Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of the Gebora

Battle of the Gebora

The third of my Peninsular War campaign. This one was a bid to reduce some of the content from the Albuera article, but it was a bad choice; the new article doesn't really allow me to cut much from the latter's content. However, it turned out to be a pretty good article, albeit fairly short, in my opinion. I have it nominated for GA at the moment, even though it's brand new and barely out of its wrappings, but my past peer reviews here have always been helpful so here's hoping for further constructive advice.

By the way, could someone also check out the, to me, rather strange "start class" rating it's been given; I can't see anything substantive missing from the account that would prevent at least B class, and indeed I'm even slightly tempted to try for A class or FA on this one! Carre 20:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Will be archiving this in a few days, I think, but will be bringing the article to A-class review shortly after, so plenty of time for comments :) Thanks. Carre 14:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68

Great article! A few issues:

Needs a picture in the infobox.

Yup, agree completely. Unfortunately, this battle was so minor there aren't any nice fantastical artistic portrayals available to me, which leaves me pretty much with the images already used. I'm hesitant to use any of the portraits, for fear of drawing POV complaints, and I don't want to move the map up there; I'm open to suggestions.

A little more background is needed. Why were these two forces at war with each other in the first place? A short paragraph on the cause of the war would allow the article to stand on its own without forcing readers to go to another article to obtain all of the background.

This one surprises me, to an extent; this is the Peninsular War, and indeed I was anticipating criticisms that the background section was too long! The lead needs extending, I feel, so that may address your concern, but asking for "a short paragraph on the cause of the war", for the Peninsular War, seems odd. That war lasted something like seven or eight years, the causes are complex, and this particular battle fell in the middle of the whole. Kirill suggested, in his review of the Battle of Albuera, that an overall article covering Soult's campaign in Extremadura would help that article, this one, and probably others that I intend to write in the forthcoming months. I agree with his suggestion, but the task is a huge one (I anticipate 100k+ prose) and so I haven't tried to start such an article.

[Edit] I should also here admit to a bit of an embarrassment; in writing the article, I totally ignored the lead, with the intention of going back to write it properly once the main prose was finished. When I posted the text, however, I had forgotten to do the lead, and so the second para of the lead was a 5-second hack...it certainly needs sorting! Carre 21:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link to the article in the campaignbox doesn't appear to be functioning correctly.

Haven't checked; in the article itself, the campaignbox should show black text (no link) for this article, whereas in related articles the wikilink should work.

A short paragraph at the end of the article on how the battle affected the entire rest of the campaign would help tie it to "the big picture" of the entire war/campaign.

An excellent point; I am considering extending the last "paragraph" (it's currently little more than just a sentence) to indicate that Mendizabal's disgraceful actions led directly to the 2nd Badajoz siege and the Battle of Albuera.

All in all, a well-detailed and informative article. Cla68 20:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have now expanded the consequences section to pull in 2nd Badajoz, Albuera and 3rd Badajoz. Is that better, or would you like to see more? Thanks for the review, btw. Carre 11:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the late response, I forgot to add this review to my watchlist...I think the article is looking much better now. One thing though, I don't agree with you that background on the peninsular war is unnecessary or too difficult to add to the beginning of the background section in a concise manner. A sentence that says something like, "At the turn of the 19th century, France and many of the other countries of western Europe were at war with each other for a myriad of reasons, the most significant being ____________________(whatever they were). As part of this war, French armies were campaigning in the Iberian Peninsula with the overall goal of ______________ (whatever it was)." And there you would have your short background that explains why the overall war was occuring in the first place. I myself don't know much about European history, and know almost nothing about the Peninsular War, so when I read the article I quickly realized that I had no idea why these armies were fighting each other in the first place. Otherwise, the article is looking great. Cla68 20:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Cla68. We may have to agree to disagree on this one, but I shall give it some thought. The British involvement in the Peninsular War is probably pretty easy to explain briefly, but as any Spaniard would tell you, Britain vs France was really quite a small part of that conflict. I may be able to come up with something regarding the Continental Blockade, which was the primary cause of the whole lot – it led to the invasion of Portugal by Franco-Spanish (the two were allies at the start) forces, which in turn led to both Portuguese and Spanish uprisings against the occupying French, and Britain coming in to defend her interests in Iberia. Heh - indeed, it looks like I've just done what you wanted! Although a reader would still need to click on Continental Blockade to see what that meant, just as they can now click on Peninsular War to read the full details.

I'd be very interested in hearing other opinions on this, before deciding where to go. Cla68 has a reasonable point, but I worry about the relevance of the causes of a war in an article on a battle set three years after the start of that war. I certainly didn't do this in Battle of Barrosa, an FA; do, to pick other long-term wars, articles on later battles in the First or Second World Wars address the causes of the wars? Carre 21:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend against putting too much detail here, actually. While a battle article needs to establish context, I think it ought to do so by focusing on the preceding narrative of the war rather than going off on a tangent about the underlying causes. Of the two sentences suggested by Cla68, I'd drop the first one; some in media res variation on the second (e.g. "In late 1810, the war in Spain...") should be sufficient. Kirill 22:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kirill; the current first para or two of Background takes it all back to 1810 and the Lines of Torres Vedras, the immediate causes of Soult being at Badajoz in the first place. I think this is what you're getting at - perhaps you could have a quick glance and see if you agree? Thanks. Carre 22:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the first sentence ("Following the victory at the Battle of Bussaco, Sir Arthur Wellesley, Viscount of Wellington was forced, by Marshal Masséna's manoeuvring, to retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras") could use some more detail; it makes too many assumptions about the reader knowing dates and places. Off the top of my head, something more explicit, like:

Having defeated the French at the Battle of Bussaco in September 1810, the Allied army under Sir Arthur Wellesley had been forced to retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras by Masséna's manoeuvres.

may be clearer. Kirill 22:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[undent]Yes, that's a good idea. This one hasn't been copy-edited yet, but Battle of Albuera, another of mine, is currently undergoing a CE, and I can steal and edit the first few paragraphs from that one. That's where these few came from originally, but they've since been improved under the copy-edit process, so probably time to re-steal. The new version at Albuera has the explicit dates in it. Carre 22:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First couple of paras in Background now updated. Carre 10:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]