write themselves a book instead.

My specific objections are with the use of vilifying words, statement of opinion as fact, omission of key information from the summary of causes of the war, relegation of important information to the links, errors in the relation between cause and effect, and making comparisons between Germany's, Italy's and Japan's unification in the German Unification link.

My objection to the comparision between the WW2 Axis powers is because we should not be judging Germany in WW1 using what happened in the future in WW2. And besides, you could just as easily add the United States into that comparison as well; they fought wars and used diplomacy to form their nation. It is like me using the fact that the Serbians committed genocide after WW1 to prove that they were bad people at the start of WW1. This is a blatant attempt at vilification as well as an error in cause and effect.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

With regards to the "commonly-identified causes aren't necessarily true", you are correct that this is often the case. However, the job of an encyclopedia is not to evaluate these claims—simply to point out what they are. If you want to evaluate the causes of World War I, then write a book about it (as many already have). Our job is to simply serve as a method of conveying what are commonly identified as the causes—not evaluate them.

That said, you are correct about the ensuring of impartiality. In fact, this issue has been encountered in other MILHIST articles (notably World War II, pop over there and input on the discussions if you get a chance). At the same time, however, to ask for the credentials of those who wrote this article is 1) impossible, unless you want to track down hundreds upon hundreds of editors from across the globe and 2) violates the whole theory of wikipedia, in that ANYONE can edit it. Quite frankly, I don't care whether it would pass "an academic review at any self-respecting history faculty"—that's not the point of the 'Pedia.

Again, the issue with noting every single little cause of WWI is that it takes a huge amount of space - as I've said, entire books have been devoted to the subject and still not come close to accurately and comprehensively summarizing the causes. We can't point out every single cause and keep this article to a reasonable length at the same time (again, see several threads up for the discussion on reorganizing the article to condense it). To simply put "German unification and the resulting after-effects" would suffice for this article. A separate article on German unification could go into much more extensive detail about its relation to WWI.

And lastly, how is my neutrality in question? Cam ^(Chat) 23:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Cam2 quote - "::...and should expect to see the tag removed." Nick-D quote - "I don't see any need to remove material on what are common explanations for the causes of World War I or replace it with nonsense. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and you can tag the article as being biased by adding {{npov}} at the top of the article, but this tag will be removed as you seem to be trying to whitewash material you disagree with - please review Wikipedia:About for information on Wikipedia's policies. Nick-D (talk) 04:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I quote Cam's and Nick-D's entries above. It is obvious you have made up your mind as to the validity of the bias claim even though legitimate objections have been made concerning language. Maybe that is why history should be written by people sensitive to these "meaning" of language issues. Note that your collective second comment refers to my objections as "nonsense" and "whitewash". Hardly impartial given that you provide no evidence of your own that it is nonsense or whitewash. Ooops, I forgot about the "commonly identified" argument which is a common misconception amongst even myself sometimes. Besides a point by point cross-examination is the appropriate action, not a "It's not going to do any good" response. "We are the masters of this page; RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" (That's a joke if you don't get it :-)). Obviously you do not believe in judicial procedure or you are unable to have "sight through other's eyes". Note, I am just trying to change your approach to critcism. I am a devil's advocate by nature and I am sorry if anyone is offended by my previous arguments.

If you want, I will go and change every word, sentence, and paragraph I feel is inappropriate, but I would rather reach a concensus. I don't want to get into any wiki word changing war with you and besides I think the page is protected :-). Heck, every ridiculous war for no good reason, should be avoided. I do believe what you are suggesting (Me getting into a wiki word changing war) is unproductive and infantile. Have we avoided WW3 or are we still on the road to doomsday? Another joke!

I suggest the main page sticks to what we can agree are the facts and leave these judgements or different points of view to the links. I still think the Neutrality tags, worded differently however, should remain regardless of the outcome.

