Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Army of the Rhine and Moselle/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:44, 29 August 2018 [1].

Army of the Rhine and Moselle

Nominator(s): auntieruth (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about...the French army engaged in the Rhine Campaign of 1796 (also a Featured article) against the Holy Roman Empire. The other army, Army of the Sambre and Meuse just cleared through the FA process last week. In addition, several of the primary battles have gone through the FA process. auntieruth (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1

Prose in the lead:

"By this time, ..." – for readers like me who know nothing of the topic, this time phrase is a bit vague. Do you mean by the late 18th century? Or by the time these two principle campaigns were being prosecuted?
Time, again: "The unsuccessful 1795 campaign". You've told us about the 1795 and 1797 mergers at the top; but now I'm confused.
"pushed", not "push". Surely?
exp ... exc ... . Not sure what you mean by excruciating command problems. Who was in pain?
"in campaign failures of 1795" – "the"?
"After a summer of maneuver" – I've never seen this as a conglomerative singular. Why not plural? or "maneuvering"? Or just get rid of "of maneuver"?
This is one sentence? "After a summer of maneuver in which the Coalition force drew the French deeper and deeper into German territory, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, the Habsburg commander, drubbed the French at Wurzburg and second Wetzlar and then defeated Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's army at the Limburg-Altenkirchen, destroying any chance that Jourdan's force and Moreau's Army of the Rhine and Moselle could merge." I don't get "and second Wetzlar". Split sentence there, anyway. "forceS" more idiomatic? Phew, it's very dense, complicated, opaque. It's not easy reading about such intricate interactions in the lead: where's my helicopter view? Can the lead be a little more like a summary, with less of this detail?
"was eliminated from support" – what does it mean?
"The Army of the Rhine and Moselle had served an important function, though." – Not thrilled with the final-position "though" (afterthought). And I have to squint to see why you're turning a "corner" here.

Spot-check:

"By 1792 the armies of the French Republic were in a state of disruption; experienced soldiers of the Ancien Régime fought side by side with raw volunteers. Troops experienced in military life knew how to stay alive; they knew how to march, deploy, take orders, give orders, all the necessities of military discipline." – To avoid repetition, could the first "experienced" be "professional"? The second sentence, I guess refers back to them. To me, it's a statement of the obvious. Professionals and raw volunteers = chaos, frustration. You don't need to spell it out. knew ... knew.
"On the raw recruits, urged on by revolutionary fervor from the special representatives, agents of the legislature sent to insure cooperation among the military, lacked the discipline and training to function efficiently and cohesively;" – I have no idea what this sentence means. On? who are the "special reps"? cooperation among the military ... does that mean between professionals and volunteers? It's all so complex and opaque.

CHECKLIST

Quality of prose throughout (1a): Serious problems with dense, opaque writing, too much knowledge assumed of readers. A very difficult read. Faulty grammar.
High-quality, reliable sources used appropriately (1c): Didn't review
Citations consistently formatted (2c): Didn't review
Images/media copyright and policy compliance (3): Didn't review
Comprehensive, appropriate length, neutral (1b, 4, 1d): Length and lead's function ... needs a good audit. Unsure about the huge amount of detail sequestered into a table (with rather small font-size).
Follows style guidelines (2): No issues yet.

So, I'm sorry to say that my feeling at this stage is Withdraw, rework, and resubmit. It's a great topic, but the article needs a lot of unravelling and recasting. I think it should be done in collaboration, since it's very easy to get too close to the "woods", so to speak, given the complexities. If fixed, it should have an easier passage through the FA process. Tony (talk) 12:02, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1, Questions: I can make the detail in the table in a bigger font (have done so), but the other editors I worked with liked the detail in the tables, rather than creating separate paragraphs for the progression of the French across Germany and back again. See also Army of the Sambre and Meuse. It worked well there. Also, I added some text on the army in context of the French Revolutionary Wars. Clarified Representative on mission. I keep doing that, and it disappears ...Would you prefer the Order of Battle in its own list? auntieruth (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: As per the FAC instructions, nominations can be archived if "a nomination is unprepared, after at least one reviewer has suggested it be withdrawn". As Tony1 has recommended withdrawal, I will be archiving this shortly. Some of the discussion on WT:FAC suggests that this is a slightly experimental "suggest withdrawal", but no-one seems to have taken issue with it either on WT:FAC or here. I would recommend working on this article away from FAC and it can be renominated after the usual 2 week waiting period. If Tony could be persuaded to take a further look, it would be of enormous benefit to the article. Sarastro (talk) 20:44, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro (talk) 20:44, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.