Category talk:Theaters and campaigns of World War II

sub-categories
I created a number of subcategories because I did not see that there was any clarity in lumping all the theatres and campaigns into one page. For example a alphabetical list of theatres and campaigns which lumps the "Burma Campaign" with the "Warsaw Uprising" in one general category is not useful. (That sort of list of all campaigns is better done with a page like List of World War II theaters and campaigns).

However I hesitated where to place Balkans Campaign (Operation Marita) into an East West category, because the later campaigns in the Balkans normally considered to be Eastern Front. But it involved Germany and Britain and normally one does not say the Britain fought a conventional war on the eastern front.

The campaigns in France in 1940 and 1944 are normally considered to be campaigns on the western front. But (Halibutt (T)) does not agree that Warsaw Uprising and the Polish September Campaign should be placed in the subgroup European theatre: Eastern Front. Because he argues that the Eastern front is only the soviet-German war. But if Poland campaigns do not belong in the Eastern theatre in which theatre do they belong and where does the 1940 battle of France belong?

Perhaps a better way to go is like the List of World War II theatres and campaigns and lump early German victories (along with the B of Britain) into a European Theatre: Blitzkrieg grouping. What do others think? PBS 13:35, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If we were to do I suppose I would have it as such:


 * European Theatre
 * Eastern Front
 * Poland
 * Italy
 * Balkans
 * Norway +
 * Western Front ++
 * Britain
 * Fall of France
 * North-West Europe Campaign (Anglo-American post-Overlord)


 * Asian Theatre
 * Pacific Campaign (American "island hopping")
 * South-East Asian Campaign
 * Burma Campaign
 * Allied actions in China


 * North Africa + Mediterranean
 * East Africa (North-east Africa actually, but usually just goes by East African Campaign)
 * Libya-Egypt
 * Tunisia
 * Mediterranean Sea (most of these battles were in support of the North African Campaign)


 * Others
 * Battle of the Atlantic
 * Anything I missed.

I would probably leave the Winter War seperate, and most likely classify the Continuation War as being part of the Eastern Front.

+ The other Scandinavian countries were either neutral or pretty much just annexed. Finland, on the other hand, is an entirely different story best left out of this specific campaign.

++ I should also point out that I don't really like merging the Fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the North-West Europe campaign together, as they had relatively little to do with each other asides from geography.

Asides, when Germany was fighting France, there was no Eastern Front to compare with, and the Battle of Britain ended around the time Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Hence, until Overlord, it was never really a two-front war (with the exception of North Africa and Italy, but those wouldn't contrast well to "Eastern Front"). Because of that, I typically think of the Western Front as being only the post-Overlord Anglo-American campaign.

Oberiko 14:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Two thumbs up, Oberiko! I couldn't agree more, this division seems not only logical, but is also used in most historical books. As to what PBS said, I'm not stating that Poland is not to the east of Germany. However, take a look at Eastern Front and Eastern Front (WWII) and check what are these articles about. The case of Warsaw Uprising seems a bit difficult seems it happened in the middle of the Eastern Front (as Wikipedia uses it, not as you understand it), however the case was somehow special. I'd leave it in the main category of WWII operations, but if you insist on moving it to the eastern front - so be it. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 15:46, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)


 * Better to move any ambiguous European campaigns into the "World War II European theatre" and not leave them in the "World War II campaigns and theatres" category. Better still to move them into more specific categories. The Warsaw Uprising can only be seen in the context of the Eastern front, just as the Paris liberation can only be viewed in the context of the Western Front. Both had post war ramifications and the Russians and the Americans both played their hands with their local allies with a view to the post war position and not with the immediate view of how best to beat the Germans.


 * The Allies advanced on a broad front in 44-45 including landings in the south of France. Only the British advanced through North West Europe. The Americans stretched from Belgium to Switzerland so it was the Western Front.


 * As I said before the Balkans is a tricky one because there are a number of different campaigns waged by the Germans against 3 different enemies: (i)British and allies, (ii)Partisans, (iii)Russians. The Balkans are always the exception to a rule!


 * The Fall of France and the Battle of Britain are very much linked if nothing else with the refusal of Britain to release more fighter planes for the B of France.


 * Just because the Western Front ended up at the English Channel it does not mean that it ceased to exist. The Germans had to leave a lot of divisions in the west to protect against large raids like Dieppe even before the build up to D-day. The front would only have disappeared if Britain had been conquered. As it was there were a number of diffrent campaigns but the front remaind in existance.


 * One option is to catogorise all of the campaigns up to and including the B of Britan as Blitzkrieg, because they were German initiated using Blitzkrieg and with the exception of the B of B German victories. I would not put the invasion of Russia in the same group because it morfed into something else. This gets rid of the problem of whether the campaigns of 39-40 were fought on the Eastern or western front and it neatly cuts out the first Balkans war from later Balkan wars.