69.31.240.92 (talk) 02:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I wrote the above entry.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 02:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, in reference to your one set of comments:

My specific objections are with the use of vilifying words, statement of opinion as fact, omission of key information from the summary of causes of the war, relegation of important information to the links, errors in the relation between cause and effect, and making comparisons between Germany's, Italy's and Japan's unification in the German Unification link.

I've only scanned the article briefly but I see all kinds of instances of WP:OR and WP:Synthesis in just a casual scan of it; over-simplification and pat judgements, which abound, certainly qualify. The notion that Italian unification led to the war, or Japanese unification (! - which happened a long' time before), if they're in there, are twaddle and also more than a bit propagandistic/jingoistic, as is the claim that German unification led to the war. that's like saying US unification led to the attack on Pearl Harbour, because if it hadn't happened Japan wouldn't have had something to attack in that direction. All empires were expanding, growing, squeezing up against each other (except the Ottoman, which was desperately trying to keep itself together and until only a few years before the war had believed itself to ahve been backed by Britain and France, only taking up Germany on its willingness to support because France and Britain were prepared to sell Constantinople out to the Russians - which, in fact, was one of the Russian war-aims, as Taylor points out...btw two other good books to read are Constantinople:City of the World's Desire by Philip Nansel and A Fez of the Heart, by I can't remember who). As for your observations of errors in the relation of cause and effect, and other statements of inerpretation-as-fact, you can add {{fact}} to statements you want to see source for, and in the edit summary you can state your reasons why, or objections to it, e.g. OR or synthesis or POV. As for the POV tempalte, Cam can't jsut remove it; now that I've placed it it's supposed to remain until there's consensus that the POV issues have been resolved....and I totally diesagree with the comment that I don't care whether it would pass "an academic review at any self-respecting history faculty"—that's not the point of the 'Pedia. Well, yes it is, actually, but the point is to arrive at a better history than availble in academia by integrating all the varoius sources of facts, and correlating/comparing different opinions, so as to provide amore balanced version of history than you'll find in most academic courses (which, depending on the country you're in, adn the ideological/ethnic biases of the professor/textbooks, is almost invariably POV and usually more lie than truth). Wikipedia gets dissed because of trivialism and shallowness and "bad history"; conscientious editors shouldn't make excuses for it by saying "that's not the point of the 'pedia". What is, then? This - Wikipedia - is winding up as the "source document", the common public history of the digital era; it's the place that all other sources are integrating through; trivialism and pandering to comic-book oversimplification do not serve its ultimate ends. WP:Be Bold, spinnaker gybe, if you don't like wording, change it, if you have a better cite, use it, if you find a conflicting opinion, include it. And, by the way, I'm Canadian too...of the tow Taylor books, if you've got the stomach, I recommend teh longer one (Struggle for Mastery in Europe) and for background to the dance of the Great Powers in general, find Colin McEvedy's Penguin Atlas of Modern History (also in Pelican).Skookum1 (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying it shouldn't be there, it just shouldn't be there for the reasons Spinnaker identified. Just because it mentions German unification does not mean it's biased. Your reasons for putting it up are more concrete. As for the Taylor book, I actually just got that one for Christmas, so I'll definitely take a look at it - thanks for the recommendation!. Cam ^(Chat) 07:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I ask for some advice from all. How long should I wait before I write a neutrality statement which I suggested for all articles of history? A week if no response? I haven't noticed any objections to the idea so can I go ahead and write up a draft? I am an engineer and cannot claim to any mastery of language. It would contain ideas about bias intentional or unintentional, etc. I assume that if there is not a challenge, everyone is in agreement that the warning is warranted.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 05:37, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

