Talk:Frederick the Great/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 13:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Starting first read-through. More shortly. Tim riley talk 13:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

First thought after initial read-through: you need to decide whether the article uses English or American spelling. At the moment it is a mixture of both, which plainly will not do. We have favour, favoured and favourite mixed in with favor, favorable, favored and favorite and so on, and we must standardise on one or the other, and also on either English or American spelling of baptised, center, enamored, endeavor(s), fulfillment, honor, honored, honours, labor, kilometres, leveled, neighboring, paneling, rivaled, rumors, skeptic, skillful, etc. Strictly, you should establish which spelling was the first to be used for this article and stick to it or else seek a consensus for a change, but I doubt if anyone will object if you take a view and go for one or the other. I suggest you put a quick note on the article talk page, leaving it a couple of days and then, unless anyone objects, which I doubt, applying whichever variety of spelling you prefer, as long as it's consistent throughout.

Second thought: who was Flannagan in the lead? Sabotage by some tiresome little schoolboy I imagine.

I'll put the review on hold while you deal with the orthography, as above. Tim riley talk 14:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Now I think about it, my comments, above, will be automatically transcluded to the article talk page, and so I think you can reasonably treat that as adequate notice of a proposal to standardise on BrE or AmE. Give it a couple of days, though, to give anyone with views time to comment. Tim riley talk 14:31, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I recommend British English, since it's a European topic; I've gone ahead and boldly run the Engvar script on it, since, as you say, there was no consensus previously. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

FIY, there is no MOS:TIES for continental European countries. This generally applies only if the subject is actually from an English speaking country or lived there. (t · c) buidhe 18:43, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Prose

The prose is generally good enough to meet the GA standard (criterion 1a and b), in my view, but I offer some suggestions, entirely optional so far as this first batch is concerned at least, for improving it here and there.

• General

• However: there are 18 "howevers" in the text. It is a word that slips all too easily from one's pen but seldom enhances the prose. In most cases (all cases in this article, in my view, except possibly "However, Saxony had now joined the war against Prussia") the prose would be stronger and would flow better without it.

Chariotsacha has tackled the "howevers". Wtfiv (talk) 16:40, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I've attempted to address the concerns below. Wtfiv (talk) 18:05, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

• Individual drafting points

• He had been educated by a Frenchwoman, Madame de Montbail … and he wished that she educate his children – and did she? It isn't clear.

Y Done. She did, as per the reference. final clause reworded to "had her educate his children as well." Previous sentence had "wish", so removal of redundancy is helpful, I think Wtfiv (talk) 16:40, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

• Frederick William I, popularly dubbed the Soldier King, had created a large and powerful army led by his famous "Potsdam Giants", carefully managed his treasury, and developed a strong centralised government; he was prey to a violent temper and ruled Brandenburg-Prussia with absolute authority. – the two sections of this sentence don't seem to belong together. Perhaps a full stop rather than a semicolon?

Y Done. Full stop, added an "also" in "He was also prey..."

• Soon after his previous affair, he became close friends – the usual form is to use a name rather than a pronoun at first mention in a new paragraph

Y Done. Name put in main clause, reworded to "Soon after his affair with Keith, Frederick became..."

• weakened by gout brought about by the campaign – gout is certainly weakening but it isn't clear how it would be brought on by a military campaign

Y Done. deleted "brought about by the campaign"

• Later, he regarded this time as one of the happiest of his life. – this reads as though it was Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué who regarded this as a happy time, but I suspect you mean Frederick.

Y Done. changed to "Later, Frederick regarded..."

• an idealistic refutation of Machiavelli – I'd be careful with "refutation": "refute" means to disprove rather than merely rebut.

Y Done. changed "refutation" to "rebuttal".

• Prussia had one soldier for every 28 citizens, whereas Great Britain only had one for every 310, and the military absorbed 86% of the state budget. – a bit ambiguous: the state was presumably Prussia rather than Britain, but it doesn't read that way

Y Done. modified to "Prussia's state budget".

