Talk:Spanish Civil War/Archive 2

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How you can help

Help!. My browser, or my web connection, or something, seems incapable of editing this massive article. Apparently the problem is not universal, because yesterday User:Amgine successfully restored it after my attempts at editing were doing nothing but damage.

Anyway, I've written up a copy-edited version of Spanish Civil War#Detailed chronology: 1936 at Talk:Spanish Civil War/Staged. It doesn't address all of the issues I mention above. It just improves the English and moves around a little material that was not in appropriate chronological sequence. If someone will stage that to the appropriate section of the article and let me know by replying here, I will go on to do the same for "Detailed chronology: 1937", etc.

Thanks in advance for the assistance-- Jmabel | Talk 01:14, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Done. TNX! -- Jmabel | Talk 02:02, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

A further related point

While La Cucaracha's research seems generally good, this incredibly detailed account lacks any citations beyond La Cucaracha's site. It would be very difficult to verify any particular detail in this account. There is a massive research project here for someone interested in providing appropriate citations for the claims made here. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:01, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Detailed chronology

Please note that the copyright issue discussed here re: material in this article has been resolved, it's OK to use the material. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:33, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Recent additions to the detailed chronology of the first few days of the war seem interesting, but overly minute for this article. I've copy edited them and removed a bit of redundancy, but could we perhaps cut down the content here and spin out another article detailing the first week or two of the rebellion? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:39, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

Similar comments about excessive detail for this article apply to the enormous amount added by User:Jugoslaven since my previous remark. Is someone else interested in copy editing? I really don't want to take on this particular massive job. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:24, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

I saw your review about my detailed chronology of Spanish civil war.Yesterday I finished 1936 and in several days I am going to write 1937, then 1938, then 1939.So it is not just about begining of war.I dont think there is need fr another article. (unsigned remark by User:Jugoslaven 26 Dec 04)

The thing is, though, the article is getting too big. We try to keep articles to no more than about 32KB. At some point, there is a danger of losing the forest for the trees.

I suspect that in this case we are going to want to spin out multiple articles and turn this into more of an article series, with the major points of broad interest being in the main article and more of a blow-by-blow in separate articles, maybe one for each year. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:26, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

U work for wikipedia?Who r wikipedia administrators?If wikipedians think that we need to seperate it from Spanish civil war then we should call it Chronology of Spanish civil war (User:Jugoslaven, unsigned)

No one "works for wikipedia". There are a few hundred administrators, I am one of them, but that has no bearing on the matter: this is an editorial decision, not an administrative decision. These decisions are made by an ongoing, loose, consensus approach which is a combination of official policy and precedent. What I'm suggesting draws on a combination of policy (desired length of articles) and precedent (we've usually approached detailed chronologies by breaking them out into shorter articles).

By the way, you are adding a lot of material, but not citing sources. From what I can tell, what you are adding is accurate, but do you have some sources to cite? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:11, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

How can someone became administrator?Is that work getting payed?Nobody citing sources. (unsigned, Jugoslaven again. Please sign with ~~~~: that's how the sigs get here.)

No one on wikipedia is paid. You nominate yourself (or someone nominates you) on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Admins are chosen from people who are generally considered experienced and trusted and to know their way around. The fact that you are asking what an administrator is, etc., means you are a long way from ready. Usually it's after at least a few months of active participation in a broad range of ways.

You are right that this article lacks good citations. That's one of the reasons it is considered a long way from Featured Article status. Nonetheless, most of what has previously been in here is a pretty general outline, relatively easy to confirm from any of a number of sources, and where many of us know from our general knowledge that it is pretty much on the mark. You are adding a level of detail that would be much more difficult to confirm, which is why I am asking for your sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

