Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2018/Op-ed

A thought

Reading the oped, it occurs to me that these articles might be shared more broadly. They are well researched and well written. They should (IMHO) be shared with a wider audience - such as a"see also". They may not meet with the equirements of an article page, but there is nothing that says we cannot share these more broadly? Cinderella157 (talk) 13:33, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was a proposal for an online academic journal. I cannot find the correspondence on it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:45, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Well written and extremely interesting article.Herodotus (talk) 17:43, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7, A journal is an interesting concept, particularly if certain articles could be promoted to sufficient standard to be considered a "reliable source". You may recall the interesting inconsistency I uncovered in respect to air lifts of reinforcements for the Battle of Kokoda. I have also found that the Maroubra Force article is based on a misconception and that its use (references to it) at points through the campaign in sources (to quote AR) is "enigmatic". My hypothesis is that Paull and McCarthy used it as a literary device and from this, it has come to "mythical" status. In fact though, Maroubra was simply a codeword assigned to the initial operation for defence of Kokoda and, as the campaign evolved (right to the end - back to Oivi-Gorari) it was used to designate the "force" at the pointy end. It was not an "ad-hoc" force in the sense of other forces of the time (say Kanga Force) which were an ad-hoc command. Maroubra always operated under an establishment command, albeit with ats and dets. I have the evidence and would certainly be interested in a real-world collaboration. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:21, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to collaborate! My own experience with researching the campaign is that the paperwork - both US and Australian - was terrible - as bad as Gallipoli. I was not surprised to find inconsistencies. I did not know about Maroubra Force. Viewed through that lens, it makes more sense. I found the correspondence on the online WikiJournal of Humanities. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:24, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting piece, though I think the title doesn't quite gel with the content. A few random observations:

In para 3, it's true that the New Zealand division wasn't reduced to nine battalions, but it was reduced due to the lack of manpower. In early 1917, New Zealand abandoned their attempt to form a second infantry division, and attached the 4th Brigade (3/Auckland, 3/Wellington, 3/Canterbury, 3/Otago) to the NZ Div. Unable to replaces its losses at Messines and Passchendaele, in early 1918, 4th brigade was broken up and its men distributed to their "parent" units in 1st and 2nd Brigades.
Similarly, the 5th Canadian and 6th Australian Divisions were broken up as a result of the fighting at Third Ypres. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In para 5, some text seems to have been scrubbed "...front, a quarter of the British...?... BEF 303,000 men...".
Deleted this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The statement concerning the Australians holding the entire Fourth Army front is correct, but perhaps misleading - those four divisions were the front line, but there were two British divisions in Corps reserve and two more under III Corps in GHQ reserve parked behind Fourth Army. So they weren't holding it alone. And, assuming the truncated sentence was intended to say that they were holding a quarter of the line, that is definitely wrong. Fourth Army's front was very much shorter at this time than the other three British Armies.
We don't normally count divisions in reserve as "holding the line". Nor was it normal for a corps to hold an entire army front. Usually, two or three corps would do so, with two divisions in the line and two in reserve. Do you have any figures for the lengths of the other army fronts? I would expect all to be held in roughly the same density. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough - I was just observing that there wasn't that much difference between the actual arrangement and the 2 x (2 in line, 2 in res) you mention, and when III Corps was reinserted north of the Somme (not sure of the date, but perhaps late May?), that was the arrangement (sometimes 3 in line, 1 reserve).

Lengths of fronts are tricky because army boundaries changed over time, and my map sources are imperfect, but after 2nd Villers-Bretonneux (which is when the four Divs held the whole Army front line), and using Eyeball, Mk I, roughly - Second + D.A.N. held 28 km with 13 divs (4 French), First held 46 km with 12, Third held 34 km with 10 and Fourth held about 19 with 4. Density in km/division - 2.1, 3.8, 3.4, 4.8. Fourth Army/Australian Corps were holding the most, but if they'd been holding a quarter of the front, which is what I assumed that broken bit in para 5 was suggesting, they would have had to cover 32 kms, not the 19 they were. BTW, the high density in Second Army (with Détachement d'Armée du Nord) is because Georgette had only just finished.FrankDynan (talk) 15:56, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Nine divisions were written off" - Nine divisions spent some time reduced to cadres, but that isn't the same as being "written off". Of those nine, eight were rebuilt, with an average time out of action of 3.5 - 4 months. That's not much longer than the typical timeframe to refit any division that's seen such heavy action. Only one - the 39th - can be considered to have been written off.
That was the term that Haig used in his despatches. Added "temporarily". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Haig said that? Odd way to put it - I must look that up for context. The official history (1918, Vol III, p.5) has details of the "reductions", and Becke's official OOB's (Vols 2 & 3) has the full details of the reduction and the rebuilding for each division.FrankDynan (talk) 15:56, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

cheers! FrankDynan (talk) 15:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]