• Disappointed with the performance of his cavalry … Frederick spent much of his time in Silesia establishing a new doctrine for them. – doctrine? Unexpected word and its import isn't obvious.

Y Hopefully addresses concern. I think the original editor meant military doctrine, as Prussian strategic, operational and tactical use of cavalry was inadequate. I linked "doctrine" to "military doctrine" for clarification. If anyone else wants to reword, please do! Wtfiv (talk) 18:05, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

• This victory, along with the Franco-Bavarian forces capturing Prague, forced the Austrians to seek peace with Frederick. – and with his allies? Just "Forced the Austrians to seek peace" would suffice in that case, perhaps.

Y Done.

• a counterattack by the Austrians at the Battle of Soor Frederick then turned – full stop missing, I think.

Y Done.

• In 1756, Frederick attempted to forestall England's financing – Britain's, not England's, by this stage in the 18th century, here and later in the para.

Y Done.

• albeit with Russian favoured conditions – I suggest hyphenating "Russian-favoured"

Y Done. Rewrote clause to "albeit with conditions that favoured the Russians."

• In addition, the war also cost Frederick personally. Many of Frederick's closest friends and family members— including his brother Augustus William, his sister Wilhelmine, and his mother— had died during the war. Did they die as a consequence of the war? If not, the first sentence seems unjustified.

Y Hopefully, this rewrite addresses the concern: "During this time, Frederick also suffered a number of personal losses. Many of his closest..." and ending with "had died while Frederick was engaged in the war".

• ten per cent of Poland's population were dissenters, as the 600,000 Eastern Orthodox and 250,000 Protestants were called, however during the 1760s their political importance was out of proportion – if you must have another "however" here, you need to precede it with a stronger punctuation mark than a comma. You might also mention what these people were dissenting from – i.e. that Poland was largely Roman Catholic.

Y Reworked prose as follows: "Poland was predominantly Catholic, but approximately ten per cent of Poland's population, 600,000 Eastern Orthodox and 250,000 Protestants were non-Catholic dissenters. During the 1760s, the dissenters' political importance was out of proportion to their numbers. Although dissenters still had substantial rights."

More to come. Tim riley talk 07:48, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Wtfiv (talk) 18:05, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Second and concluding batch of comments on the prose. (Let me add here that reading through it I have found the article interesting and informative, and a pleasure to review.)

• he was not fan of protracted warfare – missing an indefinite article, and isn't "fan" a bit slangy for an encyclopædia article?

Y Changed to "he did not advocate for protracted warfare."

• Austrian co-ruler Emperor Joseph II … Historian Robert Citino … Historian Dennis Showalter … and later Historian Leopold von Ranke and Nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke – to my way of thinking, false titles like these are inappropriate in formal writing. Fine for tabloid newspapers and suchlike, but a bit downmarket for a Wikipedia article on a historical subject. But that's just my view, and I leave it to you to agree or disagree.

Y I agree. Most of the active editors have tried to balance keeping the voice of previous editors as much as possible, but I dislike this style as well. Deleted "historian". Reverted spelling in quote back to AmE, as Citino is an American author.

• these offensive operations weren't acts of blind aggression – MOS:N'T

Y

• In both one of his earliest published works – needs tweaking

Y Modified to "In his earliest published work... and his later..."

• Frederick's debasement of the coinage to fund the Seven Years' War left Prussian monetary system in shambles – perhaps "shambles" is rather too informal a word?

Y "shambles" to "disarray"

• Around 1751 he founded – another pronoun where our normal usage would be the name.

Y "Around 1751 Frederick founded"

• Frederick the Great followed his recommendations – I'd just call him Frederick here.

Y done.

• He persecuted the Polish Roman Catholic Church … by confiscating their goods and property – is a plural pronoun appropriate here?

Y Subject is "church", so replaced with "its".

• a massive drainage program – if you are going to standardise on BrE, "programme" (except for computers) is the orthodox spelling.

Y BrE is certainly something I'll miss 50% of the time, so that would be something I'd miss. Thanks for the catch. Fixed.