It looks to me like a lot of what User:Jugoslaven is adding comes from [1] or possibly some equivalent in another language. I haven't looked closely enough to see if this material raises copyright issues, I'd suggest that someone might want to look into it. In any event, if this is the source he/she is using, it should be acknowledged. And if it's not, they I would really like to know what source is being used. This is much more detail than anyone just happens to know off the top of their head. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:37, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I hate to do this, but I'm reverting these massive edits, because they seem to be copyvios. I'll also leave a note at WP:CP. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:57, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree. Looking through the changes on this revert, it does look like many of the earlier additions are copyvios from the source Jmabel suggests. Some changes have been made, but I can easily find many sentences and phrases that are the same word-for-word (easily verifiable given that they contain the same grammatical errors as the source). Since the source is largely a list of facts, it would be possible to use those facts in a newly written chronology without being a copyvio, but this hasn't been done. -- Solipsist 06:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this detailed chronology is mostly a copyvio. Which is a pity, because the external site seems to have very good material. Somebody wants to try e-mailing the owner of the external site and try asking for permission to re-publish their content under the GFDL? If not, this stuff has to go. A note about rewriting: agreed, but what about the selection of facts they made on the external site? Is that copyrightable? We would need to double-check that info anyway to make sure we'd present a complete chronology. Lupo 07:34, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is a small issue about selection of facts, but it's not like we haven't already done a lot of research elsewhere. I wouldn't use 100% of what they mention (as I was saying even before I discovered it was plagiarism, some of this is over-detailed for the purpose of this article), I'd certainly keep the explicit reference to their site, and I'd try to avoid copying their wordings on what I did use. In short, I'd use them the same way we normally use a source.

I think a lot of information from http://www.lacucaracha.info/scw/diary/ belongs in separate articles, not in this main article on the Spanish Civil War (and, again, with due citation of refrence). That would also solve some of the intellectual property issue about selection, since we would not be bringing it over in one big mass.

In any case, just by linking, we've now given our readers a way to find this very good source, which beats hell out of lifting pieces of it without saying where they are from. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Jugoslaven contacted me, said he has permission from lacucaracha.info to use this material. Given the above, where he wouldn't initially tell me where the material came from, I can't take that at face value; I've contacted them myself to verify. I'll post their reply here, and if it's a "yes", we can restore the material. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:04, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

OK, I finally heard from La Cucaracha. Yes, apparently it's fine for us to pull material from their site (although the webmaster warns us to be careful about taking photos: the rights may not be clear). Here is the email giving permission:

Date: Monday, January 10, 2005 03:08 pm

Subject: lacucaracha.info, Wikipedia

Hello,

my name is Tomas Capdevila, I'm the webmaster of 'lacucaracha.info'. I was asked by 'lukjacov@globalnet.hr' if he can copy text from the web site La Cucaracha The Spanish Civil War into the wikipedia and I agree.

I explicitly allow anyone to copy the text content on La Cucaracha The Spanish Civil War web site and reuse it, unchanged or changed, with or without mentioning the source, partially or as a whole,

with the exception of text being marked as belonging to another author (like quotations) or mirrored web pages.

Please notice that some of the photography's could be copyrighted in your country.

In effect that makes the own text content of the La Cucaracha we site not only copyleft-ed, but public domain.

Said that, I would be flattered if you would use content from the web site in the Wikipedia :-)

...

Thanks for your patience, salud,

Tomas Capdevila

webmaster@lacucaracha.info

So now it's just a matter of copy editing and whether we want to factor some of this out to additional articles. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:33, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Detailed chronology - 2

Now that the legalities are covered...

