Talk:Black Brunswickers

Black Brunswickers has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 20, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 11, 2007.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that the soldiers of the Black Brunswickers (pictured) dressed entirely in black and wore hats with Death's Heads on them to reflect their commander's hatred for Napoleon?

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Copy edit suggestions

Interesting article, but needs a rewrite by someone whose native language is English.

How about letting us know what "Brunswicker" means? Steve Dufour 02:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I see that this is mentioned but I missed it. Steve Dufour 03:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Native language English? My native language is English. I thought it was written fine. Does anyone else have similar problems with the article? --- ÅñôñÿMôús ^{Dîššíd3nt} 03:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is some, ah, clumsiness in the article: "most bitter disapprovers" for one. And these troops were dressed in black years (c 1809) before their commander was killed (1815), so that couldn't have been why they dressed in black. Finally, you cannot cite Wikipedia as a reference. Madman 13:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I can help. As far as I know, they were dressed in black as a tribute to the Father of Frederick William, who died at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.49.58.194 (talk) 12:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

I have taken on Black Brunswickers for review under the Good Article criteria, as nominated on the Good article candidates page by User:Anonymous Dissident. You'll be pleased to hear that the article meets none of the quick-fail criteria, so I will shortly be conducting an in-depth review and will post the results below.

Where an article is not an outright pass, but requires relatively minor additional work to be brought up to GA standard, I will normally place it on hold - meaning that editors have around week to address any issues raised. As a precaution to prevent failure by default should this occur, if editors are likely to be unavailable over the next ten days or so, feel free to leave a message on my talk page so we can arrange a more convenient time for review. Regards, EyeSerene^TALK 13:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA on hold

I have now reviewed this article under the six Good article criteria, and have commented in detail on each criterion below:

1 Well written FAIL

1.1 Prose

This is the main area that needs work. Although the text is reasonable, it would benefit from a general copyedit for grammar and clarity. There are quite a few instances of words that give the impression they have been plucked from a thesaurus without a full understanding of their meaning and usage ;)

I have given some examples of concerns below (this list is not exhaustive):

"...a group of foot and cavalry infantry..." This needs clarification - I'd assume by "cavalry infantry" this means "mounted infantry"?
"...who were formed in 1809 after the war broke out between the French and the Austrians" Which war? To give the article context, it would help to explicitly state this was during the period of the Napoleonic Wars.
"It is known that the Duke was one of the most bitter disapprovers of Napoleon's occupation of Germany." Who is the Duke, and Duke of what? If this is Frederick William, this needs explicitly stating (maybe earlier in the paragraph where he is first mentioned). Also "disapprovers" is not a word - maybe replace with "critics"?
"...they were, in consideration, reformed members of the Austrian Palace Guard" I'm not sure I understand this sentence, but I think replacing "consideration" with something like "actuality" might get closer to what the author intends...?
"...because of their dark and morose attire[I], and their capture of Brunswick, temporal as it was..." To be honest, this entire paragraph needs reworking. However, I'd recommend replacing "morose" with "somber", and "temporal" with "temporary".
"He died at approximately 6pm, within minutes of being shot." Replace "6pm" with 6:00pm" (see WP:MOS#Times)
"The battle fought here at Quatre Bras is thought to be one of the most significant that the Brunswickers participated in, and it is this battle they are perhaps primarily remembered for." This sentence is rather vague ("thought to be", "perhaps"). Could this be reworded to give a more concrete assertion? (eg "According to X, Quatre Bras was the most significant engagement that the Brunswickers participated in, and it is this battle they are primarily remembered for.")

All

Done -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1.2 Manual of Style

The article generally adheres to the MoS. Headings and layout comply with the recommended style, and the lead is a fair summary of the article. Citations are formatted using the appropriate templates (always a pleasant surprise!). The only comments I have here are:

There should not be two sections labelled "Notes". Maybe they could be merged... although my personal preference would be to see the two sentences in the first actually included in the article proper - there's some good stuff there that a reader might otherwise overlook.
Some years are wikilinked and others not. Really only full dates (ie Day, Month and Year) should be wikilinked to allow reader preferences to operate on them; linking partial dates IMO rarely adds anything to an article.
ref tags should directly follow punctation with no intervening spaces; there are a few instances throughout the text of references that don't do this.

