Talk:Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland

Merger Proposal

I propose that the article Expedition to Holland be merged into this article, because it covers the same subject. The name of that article has been changed a number of times but always apparently in a way that does not conform to common uses in English-language historiography. "Expedition of 1799" and "Expedition to Holland" are far too vague. The monikers commonly used are "Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland" and "Anglo-Russian Expedition to Holland" and in older cases also the "Helder Expedition". For that reason, when I was asked to hive off the section "Anglo-Russian Expedition to Holland" in Batavian Republic in the course of qualification for GA-satus, I didn't find an existing article in wikipedia, simply because the "Expedition to Holland" article has an unusual name. In my ignorance I have written this article that covers the same subject, but in a far more comprehensive way, as a comparison of the two articles will learn. If there are no objections, I'll merge the articles in a week or so.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I support and agree with the merger. --dashiellx (talk) 10:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

User Neddyseagoon has already performed the merge, for which my thanks. However, I have reverted a number of his edits (see also my inline comments for details). My most important objections were against the introduction of a number of assertions that are simply factually incorrect and against which I already objected on Talk:Government of the Dutch Republic in exile. In this instance I object to the here-repeated assertion that there was a "government of the Dutch Republic in exile". More particularly for this article, I have removed William VI of Orange as one of the commanders. As already explained in current note 39, the Hereditary Prince was allowed to recruit the Vlieter mutineers and a number of defectors (Abercromby says in a letter somewhat puzzeled that they were "Germans and Hungarians" :-) from the Batavian Army to form a few regiments for a Dutch brigade. (In other words, no Orangists landed in the peninsula). To his and Thomas Grenville's (the brother of the Prime Minister, who was one of his staunch promotors; see the letter from Thomas to his brother of October 1, 1799[1]) frustration, these troops were not allowed to take part in the campaign, first by Abercromby (who confined them to Texel; see also what Fortescue has to say about Abercromby's opion of the "rabble"; Fortescue, J.W. (1906) A history of the British army. Vol. 4, p. 669[2] ), and finally by the Duke of York (who appears to have clashed with the Hereditary Prince already during the Flanders Campaign of 1794). The citation I use in note 39 deplores this as "a waste", but there it is. I understand that this very minor role for the Orangists and the Prince is difficult to countenance for their 21st century partisans, but we cannot falsify history in this respect. I have put back the "For"-template at the top of the article, as an article on the Anglo-Russian invasion of Naples is now available. The use of the sentence in the body of the article is however insupportable, as I explain in my inline comment near the revert I made.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Article Comments

In the Campaign box, Belligerents as listed as France, Batavian Republic, Russia and British. While the first three are the names of the the actual counties, British is the name of the ethnicity, not the nation involved. I think this should be United Kingdom which is what the nation was called after the Act of Union 1707.

Has been corrected.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

For the clarification of Orangist, for someone not familiar with the topic they may not know what an Orangist is. The stadtholder is referred to several times earlier in the article, but never that his supporters are called Orangists.

A wikilink has been added near where you asked for clarification (I was not clear what you needed to have cleared up :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

For the areas where I tagged it as needing additional citations, this was done because I feel that when ever a specific claim is made (i.e. number of troops, specific person, specific date) that just having a citation at the end of the paragraph is not sufficient. Specific claims need specific citations.

Additional citations have been provided. I had overlooked your "Who?" tag but have now provided a reference to the original quote in Campaign. See inline comment. If necessary we could use the entire quote instead of my rephrasing?

Your comment about "number of troops" sees on another article (Battle of Alkmaar (1799), but I'll answer it here: as I said in an inline comment there, if I had to provide a citation at every bulletpoint, it would be the same citation (four times repeated) that is now provided at the end of the paragraph. I think that defeats the purpose.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Over all I think this is a brilliant article and could easily go up to GA or higher.

Thanks for the compliment.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

--dashiellx (talk) 11:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Though the required corrections have been supplied, the rating of the article is still "start." I think this is unwarranted.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you aked for a reassesment? David Underdown (talk) 12:59, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I have informally approached Dashielx some time ago, but he may still be miffed about some tactless remarks I made (though I apologized :-). Anyway, I don't feel like going through the red tape of asking for a formal reassessment. People may draw their own conclusions about the wikipedia assessment proces.--Ereunetes (talk) 18:47, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Fate of the Russian Contingent

As it has gone unmentioned in the article itself, I thought I'd bring this up here.

According to a book ('Austerlitz: Napoleon 's Europe and Russia' by Oleg Sokolov) I've seen a few translated passages of, the Russians, while they were allowed to leave Holland, did not make it to England. Rather, they were denied entry to the country and left on two islands in the North Sea without supply and a promise to 'inform St. Petersburg' as to their location.

The book is only available in Russian and French, but a friend of mine is working on translating the related paragraphs.

Since I can find no other mention of the fate of the Russian soldiers of the Holland expedition, I would appreciate if anybody else happened to have some input on this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.90.113.246 (talk) 00:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

"Anglo-Russian"

While we discuss national labels, isn't it about time we found a better term than "Anglo-Russian" (and similar labels in other campaigns, e.g. "Anglo-German.")

'British' is not an ethnic label (there are no meaningful ethnic labels that apply to the early modern population of the British Isles) but an abbreviation deriving from 'United Kingdom of Great Britain ['and Ireland' subsequent to the Helder Campaign] and as such it is surely fair enough as an adjective, even if the state is correctly identified as United Kingdom (etc). The association of Ireland or Irish individuals with the term 'British' may be questioned but 'British Isles', while politically sensitive perhaps, is an accurate geographic term.

The British contingent, from Abercromby and Dundas down contained individuals and regiments from the component elements of the United Kingdom and British Isles - England, Scotland, Wales, as well as Ireland.

'Brito-Russian' is unfamiliar to the ear but we have to start somewhere. The more fluent 'Russo-British' is less attractive, perhaps, if the British contingent is regarded as the senior partner in the enterprise.

In 2015, my essential point remains valid, I think. JF42 (talk) 10:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The fact is, there is no wars in British history that start with British- it's always (and they fought a lot of wars) Anglo. Anglo is England yes- at least originally but the etymology was very distorted and England being arguably the center of British culture well it just takes dominance. 2604:2000:8161:C100:1DE2:8E9E:5B6A:2662 (talk) 00:36, 8 August 2015 (UTC)