Talk:Carl von Hoffman
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editCarl or Karl?
The title and the body use two different spellings of the first name — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.110.8 (talk) 18:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Timing
editThe article says Mr. v. Hoffman ran away to fight in the Russo-Japanese War once he was 17, and that he served under Kolchak during the Revolution.
Simultaneously he left for London at the age of 17 and then settled in New York, which is a long way, east or west, from the Vladivostok Front.
Nor does the article mention at all his leaving New York to fight in the Russian Civil War. Whilst joining the Roosevelt expedition in 1914 and covering Pancho Villa and Wilson's inauguration, and filming Formosa and Morocco.
The White Armies must have had extensive furlough allowances.Claverhouse (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
Riga or St. Petersburg?
editThe article says he was born in both. Curseyoukhan (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
General comment on quality
editFull disclosure: Carl (with a C, not a K, it's spelled with a C on all his books) was my grandfather. 9/10ths of the article is sourced from one interview and Carl was a notorious liar. There is an anecdote about Martin Johnson that I heard him tell with other people as the subject. Once, in a talk at the Explorer's Club in 1980, he told a version that had him being the one talked out of getting on the plane and the plane in question being Glenn Miller's which disappeared over the English Channel. The claim that he was a descendant of Melchior Hoffman, is sourced to an obituary of my father, Nicholas von Hoffman, who also had a penchant for lying. This is a claim that no one in the family had ever heard until the last year's of my father's life. Also, there is a photograph attached to this article entitled, "Western military attachés and war correspondents with the Japanese forces after the Battle of Shaho (1904)." The caption claims Carl is in it. However, he fought with the Russian Army during the war. Also, Carl was born in either 1899 or 1890 and would have been 14-15 years old in 1904 and there is no one of that age in the picture. Curseyoukhan (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)