Talk:Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism/Archives/2022/June

Comments on copyedit

I've added some tags where I can't understand what the meaning is and where I can't tell what the source is.

• "amid continuing Vichy opposition" would this be more precisely phrased "due to Vichy opposition"? Or is the Vichy opposition only one reason?
• I would try to reduce the use of blockquote unless there's a very good reason. In particular, the Beyda quote would be better paraphrased imo.
• Some of the stuff in the second note looks like it might be better in the text.
• You say there were only two battalions and then that there were three at one point between the end of "Siege of Moscow" section and beginning of the next section.
• Try to be consistent with false titles: either "historian XX" or "the historian XX". The latter is preferred in BrE, or so I'm told.
• The use of passive voice is excessive. Sentences like "the dismantling of the LVF had already been ordered", "it was hoped that numbers could be made up by drafting in Turkmen hiwis", "The recruits had been promised", or "The LVF was ambushed" should say who is ordering, hoping, promising, and ambushing. (t · c) buidhe 09:48, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Buidhe. I have made a few edits and will work through the changes properly over the next week or so. —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:35, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Undoing archive because I don't think all these issues have been fixed; we still have "was recalled", "Legion was again deployed", etc. It's better to specify who made these decisions if that information is available. (t · c) buidhe 07:39, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Buidhe. I share your frustration at some of the passive voice in the article but I am afraid that the sources are usually the limiting factor. Crudely, I think it is fair to say that historians of the LVF come at it from the French side and are less interested by how it fitted into a wider German context meaning that they tend to be vague on exactly when, why, or how developments occurred. As you will see though, the article remains under construction to some extent but I hope is getting closer to GA submission. —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:17, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Glad to see improvement, we're running a GAN drive in June if that matters. (t · c) buidhe 09:18, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Great! Yes, I'll try to get it nominate in the next week or so then. —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:22, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

On sources: Soutou 2000 is available with help of WP:TWL here. I have an electronic copy of The French Who Fought for Hitler and send you parts of it if desired. (t · c) buidhe 09:36, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm not sure there are many other sources to use. The French Who Fought for Hitler is mostly about the Charlemagne Division isn't it? As the personnel of the LVF will have been merged into Charlemagne, I don't think there's a huge benefit in having an extensive consideration of post-war veterans' politics and the épuration légale. —Brigade Piron (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

You're right that it mostly doesn't cover this organization, but I managed to add a bit of info from them. Also, this source says "After fighting one “real” battle against the Red Army at Bobr, near the Berezina River, they regrouped in Greifenberg, in Pomerania. Disbanded in November 1944, the LVF became part of the newly created Division Charlemagne." The article gives the disbandment date as September 1944. Which is correct?

Other possibly useful info about the LVF:

The legionaries rarely talk about their family situation, and most of them were too young to have families or even steady partners when they enrolled in the LVF (p. 69)

Making a more balanced judgment, [Kenneth] Estes distinguishes between the performances of the Sturmbrigade Frankreich, the LVF, and the Charlemagne. For him, the Frankreich showed that volunteer units “could fight as first-rate troops when provided with proper weapons and comprehensive training.” The LVF, on the other hand, “failed miserably,” and the “unlucky” Charlemagne, sent to Pomerania without artillery and supply columns, could not even do what it was supposed to do – maintain “the continuity of the front”(p.21)

The memoirs of the LVF men who fought in Belorussia (including Labat’s) are unanimous on one point: The partisans were merciless with the volunteers, whom they did not just kill after ambushing them, but often stripped and mutilated. (p. 58)

When they begin the narrative of their experiences in Belorussia, the volunteers are prompt to emphasize that they were at first well received by the local population. For one thing, the Germans had taken measures that peasants could only approve; decollectivizing the agricultural system and allowing religious practices, they had redistributed the land and reopened the churches (Dallin 347). The French had applied the same policies with positive results, (p. 71) ... Whether people in Belorussia and the Ukraine are “naturally” hospitable or were merely trying to adjust to the new conditions, the idyllic situation described by Bassompierre and Philippet did not last for long. The first cause for the quick deterioration of the relations between the locals and the occupying armies was the tendency of the soldiers to supplement their food rations by requisitioning meat, fruit, and vegetables from the peasants, or merely by stealing edibles from them. (p. 72)

Jean-Paul Brunet, in his biography of Doriot, mentions that in the fall of 1942, the Germans deemed the LVF’s repressive policies toward the civilian population to have gone too far. They ordered several legionaries tried because they had “shot children, raped women, and stolen horses” (411); four of them were executed despite the protests of their officers, who argued without success that the volunteers’ behavior had not been different from most German soldiers’ (p. 73)

There's considerably more relevant content to quote but I don't want to fall afoul of copyright rules. He also mentions a photo album Les Archives Keystone de la LVF, which, assuming licensing worked out, could be helpful to include. The official magazine of the LVF was apparently called Le Combattant Européen (p.50), which merits a mention in this article imo. (t · c) buidhe 18:19, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I'll try to add some of it to the article. Bene states that the LVF was officially disbanded on 1st September 1944 (1). —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:09, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Catlemur (talk · contribs) 01:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I will begin this review shortly.--Catlemur (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Catlemur, thanks for taking this on! —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

• The references that are written a language other than English need to mention the language they are written in and provide a translation of the work title. Same applies to the Further reading section.