1. This is massive material. It tends to overwhelm the article, which is now bloated to three times the recommended size of a Wikipedia article. I think we need to summarize here and factor out to separate articles, maybe one for each year.
2. While clearly well researched, the material is quite POV in the selection of what it covers. I'm firmly on the side of the Republic -- one of the first things I ever learned to say in Spanish was "Sueño y una ametralladero y Franco se va paseo, -- but this Wikipedia articles are not the place for partisan polemic. A chronology this detailed should also include the anti-Catholic atrocities by anarchists and other supporters of the Republic. This doesn't.
3. The material is written in indifferent English. Right now, I'm engaged in a copy edit, which is being made difficult by the size of this article and the current miserable state of the servers.
   • Done, probably could be further improved. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:31, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
4. I do not think it is appropriate in Wikipedia to repeatedly refer to the Nationalists as "the Fascists". Would I call them that in my own writing outside Wikipedia? Sure. And someone on the Right would probably use different words than "Republicans", "legitimate government", etc. in his/her own writing. Here, I'd favor "Nationalists" or "Insurgents" almost everywhere that the article currently says "Fascists". Does anyone want to present an argument to the contrary?
   • Done, at least to my own satisfaction. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:31, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm trying to clean this all up. Suggestions are welcome. So is help. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for this -- it's not my main focus within Wikipedia, and I suspect that (for entirely good reasons) I may soon have a lot less time for Wikipedia than I've lately had. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:25, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I just came here following links and had the same thought. Breaking up by years might not be the best way, perhaps by campaigns, but any split is better than nothing. Put one short section for each page of separate material. Warsaw Uprising shows an example of the benefits of splitting. Mozzerati 23:07, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

Well, OK, but that would be about 10 times as much work. Are you willing to do it? -- Jmabel | Talk 18:12, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

well, I'm prepared to break this article up. I have extremely limited knowledge about the article, but my past experience shows that this still helps. If I do it wrong, it can later be fixed more easily. However, I'd really appreciate if someone who does know could point out some important break points.

• at what point did Franco stop being seriously threatened?
• at what point did Franco start to look like he was winning?
• were there any key points which started the human rights abuses?
• what other turning points where there?

Also, the issue of POV slant needs a lot of work, probably by someone on the political right (because the current dominant POV is clearly pretty far left. For example, one of the few cases in which Nationalists systematically killed nuns is mentioned while the far greater violence against nuns and priests by anarchists and Republicans is not detailed. I am opposed to sweeping inconvenient facts under the carpet, but it's not material I know enough about to make the appropriate additions. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:12, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

right now the article is too long and broad. By having more focused articles, POV and missing points will become clearer. This will allow others who know about specific topics to make fixes. Thus, if we have an article on "Massacres of civilians during the Spanish civil war", any missing massacre will be more obvious. My plan for now, merely moving the cronology out to a few separate articles, will make the topics of the main article more easy to identify... Oh, and finally the guy underneath asking for help might be able to edit and fix everything :-) Mozzerati 20:45, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Great, if you want to take primary responsibility for breaking it up, I'm all for that. Feel free to ask for my help where I might be useful, and I'll probably keep doing some polishing on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:22, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

So, nobody has commented on my questions about the break, so on the principle of be bold we just read through the Cronology and make a proposal. The Cronology is about 70k, further it's still to be completed at the end. Thus I propose breaking into three separate pages. Basically, the lead up to the war, the outbreak and everything up to August 1st, the point where the non-intervention committee is formed. Next, everything from there until just before the Start of the Battle of Teruel. and finally from the Battle of Teruel, where republican spain is split in two until the end. This will leave a bit of room for expansion, especially in the last section which doesn't seem to be complete yet. Any comments??Mozzerati 10:21, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

No real objection, but your first one is going to be pretty tiny, and your second one is going to be enormous. The third is basically still to be filled in. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:52, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, but my thinking is that the middle one can be split again later, that many cronologies actually start before the war, so the first one will probably be extended back in time, and that this already should make three pages each < 32k. Mozzerati 07:26, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

Okay, I've now done it, but with a more normal year by year split; I decided that this makes reasonable sense. Still the middle page is >32k, but since it's a kind of list that's more okay than for a normal page. I also made a navigation box which can be extended as more articles get split off. Mozzerati 22:20, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)

"Attributions"

Does anyone have any idea what is mean by "...restricts the attributions of war commissars..." in the entry for April 16, 1937? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:50, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

"...in the night to..."

Can anyone decipher "in the night to the 19th of June" (entry for June 17, 1937). -- Jmabel | Talk 20:45, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

SIM

I find the August 15, 1937 entry confusing. I edited it for grammar, but it's still unclear. As it stands it says, in part "SIM created; political meetings in Barcelona forbidden. The SIM (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar) gives back the control of secret police activities to the government, rather than it being in the hands of Soviet and Communist intelligence organizations..."