All Wikipedia articles are covered by the general disclaimer, the Content disclaimer (which includes a statement that "Wikipedia is a work in progress, and many articles contain errors, bias, duplication, or simply need tender loving care. We encourage readers to help us fix these problems. The great majority of articles are written primarily or solely by individuals who are not subject matter experts, and may lack academic or professional credentials in the area.") and general legal, medical and risk disclaimers. Efforts to introduce more specialised disclaimers have, to the best of my knowledge, not been successful and appear to be currently ruled out by the policy Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. Individual article talk pages such as this are not an appropriate forum to discuss Wikipedia-wide topics such as expanding the number of disclaimers - you should raise this at: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) or Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) in the first instance. Introducing a new disclaimer will require consensus from Wikipedia's management and editors and this is a massive task which you should not take on lightly. Nick-D (talk) 07:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I am going to take some time to read over and form an opinion on the suitability of the Wikipedia disclaimers. However I pose these questions, if the disclaimer covers bias, why bother allowing people to add the neutrality tag at all. I feel the wiki editors are afraid that if the neutrality tag were not available we would have a wiki-tabloid instead of a wiki-pedia, but I am not saying that is the case at this moment since I haven't formed an opinion on the disclaimers.

Also, what stops us from adding additional warnings anyway. I would seriously doubt that the wiki powers-that-be would interfere with a concensus to add the warning, regardless of their own disclaimer. A writer can admit that there may be unintentional bias or intentional bias (hopefully for good reason: see my bias against human rights abusers) in their work. I may be wrong, but now is the time to discuss this point. After all, would we and should we want to be known as people with "fairness of character" even though people might never know our identities; of course we would and should.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 03:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

The disclaimer simply says that some bias will (inevitably) occur within the Wikipedia system. The Neutrality tag is out there for blatant POV pushing and editors with an agenda - of which there are quite a few. Take, for example, Sino-Indian War. It reeks of bias - primarily with painting India or China as the "aggressor" and the other as a peace-loving nation that was mercilessly provoked by a barbaric psychopath of a neighbor (ironically, the article floats between one or the other, so it really does look like the article writer has a condition similar to that of Smeagol) Por exemplar, look at the "world opinion" section in that specific article. Now THAT is a bias. That's why the neutrality tag exists. the disclaimer doesn't deal with that side of bias and NPOV. Cam ^(Chat) 04:12, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

The POV tag isn't just for blatant/deliberate bias, it's also there for unwitting or unconscious or ill-informed POV slants/perspectives, or the absence of both/all points of view on a subject, whatever it may be; this can be subtle, it can be soft-pedalled even when not obvious to the casual reader; but for those who know WWI fairly well, adn the diplomatic build-up to it, this artiicle does have POV problems. That someone can even begin to point them out, as spinnaker gybe has done, is indicative that it's not as NPOV as you might think it is; "watch, and learn" as Meryl Streep's charactder says in Dangerous Liaisons. And of those two Taylor books I mentioned, if it's Struggle for Mastery you got, your views on European history will never be quite teh same....Skookum1 (talk) 04:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I am also forming an opinion on the basis of the neutrality tag as well. Please give me a few days to do so. I am also trying to get copies of the recommended Taylor books. Anyone else have suggestions with different POV? 69.31.240.92 (talk) 01:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I keep forgetting to log in. I wrote the above entry. Spinnaker gybe (talk) 01:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

An Outside take

As someone who's specialty is other wars, here is my first take on this article, with more to come.

1. In college it was said that the unification of Germany definitely led the way for WWI, but due in part to the premature removal of Bismarck and the convoluted Triple Alliance and Triple Entente. A saying that German'y unification was a cause needs to have qualifiers.
2. This article is 164 kilobytes, too large for a good article but this is one of those topics where it's hard to say what to exclude. This is an article where perhaps a consolidated effort by MILHIST (ala T&A) to improve the article is probably needed. This si a main article for any encyclopedia.
3. The References are a mess. There's a need for more ISBNs, and maybe a way to consolidate references so that fewer cited books are needed?--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 04:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

May I move your entry to the "How do I flag this article for bias?" Section? I would not want anyone's coments to get lost.