• who he appointed as Royal Chamberlain – I hate to be pedantic (no I don't) but who really ought to be whom here.

Y Good catch: a "whom" should be a "whom", though as you know, spoken AmE can lapse into the informality of subsuming the one into the other. Done.

• his father, who had a deep aversion for France … He was educated by French tutors – if Frederick William hated the French so much, the reader may wonder why he engaged French tutors for his son and heir. Is there an explanation?
• Frederick had many famous buildings constructed in his capital Berlin – could do with a comma before Berlin, I think.

Y

• A number of the buildings – there are some (not me) who get aerated about "a number of" and insist on "some" or similar. I merely mention it.

Y Left "number" as is. Connotatively, I feel "number" conveys more indexical specificity than "some", since it refers to particular locations in Berlin. If, as you mentioned, you are okay with it, I'll leave it.

• The picture gallery at Sanssouci "represents a unique synthesis of the arts in which architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts enter into dialogue with each other, forming a compendium of the arts" – I think so extensive a quotation probably ought to be attributed in the text.

Y Quote deleted and transformed into paraphrase: " His sense of aesthetics can be seen in the picture gallery at Sanssouci, which presents architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts as a unified whole." Deleted first instance of citation, as second at the end of the paragraph accounts for the entire paragraph.

• When Frederick ascended the throne in 1740, he reorganised the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin Academy), which his father had closed down as an economy measure – if it had been closed down how did he reorganise it? Perhaps something like "revived and reorganised"?

Y Replaced "reorganised" with "reinstituted".

• Kant published religious writings in Berlin which would have been censored elsewhere in Europe – This is properly cited, but I'd be a bit uneasy about making so unequivocal and confident a statement on a single authority: I think it would be as well to say in the text "according to the historian Hans Aarsleff".

Y This one is particularly problematic. The original editor may have been referring to Kant's What is Enlightenment?, which was published in Berlin about two years before Frederick's death and challenged religious paternalism. But I can't verify this, the Aarsleff is one of the few articles I was unable to personally access. Sentence was deleted since its scope could not be verified. Aarsleff was kept as a citation, as I believe this addresses the academy as a whole, and someone with journal access could verify. Added subscription to url access for Aarsleff in reference template.

• Frederick William II instead ordered the body to be entombed next to his father – whose father? Clearer to say "that of Frederick William I".

Y "instead ordered Frederick's body to be entombed next to his father, Frederick William I"

• Thomas Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great (8 vol. 1858–1865) emphasised the power of one great "hero" – on a purely personal note, and nothing to do with this review, may I say what a pleasure it is to see Carlyle's work mentioned? It may not be the greatest history, but the prose is an endless joy. I could quote many wonderful extracts, but will refrain.

 Comment: I really enjoy Carlyle's writing as well. His prose doesn't lend to easy citation, one editor Bryan Rutherford boldly cited him in all four of the Silesian Featured Articles he keeps and eye on. Although some academic historians label Carlyle an "amateur", he's nevertheless a goldmine of facts, perspective, and story-telling, I've also come to the conclusion from doing the citation verifications in this article that his volumes and Kugler are major popular sources that have been endlessly recycled by later biographers.. As Philip Guedalla says "History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other."

• Hitler often compared himself to Frederick the Great., – excess of punctuation

Y

• he kept an oil painting of Anton Graff's portrait of Frederick with him – does that mean a copy? Otherwise a painting of a painting seems rather odd.

