Talk:Southern Rhodesia in World War I

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Southern Rhodesian involvement in the First World War/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hchc2009 (talk · contribs) 08:04, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll read through today and start the review proper tomorrow. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:04, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks bru —Cliftonian (talk) 12:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Nice work. In terms of the GA standards, looks almost there - two minor points below and we're sorted. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:54, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, I hope this is okay now, thanks —Cliftonian (talk) 20:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct;

• "Trench warfare was a dreadful ordeal for anybody, but the Southern Rhodesians, coming from the open veld of southern Africa, had a particularly tough time getting used to the cold and the mud." this felt a little unencylopaedic/informal. How about "Trench warfare was a dreadful ordeal for soldiers, and the Southern Rhodesians, coming from the open veld of southern Africa, had a particularly difficult time getting used to the cold and the mud."?

• OK —Cliftonian (talk) 20:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

• The MOS recommends that "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence.". The article could achieve this, I think; perhaps starting something like "The Southern Rhodesian involvement in the First World War began with the outbreak of war in 1914 through to its conclusion in 1918. Southern Rhodesia, then administered by the British South Africa Company, received the news that war had been declared with great patriotic enthusiasm—Sir William Milton, the Company administrator, immediately wired Whitehall that "all Rhodesia ... [was] ready to do its duty."?

• OK —Cliftonian (talk) 20:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Factually accurate and verifiable:

(a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;

• Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

(b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;

Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

(c) it contains no original research.

None found. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Yes. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Illustrated, if possible, by images:

(a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content;

• File:Delville Wood Battle July 1916.jpg. This is described as a "Official British Military photograph", but it certainly isn't a photograph. Ideally, if we're saying it was produced by an official military artist, it would good to have their name to confirm this.

• I've changed "photograph" to "drawing", but can't really do much more as I don't have the original source the picture comes from. —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• File:Pat Judson.jpg. The tagging on this is apparently disputed. I'd note that the statement that "We can be sure, however, that the picture is PD in the US, having been created before 1923." is probably incorrect; the pre-1923 rule applies to publication, not creation.

• I recommend you read the discussion on this picture here; it seems that it might still be PD as it was taken before 1967, and so entered PD in Rhodesia 50 years after being taken (rather than published). See Stefan2's reasoning at that link. —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• File:1st Rhodesia Regiment in Bulawayo, 1914.png. This needs a US tag as well as a Zimbabwean one.

• OK —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• File:1st Rhodesia Native Regiment in Salisbury, 1916.png. Ditto.

• OK —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• File:Lettow's surrender.jpg. Needs a US tag. Worth checking that the EU life + 70 + anonymous rule applies to Tanzania.

• According to Tanzanian copyright law (last renewed 1999, see here), section 14/3 says that in Tanzania anonymous works enter the public domain "fifty years from the date on which the work was either made, first made available to the public or first published, which ever date is the latest". I've put a pre-1923 anon tag on there for now, but this might not actually be correct as we don't know when exactly this was first published (indeed, the first time it was made available to the public might have been when it was put in the museum, and this might have been decades after it was made, presuming it was indeed made at the time of the event). —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• OK. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• File:RhodesianReserves1916.jpg. Needs a US tag.

• OK —Cliftonian (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

(b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

• Yes.

Article is very focussed on the white population and perspective

Hi all - this is a well written and valuable article, but the voice of the black population at the time is largely lost to history here.

90% of the article is about 10% of the population, and even the population figures are often given as white only.

We need to fill in the story, or change the title to White Southern Rhodesia in World War 1. Thanks Billyshiverstick (talk) 14:48, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Billy, thanks for the feedback. I understand what you're saying but I don't think the change you suggest is necessary. I also think that to say that the "voice of the black population at the time is largely lost to history" in this article is unfair. As the main author I made a great conscious effort to put as much as I could in about Rhodesia's black troops and the war's impact on the black population. However, even putting to one side the issue that the sources available for this period dominate their attention on the white community far more than this article does, the facts are that in many of this subject's sub-topics there simply isn't much to say from the black perspective. This is the reason for the apparent imbalance in the article.

The main reason for the apparent imbalance is that while whites were indeed a minority in terms of the total population, in terms of people in the country directly relevant to World War I they made up a clear majority. The war was of enormous importance to the whites but the overwhelming majority of the black population saw it as irrelevant to them and basically ignored it, going on with their lives. In actual terms there were over twice as many white military personnel from Southern Rhodesia as there were black soldiers—and in proportional terms the difference is even greater, with over 40% of the white males and less than 1% of the black males going to war. The war's non-military impact was also far more relevant to the whites of the time than to the blacks, as the article explains. That is not to say that there were no black Rhodesians to whom it was relevant—there were many and this article discusses them.

In any case I disagree with the assertion that "90% of the article" is about whites—in the public opinion section, for example, the passage discussing black public opinion is longer than that about white public opinion. The article's section on the Rhodesia Native Regiment, comprising black troops, is not much shorter than all the sections on white troops combined, though there were far more white soldiers. Black people are not mentioned much in the "Home service and conscription debate" section, for example, because for black people there was no such debate and no home service (they only served abroad). Under "Women", a minuscule fraction of the female black population were affected by the war—so not much is recorded in the sources, and there is not much to put here.

If we were to change the article's name to "White Southern Rhodesia in World War I", surely that would mean taking everything relevant to the black population out, wouldn't it? That would in my view be a sure-fire way to remove the voice of the black population at the time from history. —Cliftonian (talk) 16:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Not sure about the claimed proportional manpower figures

"Southern Rhodesia contributed more manpower to the British war effort than any other Imperial territory, including Britain itself. White troops numbered 5,716, about 40% of white men in the colony"

There is no linked reference for this and the Isle of Man Official records show that 8,261 men enlisted in the armed forces, which was 82.3% of the Isle of Man’s male population of military age. (link) How does this to compare to "about 40% of white men"? Bopalula (talk) 09:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

A linked reference is given for this claim lower down in the body of the article—it is taken an article by Paul Moorcraft for History Today in 1990 (see here). The verbatim quote is: "per head of (white) population Rhodesia had contributed more in both world wars than any other part of the empire, including the United Kingdom".

Clearly the Isle of Man figures show this to be wrong. Since the source refers to "part[s] of the empire" I would speculate that Moorcraft arrived at his conclusion after comparing Rhodesia's proportional contribution with first the other dominions and colonies, then the UK itself—he probably either overlooked the Isle of Man, incorrectly included it as part of the UK or didn't consider it an "imperial" territory.

I will amend the article to say Southern Rhodesia "contributed more manpower to the British war effort than any other dominion or colony, and more than Britain itself". I hope this is better. Thanks for your help in bringing this to light. —Cliftonian (talk) 15:47, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Commemoration of World War dead in Zimbabwe

The article's concluding paragraph seems rather sweeping, implying a total lack of memorials to World War dead in present day Zimbabwe. While a good many colonially erected memorials may have been removed or dismantled, there are exceptions in the form of memorials and war graves maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission within Zimbabwe eg the Harare Memorial, listing 66 WWI casualties, in the capital's Pioneer Cemetery which contains 28 Commonwealth war graves of WWI. I am sure the CWGC have statistics on war graves and no-known-grave commemorations within Zimbabwe (which could include service personnel from other parts of the Commonwealth who died within Zimbabwe). I have not heard of the CWGC reporting damage and difficulties in caring for their war graves and memorials in that country. The CWGC has recently been seeking to redress the lack of headstones and the lack of commemorative naming of native black African service personnel of WWI.Cloptonson (talk) 21:29, 2 July 2022 (UTC)