I do have a response to this but I wish for others not to miss it.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 19:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

not necessary, spinnaker gybe; they'll see it; new sections spawn all the time, often as tangents off previous sections; just respond here, it makes it easier to find the newer discussions/tangents actually, instead of huge sections (he sez, being infamous for long posts....).Skookum1 (talk) 23:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I ask for some advice from all. How long should I wait before I write a neutrality statement which I suggested for all articles of history? A week if no response? I haven't noticed any objections to the idea so can I go ahead and write up a draft? I am an engineer and cannot claim to any mastery of language. It would contain ideas about bias intentional or unintentional, etc.

Spinnaker gybe 69.31.240.92 (talk) 03:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

My problem with a lot of this information in this article is that it is probably taken from a source which itself is tainted. For example, I could probably find a German text used in college which has stated some outlandish claim and enter it as fact in this article. Entering and referencing an opinion is no fact at all. If we are going to write history, what is it we are trying to achieve. In the final analysis, what is important is trying to make each reader make up their own mind what is right or wrong based on the facts. In university courses, good profs try to make you think out of the box and not be constrained by and even question out right what people present to you. I think good and entertaining history is one where the reader is challenged to place themselves in all parties shoes and decide for themselves what were the circumstances, what were the courses of action available, what were the consequences of each option, and what did each party choose and would I have done the same or not and ultimately was it the right choice. In WW1 I see ample opportunities on both sides to have averted this disaster, some more than others but this is only my opinion. However, my point is that we should not be trying to prematurely influence people’s minds with opinion stated as fact, words which have negative or for that matter positive connotations, and references or implications based on future events. In these history articles, facts should clearly labelled FACTS and opinions clearly labelled as OPINIONS.

By the way the following statement: “In college it was said that the unification of Germany definitely led the way for WWI” Is clearly OPINION. Why? First, many different people can come up with many different arguments refuting this statement (see my European Imperialism comment which is clearly OPINION as well). Secondly, it is unfair to state as a cause what any group of people have every right to do by themselves or collectively. The German people have every right to unify if they so desire and these aspirations should not be used as an excuse or a cause of war. It is like saying my right to cross the street at a crosswalk in safety is the cause of me getting hit by a car. ;-) How would you like it if your legitimate actions were blamed for cause WW3 or WikiWordWar1(WWW1) as a matter of fact. Another joke!

As for getting MILHIST involved, I whole-heartedly agree as long as they have appropriate rules for writing and reviewing history.

Spinnaker gybe (talk) 05:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I have recently been trying to develop a structure to improve Wikipedia's WWI coverage here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War I task force/Centenary drive. I wholeheartedly agree this article deserves a lot better.

Re the way we work. IMV (informed by quite a lot of experience of military history articles) - We are not really trying to 'do' history of our own. If a situation is complex we should present the facts, and the major opinions in roughly the proportion they are held by 'serious' historians. I think so far I think I'm agreeing with Spinnaker. Referencing is vital in a project like this for all sorts of reasons (credibility, mutual intelligibility, and further learning and discussion. If something is referenced to a reliable source but is still misleading or partial, then the solution is to find alternative points of view in other sources, and rewrite the relvant section as a summary of the available positions, with refences to sources on all sides.

Hope this is helpful... The Land (talk) 13:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I support this initiative, however the public should be about to comment and express original thought based on the facts. Spinnaker gybe (talk) 01:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

A Second Outsider's Take

If I may add something to discussion...WP:V says the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Earlier it was stated that Just because something is commonly identified does not make the assertion not biased or the truth. For example, the earth was at one point commonly identified as being flat. Actually, if the majority of reliable sources say the world is flat, then Wikipedia must also state that the world is flat.

It was also stated that You can still maintain that the earth is flat if you wish, but I should have the right to contest that assertion with evidence of my own. No, actually you don't. That's called original research and it's not allowed on Wikipedia. To contest something, you must be able to back it up with reliable sources.

I have no idea if the article is biased or not, but if it is and we decide to clean it up, let's follow Wikipedia policies and do it the right way. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)