Y Reworded to "copy of Anton Graff's portrait"

Tim riley talk 21:58, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tim riley: I believe that the concerns you raised have been addressed. Please let us know if what was done was sufficient or if you have any others. It's great that you found the article interesting and informative. And I feel that the editors that tend to watch and tend this article have done a good job of giving a fairly expansive view of Frederick the Great. Also, I want to thank you for your review so far, which has been helpful, specific, and constructive. Wtfiv (talk) 01:30, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Good. I think we're nearly there. I'll have one last read-through and unless I find anything else to quibble about we can proceed to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Tim riley talk 07:45, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

References

The references are a bit of a mish-mash. If you have ambitions to go to FAC in due course – and I hope you will – you will have to address this, but at GA level there is no specific requirement for complete consistency, and the existing references and bibliography seem to me between them to satisfy criterion 2a. Nonetheless, why lump the bibliographical details of a few books in with the "citations" when the others – the vast majority – are in the "bibliography" section below? I refer to Alford, Barruel, Bentley, Berridge, Billows, Brunhouse, Citino, Craig, Crankshaw, Davies, Dilthey, Ergang, Gundolf, Hertz, Hoffmann, Holborn, Liberles, Locke, Lowenstein, Lukowski, Melton, Ozment, Redman, Schui, Schweitzer, Showalter, Snyder, Stern, Stollberg-Rillinger, Strachan, Szabo, Teter and Wate, not to mention King Frederick himself.

There are five modern books tucked away in the "citations" section that are not given the ISBNs to which I imagine they are entitled: Gaines, Kaufmann, Krimmer, Ladd and Lifschitz. Again, this is not a requirement for GA, but it would be good to be as complete as possible. WorldCat will oblige (and also, were you so inclined, with OCLC numbers for the books that are too old to have ISBNs).

Ref 251 is sending out SOS messages and needs attention. Tim riley talk 08:38, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm delighted that you think this has FA potential. From my end, I just wanted to clean up the reference and see if the palimpsest of all the editors could be smoothed into a single text. The first two check marks address the concerns you mentioned above. The last question is just seeking more information if the editors are interested in considering FA status for the article.

Y Ref 251 had been disrupted by me in the previous GA edit. It was fixed by the ubiquitous Trappist the monk before I got to it.

Y Added requested ISBNs to Gains, Kaufmann, Krimmer, Ladd, and Lifshitz. It's probably required for FA status, I'm not a fan of ISBN/OCLC for reference as I've almost never used them, but maybe one of the other editors will do so. Particularly if there is interest in getting the article to FA.

 Question: The hybrid nature of the references emerged from what I found when I started cleaning the references. There were two kinds of references:

a) Much of the article repeatedly relies on a handful of oft-used references cited multiple times with different page numbers.

b) It also had a huge number of references with one-off (or two-off) citations to establish a single point in the article.

To keep down the citation clutter and allow triangulation of the oft-used references. I chose SFN/SFNM for the oft-used ones, which allowed multiple sources to be cited in one number, and standard citation for the one-offs. Otherwise, the citations would start looking cluttered.

If any of the editors do have the desire to make this FA in the future, do you have a suggestion for formatting these to catch this huge diversity of oft-used and one-off citations that would be keep the citation clutter down? Wtfiv (talk) 16:47, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll drop you a line on your talk page giving you my views, for what they're worth, on the general question of formatting citations. Meanwhile I think the referencing here, though not what one would call streamlined, does what the GA criteria require it to.

To conclude my review: the article is well and widely sourced. Some old sources are used – such as Kugler 1845 and Ritter 1936, but there's nothing wrong with old sources when used appropriately, and here they are excellently balanced by the 21st-century sources on which most of the text is based, such as Anderson 2001, Blackbourn 2006, Clark 2006, Fraser 2001, MacDonogh 2000, Schieder 2000 and Scott 2001. The structure of the article is logical, no bias or distortion is evident, the prose is very readable and the illustrations are excellent. This article meets all the GA criteria, in my opinion, and I have much pleasure in promoting it to GA. Tim riley talk 17:12, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tim riley: Thank you very much! I'm glad the older sources are respected. As mentioned, they are often the source of other bibliographers anyway (e.g., Carlyle). Thank you for taking the time, and I'm delighted that in Wikipedia "Frederick the Great" has at least made it to "Frederick the Good". Wtfiv (talk) 19:01, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tim riley: Thank you old boy! Your wonderful guidance during this review is invaluable, all the best! Chariotsacha (talk) 20:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)