Talk:Siege of Bukhara

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 11:57, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Genghis Khan declared himself to be 'the punishment of God' after capturing the city of Bukhara in 1220? Source:
  • ALT1: ... that Genghis Khan's army traversed the 300-mile-wide Kyzylkum Desert to lay siege to Bukhara in 1220? Source:
  • Comment: my first DYK nomination.

Created by AirshipJungleman29 (talk). Self-nominated at 20:54, 3 February 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: Article is new enough, long and well sourced. Both hooks are interesting (but the first hook is really metal imo), AGF on offline source. No copyvio and qpq not need for a first time nom. I think this one's ready! BuySomeApples (talk) 21:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC) ALT0 to T:DYK/P6

References

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Siege of Bukhara/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Catlemur (talk · contribs) 21:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I will begin this review shortly.--Catlemur (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

• "Muhammad II became Khwarazmshah after his father Tekish died in 1200.", "Yelü Zhilugu with Muhammed's help" - Is it Muhammad or Muhammed?
  • Changed to consistent Muhammad

• "relations between the Mongols and the Khwarazminds were initially strong; however, the Shah soon grew apprehensive regarding his new eastern enemy." - How can you grow apprehensive towards someone who is already your enemy? Did you mean neighbor?
  • yes I did, changed.

• "almost terrified the Shah." - Reword this.
  • done

• "descended on Khwarazm with all the Mongol might" - This sentence also needs to be reworded since it sounds like pro-Mongolian POV.
  • done

• "Bukhara was one of the jewels of the Islamic world" - MOS:PEACOCK
  • changed to sourced quote. Added note.

• "the iconic Kalyan minaret. Its inhabitants boasted of the Ark of Bukhara, the great fortress" - MOS:PEACOCK
  • deleted puffery

• "The opulence of the city was such that the 10th-century Samanid Mausoleum, today recognised as an iconic example of early Islamic architecture, was dismissed and allowed to be competely covered in mud and silt." - MOS:PEACOCK, competely → completely. What is the meaning of dismissed in this context?
  • Dismissed: "treat as unworthy of serious consideration." Other words changed.

• The quote that follows is also superfluous. Please highlight the city's cultural importance in a more neutral manner.
  • deleted quote, as it was indeed superfluous.

• Ref 18 is 57 pages long. The jist of the issue is probably contained in 5-10 pages max.
  • done

• Move the wikilink for Merv to first mention, wikilink Nishapur and Taoist. Urgench is linked too many times.
  • corrected all

• theatre → theater. The English variant needs to be consistent across the article.
  • I am writing, or should be, in British English, hence theatre and manoeuvre. Is there anything else I need to change?

• 300 miles - Use the convert template to convert to km.
  • done

• "to the fact that Bukhara was a very recent Khwarazmian conflict" - Do you mean recently conquered?
  • meant conquest, corrected

• "In any case," - MOS:EDITORIAL
  • deleted

• For books cited we need an ISBN or an OCLC when available, likewise for peer reviewed journals we need a doi and a url to a website where it can read when available. We don't need both ISBN and OCLC like in ref 11.
  • included where possible

• Note b says that the lowest estimate for the defenders is 2,000 men, yet the infobox says 5,000. Same goes for the Mongolian numbers in note a. Make sure to put (modern estimates) in the infobox after the numbers.--Catlemur (talk) 21:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
  • corrected defenders numbers. 200,000 in note a is for the total invasion force, not for that at Bukhara. Have added additional clarifications AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:09, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• "the Khwarazmids were better placed to take advantage of the chaos" -Why would a seemingly weaker state be better suited to exploit the situation?
  • explained

• "Tekish then threatened war with the Caliph, who reluctantly accepted him as Sultan of Iran and Khorasan in 1198." - Same question, why was the Caliph afraid of the Khwarazmids? A 1-2 sentence explanation would suffice.
  • clarified and added reference

• "The 10th-century Samanid Mausoleum, today recognised as an iconic example of early Islamic architecture, was dismissed and allowed to be completely covered in mud and silt." - I think this sentence goes into unnecessary detail, it can be removed.
  • removed; moved reference to image

• "is considered exaggeration by modern historians" → "is considered an exaggeration by modern historians"
  • done

• Remove the second wikilink for Otrar and Jebe.
  • done

• "between thirty and fifty thousand men" → "between 30,000 and 50,000 men" (for the sake of consistency)
  • done

• Zeravshan river - Capitalize river
  • changed

• "previously thought impassable by a major force" - So how did they do it?
  • added sentence

• "did not serve as a death-knell" - needs to be replaced per MOS:IDIOM
  • rewrote

• "center of trans-Asian trade" → centre (since you are going for British Engvar)
  • done, also others corrected

• Add a couple of sentences about how the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire proceeded after the fall of Bukhara.
  • done

• File:Genghis Khan's Middle Eastern campaigns 1216-1224.jpg - Provide a source on Commons that confirms the accuracy of the map.
  • done, I think?

