Talk:Battle of Walk

Russian strength and losses

As has been demonstrated by the modern historian Oleg Kurbatov, who studied 17th-century archive documents related to the Russian army that was present at Walk, the Russian army consisted of 2,193 men (additional 353 troops failed to arrive in time; Tsar Alexis I expected his army to be 3,000-men-strong) and was nowhere even close to the 8,000 suggested by Swedish wartime propaganda. There is not a single fact to prove the opposite, and Swedish official declarations cannot be regarded as a more accurate (or even equally accurate) source than all the original papers containing the detailed estimates of the Russian army on the eve of the battle. Unlike the Swedish figure, which is taken from nowhere and extremely dubious, that number is not a "claim" and is based on documental evidence. The Swedish claims, on the contrary, have been criticized as often inaccurate in their description of the Russian weapons, tactics, commander, strength, and casualties. 84.51.114.91 (talk) 22:53, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Your reference is redericted to a blog and is therefore not a strong reference in itself as long as you're not using the actual sources in there to confirm that it is correct and have them shown in the article. Also what you're saying here is the Russian perspective of things, I've not yet seen it confirmed anywhere by Swedish historians which leads us to the assumption that it's two completely different views we're dealing with that are heavily conflicting each other. Therefore, for the sake of neutrality on Wikipedia, we need to have both of those perspectives in the article. Imonoz (talk) 00:57, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

My reference leads to the so far only website where the aforementioned scholarly article has been published, i. e. it is not the blog that I've been citing but the article (see the full title and page numbers); all primary sources are listed there. And again, I have to repeat that Swedish official declarations cannot be regarded as a more accurate (or even equally accurate) source than all the original papers containing the detailed estimates of the Russian army on the eve of the battle. Unlike the Swedish figure, which is taken from nowhere and extremely dubious, that number is not a "claim" and is based on documental evidence. The Swedish claims, on the contrary, have been criticized as often inaccurate in their description of the Russian weapons, tactics, commander, strength, and casualties. It doesn't mean much if some Swedish historians, who are most likely not familiar with the work by Kurbatov and any Russian sources whatsoever (you're not familiar with them either, it seems), still repeat the same things that were claimed in Swedish 17th-century propaganda. I've added text to the article and removed your "Russian claim" label; documental evidence and scholarly analysis are not just a "claim". 84.51.114.91 (talk) 07:49, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

It says in the top "A blog dedicated to the Russian military history 1650-1730s & related topics". And yes, I can see the sources are listed in there, but as you're probably not the author of the blog, you don't know those sources are correct to what is said, if you haven't studied them yourself (or we can't know you do, at least) so the reference has to be considered weak. The Russian sources might be more reliable than the Swedish ones, I don't know, and quite frankly it's not up to me to judge, I'm not a historian. Like I said, no confirmation or support is found from any Swedish historian or writer on the subject, until then, we have these two versions, the Swedish and the Russian. I have however, found sources saying 32 standards, banners and other field declarations were captured by the Swedes, the Swedes also say 1,500 Russians were left dead or wounded on the battlefield after the Russians had retreated, I've also found numbers of 2,000 Swedes and not 3,300 which is currently stated, same as I've found numbers for 10,000 Russians and not 8,000. The 32 field declarations is the most interesting here, it tells the size of the army and how big the victory was, 32 standards, banners and other declarations on only 108 dead Russians seems very strange. The Russian sources you mention, do they go into detail if there was any civilians with the Russians (there should've been, there almost always was) or peasants fighting for them?

Anyway, I've added "Russian-Swedish sources" to the article instead, also I've removed "Russian 17th-century archive documents related to the battle proved that the Russian force consisted of only 2,193 men", proved here is a very strong word considering it's 17th century material we're dealing with, what Russian historian said that it is now "proven"? If you want that word in here, I'd like that you name the historian who said it is proven. Imonoz (talk) 16:59, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's a blog. The article had a reference to Kurbatov's work, so I just added a link to the only website where all WP editors can read it, if they're interested. I've already read that article in paper but it's always easier to me to cite a digital work, just because it's always at hand. You wrote: "no confirmation or support is found from any Swedish historian or writer". Right, because most of the sources they use are Swedish, but you should always dig up archival materials of another country if you are studying its army, shouldn't you. How do they prove the Russians had 8,000 men there, if they have no concrete documental evidence from abroad, while all the Rus. documents from the top to the bottom show there were less than 4,000? Did that country and its government and generals lack any knowledge of how many people were under their command, the generals were fooling the government and vice versa? BTW, Kurbatov says Russian captives often misinformed their enemies by telling them that every Rus. army they were asked about was larger than in reality, so that might be the case with the 8,000. You wrote: "I've also found numbers of 2,000 Swedes". Kurbatov points to different numbers, too, but he trusts only the most reliable of them, supported by enough evidence. The "32 field declarations" are mentioned along with the 1,500 dead and wounded, etc. One has yet to prove they were so numerous and weren't part of usual wartime propaganda. Rus. sources are also not completely correct in their description of the Swedes, which is why I don't use their sources for counting the Swedes and vice versa. Civilians? Haven't found anything about them. BTW, most of the soldiers and officers managed to escape. And if all the sources don't prove the point (Kurbatov thinks they do and are reliable and correct), I don't know what does. 84.51.114.91 (talk) 18:18, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, so what sources were they using from the Swedish perspective? Cause I doubt it was specific for the 2,193 number of troops or the 141 Russian casualties we're currently discussing. And again, you're trying to get me into choosing a side of perspective, I've told you before, it doesn't matter what I think is the more reliable one, it's the historians that determinate this and while Kurbatov can very well be right, I can't find support of this from any Swedish expert on the subject. Yes, it might very well be true that the Russian captives lied to the Swedes about their army, this was common not only for the Russian army. But so could the fact that Kurbatov haven't found numbers of camp-followers (civilians) or peasants fighting for the Russian army, who in fact was a common fighting force in Livonia at the time, which could explain the high numbers the Swedes claims in both troops and casualties. I will take the issue with the 32 declarations further and ask some Swedish experts what they know of this, if those are still in Swedish hands. And of course I find Russian research as important as Swedish research. Imonoz (talk) 18:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything about the Swedish perspective or even trying to change anything related to the Swed. side, so it's all up to you. Camp-followers are not soldiers and are not listed as soldiers, you know, and as long as we don't have any mention of armed peasants, militiamen or anything alike, we shouldn't take it as a fact that they really took part in the battle. Got to agree with the rest of your message. All the best. 84.51.114.91 (talk) 20:45, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Of course camp-followers shouldn't be considered in the numbers of the actual fighting force, but in terms of casualties I've seen many examples where the victor included them in their final death count over the enemy. Armed peasants however, should be included in the number, but yes, it's like you're saying, we don't know if there were any so there's no point in arguing it, it was just a theory I brought up. You should, by the way, consider making your edits on one single account, or create one if you haven't already. Makes it a lot easier to talk to you in the future. Have a good one. Imonoz (talk) 21:22, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Right, we need more evidence on this matter. I have passwords to 2 accounts of my friends here but guess they won't like it if I post something under their names. I'll make my own account soon. 84.51.114.91 (talk) 13:39, 11 December 2016 (UTC)