Was it just in Catalonia, or was it national, throughout the Republican Zone? If the former, who created SIM, the central government or the Catalan government? Was it not, itself, communist-controlled, and if not, just what were its politics? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:55, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Narrative peters out

After September 22, 1937, this very detailed narrative peters out to something like what was there a few months ago. This reinforces my intent to prune this down on this page and move the detail elsewhere. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:13, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

VI Brigade of Navarre

The entry for September 22, 1937 is unclear: "The VI Brigade of Navarre overruns Peñas Blancas." On which side was the VI Brigade of Navarre? I'm guessing Nationalist, but it should say. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:13, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Is this one of the same brigades referred to October 10, 1937 as the "The Navarrese Brigades"?

- That is true, the 6th brigade of Navarre was in the National side, as were the rest of the Navarrese brigades.-Joe, Spain (30 Aug 2005)

"communist synchronizing"

What, if anything, does "communist synchronizing" mean in the newly added entry for October 1, 1937: "Caballero is traveling the country holding lectures against communist synchronizing and Stalinism." -- Jmabel | Talk 17:47, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Nationalist and Republican articles

It seems WP does not have individual articles for the two sides. Don't these deserve articles of their own, beyond the generic Republican (which gives a single sentence mention) and Nationalist articles we currently have? Seems like a big oversight. -R. fiend 21:09, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:29, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

Margaritas

Is it true that the Carlist Margaritas are named after Marguerite of Navarre? She looks too transigent with Protestants and she would only be an ancestor through the French Bourbon side. --Error 23:24, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

-The carlist Margaritas are not named after Marguerite of Navarre but after Margarita de Borbón-Parma, wife of the carlist king Carlos VII, who, in the 3rd carlist war, organiced and promoted the medical assistance on the carlist side.-Joe, Spain (30 Aug 2005)

Lead section

This section spared from archiving 06:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC), because it has had activity in the last month.

The lead section as it stands is simply too long—I don't see anyone really addressing this, so I will here. Wikipedia:Lead section advises no more than two or three paragraphs; let's cut out some of the less important parts of the lead and come to a consensus on what it should look like here.

Some of the information currently presented in the lead do not, in my view, provide "a definition or clear description of the subject at hand," as the policy page suggests. In particular, some of the discussion in the first paragraph is badly placed, since the reader (we presume) knows nothing about the subject yet. I have now replaced the lead with the following (please leave your comments on this, as I think it could be factored down even more):

The Spanish Civil War (July 1936–April 1939) was a conflict between incumbent Spanish Republicans and emergent Spanish fascists in which General Francisco Franco succeeded in overthrowing the Republican government and establishing a dictatorship, the result of the complex political and even cultural differences between what Machado famously characterized as the two Spains. "Red" Spain represented liberals and moderates, who subscribed to democratic principles, as well as those advocating communist or anarchist revolution. "Black" Spain represented the landed elite, the urban bourgeoisie, the Roman Catholic Church and conservative sectors. These two factions had become increasingly radicalised during the Second Spanish Republic (1934–1939). The Republicans had a primarily urban, largely secular power base, while some other, more rural regions, also supported them. Particularly strong support for the Repubilcans came from Madrid, Catalonia and the somewhat conservative Roman Catholic Basque Country, partly because these regions were granted a strong autonomy during the Second Republic. The ultimately successful Nationalists, led by Franco, had a primarily rural, religious and conservative power base in favor of the centralization of power. The military tactics of the war foreshadowed many of the actions of World War II.

While the war only lasted about three years, the political situation had already been violent for several years before. The number of casualties is disputed; estimates generally suggest that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed. Many of these deaths, however, were results not of military fighting but the outcome of brutal mass executions perpetrated by both sides. In the wake of the war, Franco's regime initiated a thorough cleansing of Spanish society of anything "red" or related to the Second Republic, including trade unions and political parties. Archives were seized, house searches were carried out, and unwanted individuals were often jailed or sent into exile. Many were either killed or forced into exile; thousands of priests and religious people (including several bishops) were killed; the more military-inclined often found fame and fortune.