All

Done -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2 Factual accuracy PASS

The article is pretty well-sourced, to reliable sources, and there are no significant gaps in the referencing.

3 Coverage PASS but see comments

The article coverage is focused although not particularly broad. More information on the battle honours etc of the unit (other than Quatre Bras) would be nice, but this may be down to a lack of suitable secondary sources (you'd know better than I). Personally I'd rather see less - and have it properly sourced - than more, but without references... so I'll pass this criteria and leave it as a suggestion for future improvement ;)

4 Neutrality PASS

The tone is neutral and the article contains no evidence of bias.

5 Stability PASS

From the article history there is no evidence of recent major changes or edit-warring.

6 Images FAIL

Both images used have suitable copyright licenses. However:

The caption for the first, whilst adequate, could be more informative
The caption for the second: "done" is rather unencyclopedic, maybe "painted" or "completed" instead?

All

Done -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As a result of the above concerns I have placed the article on hold. This gives editors up to a week to address the issues raised (although in some circumstances the hold period can be briefly extended). To help with tracking, editors may like to ~~strike through~~ each comment as it is dealt with, or use the template {{done}} after each comment.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or are ready for a re-review. In any case I'll check back here in seven days (around 22nd September). All the best, EyeSerene^TALK 18:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA pass

Congratulations on an excellent copyedit on the suggestions provided. I have now passed Black Brunswickers as a Good Article, and listed it as such on the Good Articles page under History > War and military > Armies and military units. For the record, Anonymous Dissident contributed significantly to this GA pass.

Well done! EyeSerene^TALK 10:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uniform

The "Artillery" section says that they wore "Collets" which seems to have been copied over from the German page without translation. As you can see, the English Wikipedia page for Collets refers to part of an engineering machine tool. Neither Collet (disambiguation), Collett (disambiguation), Collette (disambiguation) nor Colet (disambiguation) are any help either. Any ideas anyone? Also, (in the "Infantry" section) what on earth is a "pole skirt"? Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the usual spelling is kollet, which was a short jacket with six rows of black braid on the chest - resembling a hussar's dolman. "Pole skirt" sounds like a very loose translation of polrock - a black knee length coat worn by the infantry of the Brunswick corps. Derived from the national dress of Lithuania and also popular amongst the various volunteer units of the Prussian Army in 1830. Judging from pictures it was a good deal more practical than the usual tight coatee of the Napoleonic Wars.Buistr (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would frock coat be a better translation for "pole skirt"? Perhaps we should replace "collet" with "Kollet (a short jacket similar to a hussar's dolman)". Or any other suggestion you might have, so that an English speaker might be able to understand it. Alansplodge (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, any ideas about the curious hat worn by the light battalions shown here. Is there an English or German name for it? Alansplodge (talk) 13:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your wording sounds fine. I can supply source references if needed. "Frock coat" would be a suitable English wording. The German (as opposed to Polish) term would be Litewka. Re the high hat with the brim turned up - this was known as a "Corsican hat" though it was originally Austrian. The Austro-Hungarian jager regiments wore it (in much reduced height) as a parade headdress until 1914. Cheers Buistr (talk) 06:58, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your help; I've just unearthed an excellent source book which confirms everything you say. I'll try keep the information as concise as possible. Alansplodge (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of Viktoria Luise is from the wrong regiment

Good afternoon, gentlemen,

I'm afraid the photo you have of Princess Viktoria Luise is of the wrong regiment. She is wearing the uniform of the 2nd Leib-Husaren-Regiment, of which she was the honorary colonel-in-chief, and not the uniform of the 17th (Brunswick) Hussar Regiment. Both had black uniforms and Totenkopf badges, to be sure. But the 2nd Leib-Husaren traced their origin back to the von Ruesch-Husaren aka the Black Hussars or the Death's Head Hussars, of the army of Frederick the Great. So, I'm not sure you want to leave it in the article.

Best regards, TheBaron0530 (talk) 23:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)theBaron0530[reply]

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