Talk:Battle of the Granicus

My huge overhaul of this article on 26 August 2021

Hello, as promised in my edit summary I'd write here to explain everything about my huge edit of this article on 26 August 2021. I hope everyone else agrees that the article is much better now. Of course I appreciate all the work done by the editors of this article before me, but I thought this article still needed a lot of work. I've spent several weeks reading everything about this battle in the scientific literature and this edit was the result. I'll answer some of my possibly more controversial changes here step by step:

1. First, to respond on some matters discussed on this talk page:
   1. The scientific literature calls it the "Battle of the Granicus", not "Granicus River", just like we call many other rivers by their name, like the "Thames" and not the "Thames River".
   2. The scientific literature speaks of the Macedonians and a Macedonian victory, not the Greeks and a Greek victory. Even though Greeks did participate through the Hellenic League, the Macedonians dominated that league.
2. Regarding the changes to the first paragraph:
   1. What this article (and even some scientific works as well) get wrong in the introductory sentence is that Memnon didn't command the mercenaries. Arrian is clear on the fact that a Persian called Omares was their commander.
   2. I wouldn't say the battle was fought near Troy, the Granicus is quite some distance further east.
3. Regarding the infobox:
   1. Shortened description of location, which was way too long.
   2. Mentioning the satrapies as participants separately is incorrect because the satrapies were not independent from the Achaemenid Empire. They simply followed the orders of Darius III.
   3. The scientific literature (quoted in the body of the article) clarified that Arsites was most likely the leader of the Persian army, I've marked him so in the infobox.
   4. Some commanders and leaders were listed for which there was no evidence that they had a role as commander, for example Hephaestion and Cleitus. I've made sure that only those mentioned by Arrian and Diodorus as leaders are listed now.
   5. I've simplified the strength and casualties sections. They were too detailed and even contained references inside the infobox. Based on those references, they were also giving a very rough generic estimate of casualties rather than an informed estimate based on the literature. I've refrained from giving so much details in the infobox and think it's best to leave the details to the article's maint text.
4. As for the rest of the article, I added a lot more content and provided references to primary and secondary scientific sources for everything.
   1. Because the primary sources don't agree on what happened during the battle I thought it was important to describe all three sources separately.
   2. Too much other changes to comment on, it's probably best if everyone compares the previous version with the version after my edits and sees for him/herself.
5. In due time I will reread this article and make some further changes where necessary. I hope to get this article approved as a featured article.

--AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi there AlexanderVanLoon,

First of all, thanks for putting effort into this. An article as important as this one definitely deserves some love. Although the article received a much needed expansion and overhaul, there are still some major issues that need to be addressed:

1. The article, in terms of sources, heavily relies on material written ~ 2,000 years ago which isn't allowed per WP:RS and WP:HISTRS.
2. The infobox (and the entire article in general) should solely present figures and information as foretold by modern-day academics/scholars (once again; WP:RS and WP:HISTRS). Not figures by writers who died 2000 years ago. An amalgam of data written 2,000 years ago and data written by modern-day academics doesn't cut it either.

Will post more when I have time. - LouisAragon (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Noticed some good points were raised here as well. - LouisAragon (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello LouisAragon, do I understand correctly that you are specifically referring to WP:RSPRIMARY? I don't think I violated this directive in my contributions to this article. As far as I can tell I've only used ancient historians as a source when I've summarized their accounts of the battle. I've taken care to keep any interpretation and analysis of the ancient historians by modern scholarship separate and think I've made it clear with the way I've used references. If you think otherwise, can you please point to the specific place in the article text where this goes wrong? As for the infobox, please note that the strength and casualty figures mostly reflected modern scholarship already. I did take another critical look and removed only the claim that 18,000 mercenaries might have been killed because it's explicitly dismissed by one source as exaggerated. Can you please take another look and tell me if you still disagree? As for the responses on the featured article nomination, I didn't reply to them yet because I took a long break from Wikipedia, but will do so later today. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 10:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I responded to the reviewers of the Featured Article nomination via their talk pages here, here, here and here. Waiting for them to reply. In the meatime, I have set myself the following goals to improve this article and would of course appreciate any help:
1) Contact the editor who made the map currently below the infobox and ask to have it fixed so that it shows in the mobile Wikipedia app (currently doesn't) and correct the caption.
2) Create a new battle map because the current one we have shows Alexander attacking the Persian center, which is contested by the historians mentioned in this article.
3) Create a map to show the route the Macedonian army took towards the Granicus.
4) Improve the lead paragraph to summarize the article adequately.
5) Improve the aftermath section to explain how the war ended.
6) Discuss the Macedonian and Persian armies in more detail, as is done in Battle of the Bagradas River (255 BC)#Armies which is already a featured article.
7) Take inspiration from existing Featured Articles on ancient and medieval battles, including but not limited to Battle of the Bagradas River (240 BC), Battle of the Bagradas River (255 BC), Battle of Halidon Hill, Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Barnet.
8) Request a review from GoCER, then from Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review and then possibly Wikipedia:Peer review or Wikipedia:Good article nominations before we renominate as Featured Article.
--AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 15:28, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Numbers?

How can Alexander only have 18,000 men if it was his first battle after crossing with 38,000-48,000 men? NotIranian (talk) 02:27, 8 November 2021 (UTC)