Following the war, the Spanish economy needed decades to recover (see Spanish miracle). The political and emotional repercussions of the war reverberated far beyond the boundaries of Spain and sparked passion among international intellectual and political communities. Republican sympathizers proclaimed it as a struggle between "tyranny and democracy", or "fascism and liberty", and many idealistic youths of the 1930s who joined the International Brigades thought saving the Spanish Republic was the idealistic cause of the era. Franco's supporters, however, viewed it as a battle between the "red hordes" (of communism and anarchism) and "civilization". But these dichotomies were inevitably oversimplifications: both sides had varied, and often conflicting, ideologies within their ranks.

(unsigned comment by User:DanielNuyu 17 Apr 2005)

The two spains bit seems awkward. -A

I've attempted to make the lead more approachable by cutting it to one sentence, without deleting any content. Hope it improves things. Notinasnaid 08:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I won't dispute that the previous lead needed some judicious trimming, but I think we've gone a bit too far by leaving just a single sentence. I know you didn't remove any material (just added section headings), but, still, a war of this complexity and importance being discussed in an article of this length needs a more detailed lead. Right now, the structure is out of balance. Let's see if we can find a workable middle-ground. Dasondas 08:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Good to see some debate on the subject. I do not intend to write any content, but I too feel that the remaining lead is too short. HOWEVER, I don't think that moving stuff back from below the new subhead is the answer, because this goes into huge (and important) detail about the two sides. What I would expect to see in the lead is a sentence about its historical context, a sentence about its lasting effect, and a sentence about the controversy of its conduct. A note on casualties (I don't feel that infoboxes should supplant content). If merited, a sentence about the unusual nature of the international response. All, of course, simply precis of what follows rather than any new content (yes I realise that a precis of such a subject is not a trivial task). Reference to Wikipedia:Lead section may be useful in settling disputes. Above all " The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, should be written in a clear and accessible style, [should be carefully sourced like the rest of the text,] and should encourage the reader to read more." It certainly wasn't that, and didn't do that. Notinasnaid 08:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. As of this post I haven't thoroughly scrubbed the stuff below the sub-header to say that **none** of it could me moved back up, but your points are very well taken and there is no doubt that important summary information about historical context and long-range effects (both within Spain and internationally) were sorely lacking from the lead. Dasondas 12:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A Coruña

I notice that A Coruña was removed without comment from the list of cities that fell July 17, 1936. Can someone please explain? I, for one, don't know the history down to this leel of detail, and cannot tell whether this is a correction or not. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:14, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

"League of Nations Non Intervention Committee"

the League of Nations and the Non Intervention Committee were two seperate entities. That people looked to London and not Geneva for resolution has been described as another point on the "roll call of the leagues failures" - (Mazower,Dark Continent). Mark (User:Mark~ 19 June 2005)

British government's opinion

The British recognition of franco's regieme would have been far from 'reluctant'. As noted in The Times house of commons review Friday July 31st 1936, the government was in support of the rebels; however the republics undisputable position as the democratically elected representatives of spain prompted the PR smokescreen of "Non-Intervention". There is also evidence to suggest significant clandestine British intervention on the side of Franco. They were probably only too glad to see the republic (which they saw as a Spanish 'Kerensky') fall, and with it the risk of losing the £40,000,000 of British investment in Spain. Mark (User:Mark~ 19 June 2005)

minor edit 'The war: 1938'

I didn't like the wording of the second sentence under the heading 'The war: 1938' (excluding the note & link for more detailed chronology), so I changed it. Just a minor nitpick.

It used to read: "The city belongs at the beginning to the Republican part, then in January the Nationalists conquered Teruel."

My edit reads: "The city belonged to the Republicans at the beginning of the battle, but the Nationalists conquered it in January."