• The fact that the Magok-i-Attari Mosque survived the siege is only mentioned in the image caption, hence it needs to be referenced.
  • added source

• Remove the categories Khwarazmian Empire and Military history of Uzbekistan and instead add Battles involving the Mongol Empire and Battles involving the Khwarazmian dynasty.--Catlemur (talk) 19:53, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
  • doneAirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

• The lede says "All who had fought against the Mongols were executed", while the main body of the article says "all inside the citadel were massacred". This is an inconsistency.
  • clarified I think

• "a Mongol force of around 35,000 managed to traverse" - Its better to give a range of modern estimates than a concrete number in this case.
  • done

• "usurped him as Sultan" - Reword. Usurping a person sounds odd.
  • changed

• Ref 9 has no page number.
  • added

• Ref 28 has no page number. Replace if possible (optional) with a more reliable source as well.
  • searched extensively, there are only sources of about the same level of reliability; have added page

• Wikilink Caspian Sea.
  • done

• "to assassinate a Bukharan daruyaci" - Italics for daruyaci
  • done

• Some refs mention p. or pp. before the pages cited while others do not. They need to follow a consistent pattern.--Catlemur (talk) 19:37, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
  • unsure what precisely you mean; have made alterations to Golden, Jackson and Sverdrup sources, hope that works? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:19, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

I meant cases like refs 9,19,31,32,33 which have a p. or pp. in front of their page numbers, while refs 4, 11 and 16 don't.

• • I don't think the cite journal template ever produces a p. or pp., it just says the page numbers, which is why you don't get them with refs 4 and 25, for example. Have corrected the others.

• Buniyatov, Z. M. (2015) Gosudarstvo Khorezmshakhov-Anushteginidov: 1097-1231→ Государство Хорезмшахов-Ануштегинидов: 1097-1231 (Looks like transliterated Russian, if that's really the case its better to provide the original title). Same for Emin, Leon (1989). Musul'mane v SSSR → Мусульмане в СССР.
  • done, thanks for providing the reverse transliterations

• Ref 7 has no page number.--Catlemur (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
  • added

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) 20:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments

• Please trim the Background to a couple of sections or even less. Most of it is absolutely irrelevant to the topic.

• Will do that soon. Done

• Pop-histories from Da Capo Press, Fall River Press etc. are better not used.

• Lonely Planet is a no-go territory.
• greatest manoeuvres in history - Exaggeration.

• Will try and find better sources.  Done
• The Da Capo book has been republished by Hachette, however. As for the quote, I don't think so. Martin has it as "one of the masterstrokes of war"; McLynn has "one of the greatest exploits in all military history ... a strategist of genius"; Sverdrup quotes Liddell Hart ("Rarely, if ever, in the history of the world has the principle of surprise been so dramatically or completely fulfilled" and compares the campaign as a whole to Napoleon's Ulm/Jena exploits.

• As far as I see, Rossabi has nothing on our subject. The connection is tortuous and derives from orig. research.

• How so? He explicitly provides a number cap of 200,000. Done — other citation link deleted

• Stubbs is a freelancer who has a keen interest in history and there does not exist any reason to use such questionable sources.

• Sources extinguished.  Done

• they had also guaranteed certain surprise through the use of scouting screens - No. This is an explicit speculation by Martin.

• Good point, should I cut that completely or explicitly say 'speculated'?  Done in any case

• one historian has suggested - How is this work from about a hundred and twenty five years ago DUE? Histories of that era is littered with errors of omission and commission.

• What does DUE mean?
• Most historians consider this unlikely - There is nil evidence that other historians have found Barthold's hypothesis worthy of a rebut.\

• Sverdrup rebuts at p.153 The Mongol Conquests; I found the initial rebut somewhere else, so that's at least two historians.

• More later. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:57, 19 February 2022 (UTC)