Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/First French Empire/archive1

First French Empire

Partly self-nom, as I've done various bits of work on this, over time. — OwenBlacker 02:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object. Lacks inline citations and references. I would not register the writing as "brilliant prose" and it could be referred to peer review as well. Remember to check the what is a featured article guidelines before submitting an article to FAC. —Eternal Equinox | talk 02:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly object, as the current article has massive POV and stylistic issues (stemming, I suspect, from the almost unaltered sections of text from the 1911). A selection of some of the more flagrant examples:
- "But Napoleon little knew the flame he was kindling. No more far-seeing than the Directory or the men of the year III, he thought that, with energy and execution, he might succeed in the Peninsula as he had succeeded in Italy in 1796 and 1797, in Egypt and in Hesse, and that he might cut into Spanish granite as into Italian mosaic or 'that big cake, Germany'."
- "Napoleon's formidable material power could not stand against the moral force of the pope, now a prisoner at Fontainebleau; and this he did not realise."
- "Napoleon himself was no longer the 'General Bonaparte' of his campaign in Italy. He was already showing signs of physical decay; the Roman medallion profile had coarsened, the obese body was often lymphatic. Mental degeneration, too, betrayed itself in an unwonted irresolution."
- "At Eylau, at Wagram, and later at Waterloo, his method of acting by enormous masses of infantry, artillery and cavalry, in a mad passion for conquest, and his misuse of his military resources, were all signs of his moral and technical decline"
- "Napoleon had hardly succeeded in putting down the revolt in Germany when the tsar of Russia himself headed a European insurrection against the ruinous tyranny of the continental blockade"
- "Napoleon made a desperate effort in 1812 against a country as invincible as Russia"

Frankly, this article needs to be completely rewritten, using somewhat more varied and modern sources. —Kirill Lok s hin 02:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]