Talk:Mongol invasion of Khorasan/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: AirshipJungleman29 (talk · contribs) 10:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 18:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Khwarazmian Empire will be an interesting one to have at User:Thebiguglyalien/Articles per country#Selected former countries. I'll have a review done some time in the next few days. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General:

The article should give more coverage to the aftermath. How long did the Mongols control Khorasan? Did any destroyed parts of the region successfully rebuild? has never recovered sounds important; is there information about how it's affected the demographics of the modern population?
Since there's only one level two heading, it would make more sense to delete it and bump the level threes up to level two.
"However" should be removed if it doesn't change the meaning of a sentence.

Lead:

The lead doesn't reflect the body. "Merv, Nishapur, and Herat" is by far the largest section, but it gets very little attention in the lead.
To this point, only one sentence of the lead covers the actual events of the invasion: Tolui systematically besieged and captured them in turn, pillaging their wealth and executing their inhabitants. The invasion itself should be the main focus, with the background and other details supplementing it.
The article doesn't mention the Silk Road, and it gives much more attention to the mass killings than any pillaging that might have taken place.

Background:

This section should be refocused away from a detailed sequence of events and toward a broad overview of the lead up to this invasion. A lot of what's in there now can be summarized in a few sentences explaining the capture of northeastern cities and the rebellions.
Conversely, there's a lot of context missing, and the article assumes an in-depth prior understanding of the Mongol Empire's activities in the early 13th century. Looking at the first sentence of the body: During the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, which began in 1219, Tolui initially accompanied his father's army. It feels like I was dropped into the middle of the article. I don't know what the invasion is, who's doing the invading, what the significance of the Khwarazmian Empire is, who Tolui is, or who his father is.
and the cities which had earlier submitted to them in the Khorasan region had become bolder – Who was doing this when it says "the cities"? I assume it's "rebels" specifically? Something more descriptive than "had become bolder" might help too, so we understand that they were bolder in their resistance against the occupying Mongols or whatever it may be.
Genghis dispatched Tolui to Khorasan – Only Tolui? Were Jebe and Subutai involved with the invasion of Khorasan specifically?

Merv, Nishapur, and Herat:

This section is on the longer side. Not a huge issue, but if it's possible to split it in two or divide it with subsections, that would be good.
He marched westwards – Maybe "Tolui" marched or "The army" marched? Right now it's an ambiguous "he" which could refer to "historian Carl Sverdrup". Which would be very funny but probably isn't true.
Tolui came to the conclusion – Could we use something more concise like decided, determined, or judged?
Having been subjected to a general assault on the seventh day – This threw me off. Is it saying that Tolui launched an assault the next day? If so, that's what it should say.
and put to the sword – It should be clarified if this is a quote, and if not, then it should say something more direct.
Is there a way that more of Nishapur in 1220 can be summarized in "background" so the article can be more chronological?
who requested them to reads awkwardly to me.
reduce their walls – "Reduce" implies making them smaller but otherwise keeping them intact.
the now-deceased Muhammad II – This feels like we skipped over the actual death. Can we squeeze an "after Muhammed II's death" or "by this time Muhammad II had died and been succeeded by" somewhere in there?
immediately sought to agree surrender terms – Grammar
the killing of the khan's son-in-law had been – Maybe "the killing of the khan's son-in-law Toquchar had been" so it's easier to follow?

Historiography:

The death tolls traditionally attributed to Tolui's campaign in Khorasan are considered exaggerated by modern historians – I'm not sure if there's a better option for this, but I don't like that the reader is given a bunch of numbers throughout the article and then at the end they're told that the numbers probably aren't true.

References:

All sources appear to be reliable.
[4] Boyle 2007, pp. 311–314; Manz 2010, pp. 134–135. – Good. While this isn't a GA concern, the citations could be more precise. For example, the first sentence of this paragraph looks like it's entirely supported by p.312 and doesn't need the other pages.
[7] Boyle 2007, p. 313. – Good.
[12] Biran 2012, p. 60; Boyle 2007, pp. 310, 314; Jackson 2017, p. 80. – Good.
[17] Jackson 2017, p. 80. – Good. Out of curiosity, any reason why these specific four were chosen as examples?
[24] Biran 2012, pp. 64–65. – Good.