I haven't come across this requirement before. I would obviously translate anything in the body of the article, but I am not sure what the purpose of translating the title would be - it does not increase the verifiability. Can you point me to it? I have added the language tag. —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

It does increase verifiability. If I ask you to translate the title and it turns out that the French language book you just cited is titled "How I Exterminated Jewish Vermin in Belarus: A Memoir" that puts the reliability of said source into question. If on the other hand you provide an inaccurate translation, that probably means that you may have misunderstood the contents of the source since you are not fluent in the language. Since this is an English language WP it just makes the article more readable since most readers won't be able to read the title otherwise. I have been requested to do the same in the past and I find it perfectly reasonable.--Catlemur (talk) 01:41, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, but I am afraid I am still slightly struggling to understand. Do you believe any of the sources may be unreliable? All are published scholarly sources, mostly from major peer-review journals. In terms of acting as a test for how well the language is understood, I am not sure I follow. I freely admit that I do not speak Hungarian but am able to access the French-language article cited within the Hungarian-titled edited volume, for example. The same holds for the German-language volume currently cited in the Further Reading section. I can obviously put it into Google Translate, but this is not really what you seem to have in mind. In any case, how does it work practically with the cite book template for article and book/journal titles? —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't challenge the reliability of the sources you have cited, I am trying to give an explanation as to why providing a translation of the titles of cited material would be a good idea. You write the original title inside "|title=" and write the English language translation of said title in "|trans-title=". Since this is only a GAN, I am obviously not going to fail this nomination based on whether you use trans-title or not. Here is an example of another editor asking me to translate the title of a German language book in Further Reading during an A class review.--Catlemur (talk) 03:20, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Access date is missing for the Le Monde article.

Added. —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

• If multiple pages are cited as in the case of the citations 22 and 54, it should be pp instead of p.

Added. —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

• In the Unit commanders section, Puad's status as commander needs to be cited.

Apologies for the delay with this - I will have access to the source again in the next few days. Please bear with me! —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

This is now addressed.—Brigade Piron (talk) 07:39, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Please add a source on Commons that supports the fact that the insignia looked the way it is depicted in File:Foreign France shield.svg

I am not sure what you mean by source. There is text in the article about an shield-shaped badge of the description. Otherwise, there are already photos available like this or this. —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Just add the source backing the text about the shield-shaped badge to the Commons image. This way it can safely be used on other language WPs and it becomes vandalism proof in a way. You might say that it is obvious already but sadly we have to follow WP:TRUTH.--Catlemur (talk) 01:41, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Done. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:26, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Beyda's 2013 book on the subject is available here, there is another academic article in Russian here. I will try to add some details based on those two.--Catlemur (talk) 02:54, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

• "The LVF was tolerated by Vichy" - Move the Vichy regime wikilink to the lede since its a first mention.

Linked. —Brigade Piron (talk) 06:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• "bandit-fighting operations" - Bandit fighting is a Nazi euphemism and as such is not a neutral term. Replace it with anti-partisan operations and wikilink it to Bandenbekämpfung. Mention that the Germans called them bandit-fighting operations in the "Bandit-fighting" operations, 1942–1944 section.

You are right that "bandit-fighting" was a Nazi euphemism but I think it is (usually) less misleading than "anti-partisan" operations which imply that the victims were solely partisans. @Buidhe: and @K.e.coffman: may have a more informed view to share? —Brigade Piron (talk) 06:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

They're both acceptable terms in the right context imo. But if anti-partisan is used, one has to clarify that the Nazi definition of "partisan" was ... extremely broad to say the least. (t · c) buidhe 06:47, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Catlemur, do you have a further view on this? I think the problem with neutrality on the term "anti-partisan operation" is that it implies it is what it says on the tin - an operation against Soviet partisans rather than a larger-scale attack on the civilian population. Do you believe there is a WP:POV issue here? —Brigade Piron (talk)

• "sent as reinforcements to the fighting before Moscow in November and December 1941" - The "fighting before Moscow" part sounds odd, please reword it. Maybe "sent as reinforcements to Moscow in November and December 1941"?--Catlemur (talk) 03:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that "before Moscow" sounds odd, but "to Moscow" implies that Moscow actually fell to the Germans which is obviously not the case. I cannot think of an alternative which preserves this nuance! —Brigade Piron (talk) 06:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

In front of Moscow? Outside Moscow? Near Moscow? All acceptable imo (t · c) buidhe 06:48, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

"Near Moscow" would work. I'll make the change. —Brigade Piron (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Before Moscow is also ok in my book, although somewhat archaic. (t · c) buidhe 07:05, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Done. —Brigade Piron (talk) 21:50, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: --Catlemur (talk) 03:24, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Catlemur, much appreciated! —Brigade Piron (talk) 07:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Clarifications

@Brigade Piron: Several people associated with the LVF claimed in their memoirs that LVF fought at the Borodino battle site in order to highlight the fact that it followed Bonaparte's footsteps. Beyda proved that this claim is a myth since LVF was not present in the vicinity of Borodino when fighting took place there. Beyda's comments (the ones you removed) mentioned in Romanko's article are all cited, including the exact page numbers of Beyda's book where this information can found.--Catlemur (talk) 00:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I have reinstated the Beyda citation - apologies. I'm not sure whether the Borodino anecdote is strictly notable. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Content of articles does not need to be notable, only WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 15:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)