Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Soltau

Battle of Soltau

Some independent input on how to improve this article - content, style, historical terminology, etc - would be welcome. It is currently nominated for two DYKs. In particular claims that it was the last knight's battle [in Germany?] and last medieval feud. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AustralianRupert

Looks good in my opinion, although I don't have any specific content knowledge unfortunately. I made a couple of minor WP:MOS edits to the article. Here are my suggestions (not much, I'm afraid, but it is a start at least):

in the Forces section "six metres long" could be converted with a {{convert}} template;
the Notes are slightly inconsistent: although using WP:CITESHORT, you have included the author's initials or first name as well on # 1, 6 and 11, but not on 7, 8, 9, 10 or 12. I think short citations should only have author, year and page number;
the Sources could be sorted alphabetically;
the Sources could be formatted with {{cite book}} to standardise them per most other articles within the Military History project;
the article is currently assessed as a Start class article. In my opinion it is probably a B class, although I can't really assess the content. I suggest listing it at WP:MHA and getting a B class review done on it, as it might be selling itself short.

Anyway, that is it from me. Good work so far. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 22:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Monstrelet

Overall a good article, which I'm glad I read. Personally, I think it could do with some tightening up on the "possibly", "probably" front - I know from experience the difficulty of writing a battle description from incomplete and/or contradictory sources - you want to qualify everything - but it can seem a bit unencyclopaedic. Some of the statements may need a little more referencing e.g. that wounded were many times more than dead in this sort of a battle - true enough but might be referenced. One area of fact you might look at is the nature of the cavalry - were all the cavalry "knights in armour" as said in the info box? From my limited understanding of German armies at this time, I'd suggest there could be lighter cavalry involved and possibly early reiters. I could be wrong but it would be worth a check. Finally, I'm not sure on the Questions section. Could these questions be better integrated into the text? Hope these are useful comments - overall I think it's close to B class but I think a bit of attention to style and structure is needed to guarantee it. But on a positive finish - good article and personal thanks for adding to my knowledge.Monstrelet (talk) 07:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hchc2009

Similarly, a interesting article. As a minor point, there are a number of references to Felleckner, S. (2009), but no page numbers are given for where the particular fact appears in it; similarly the reference to Stanelle, U. (1982). Particularly with the longer chapters or books, I personally find that having the page number including in the citation can be really handy when looking back for a particular fact. As an equally minor point, I'd be inclined to tweak the name of the "question marks" section, as it didn't sound very "encyclopedia"-ish: "Unanswered questions", or "Remaining issues" perhaps? Hchc2009 (talk) 10:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Magicpiano

An interesting read; I don't find the conditional qualifications overly burdensome. It is lacking in background, though; I don't get a good sense of:

the geopolitical landscape (my target for this sort of explanation is a 12-year-old with access to a modern atlas, but otherwise unfamiliar with the area or its history)
reasons for the larger conflict
where this event takes place in the larger conflict
why the two forces got to the place where they eventually met

You cover the political consequences reasonably well, although the lack of political background makes it hard to understand. You're missing military consequences; where did the victorious army go? the surviving losers? Did they meet again?

I would put the Questions section in a separate level 2 heading after the Aftermath, in which you can discuss the historiography (what is known, what appears not to be known, etc) of the event.

-- Magic♪piano 14:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]