 * The Naval conflict in the med was about more than just supporting land forces, eg Destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir and Battle of Taranto.


 * the Nationalists in China (Republic of China) were one of the Allies, their war efforts should not be categorised separately see Cairo Conference 1943.


 * The American theater of opeations contained 2 diffrent operations/fronts. One run by the US Army and the other by the Navy and marines.


 * Anything I missed -- strategic bombing. PBS 22:29, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * The problem at this point seems be the difference between a Theatre and a Campaign and our attempts to include both at the same time.


 * A theatre is a geographical area where combat takes place (The NW Europe Campaign and the Fall of France happen in roughly the same theatre), a campaign is a set of military manuevers and battles with relatively static combatants and an outcome (With Paris captured, the German campaign in France was won, and therefore over). While I admit it can sometimes have a grey area between campaigns, there is a fairly commonly held distinction between them (most scholors would say that the BoB, FoF and Norway are different campaigns for example).


 * I think to avoid confusion we should stick to Campaigns instead of Theatres, with the exception of "Europe", "Asia" and "North Africa", which would contain most of the Campaigns.


 * Oh, on the Eastern Front: Originally the article was called the "German-Soviet War" and "Great Patriotic War" (we had two articles that got merged), but had the name changed because "Eastern Front" is what most English speaking people identify the Soviet - German conflict as.  It is a totally seperate Campaign from Poland and I think most people would agree a very different Theatre as well.


 * Don't forget that at the Wikipedia our naming convention for the article title is to use the name most commonly associated with the event/object. I don't believe many people consider Poland as part of the Eastern Front.  Oberiko 23:03, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think you and I are disagreeing about Campaigns and Theatres. Or article names. The problem seems to be campaigns and fronts. There is also a difference between how things should appear in the "tables:" and the "categories:". To keep things simple in the table then it is best if it is kept to two levels (in other words rather as it is at the moment). But in the case of categories this is not necessary or for that matter desirable. What is not desirable is to have lots of unrelated articles lumped together in a category as was the case when all the theatres and campaigns were in one category called "World War II campaigns and theatres"with no subcategories. I do not think that moving all the European campaigns into just one level called European Theatre is desirable, as I said before have a look how the category for the Battle of the Atlantic is laid out. BTW in the "table:" then to put BoA and Bombing under "Other" seems reasonable. PBS 23:34, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * However, please take note that putting all campaigns that took place "east of Germany" to the Eastern Front category would be equally wrong and misleading. Also, IMHO both the tables and the categories should reflect the same pattern and naming convention. We should try to avoid causing too much confusion. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 03:24, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think it will cause too much confusion to place all the European Campaigns under "European Theatre of World War II". As is there are only about eight of them (Poland, FoF, Norway, BoB, Balkans, Italy, Eastern Front, NW Europe Campaign), so it should be pretty easy for the reader to spot what they're looking for.

Proposed solution
Looks good, I've made the changes to the template. Oberiko 17:58, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * The battle of the Atlantic should be a theatre on its own not grouped under other. The Asian Theatre should be Asian Pacific Theatre because not all of the action took place in Asia or for that matter in the Pacific.


 * If we are talking about catogories and not templates then the second level need to be categories in most cases. So that campaings (and groups of battles and operations) can be lumped together. Eg The Battle of the Atlantic needs to be a category so that the main article, the article second happy time, the convoys sub-category and the Arctic convoys sub-category can to be included in it. The Arctic convoys have a simiar break down. PBS 22:54, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * The Battle of the Atlantic is something of a special case because (AKAIK) it is both a campaign and a theatre of World War II (one long conflict in a specific geographic area). The others (Europe, Asia etc.) are theatres and listed are the Campaigns which belong there.  This isn't really something I have great knowledge of however, so I'm far from adamant about this and would have no objection to raising the Battle of the Atlantic to a theatre level for the purpose of breaking it down to its "campaigns".


 * Calling it the Asia-Pacific Theatre sounds like a good idea as well. Oberiko 23:02, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Theatre and campaign organization
Categories should be logically hierachical, and there is logic to having theatres as the primary categorization with campaigns occuring beneath. The trick is in defining the theatres. The War can roughly be divided into two, but really the geographic breakdown is further into real theatres.

Within a theatre, any number of campaigns may have been waged. If only one campaign dominated the theatre, or if only isolated battles happened, then campaign categories would not be needed.

Theatres and some of their campaigns:


 * Central Pacific Theatre
 * East African Theatre
 * East Asian Theatre
 * Eastern European Theatre
 * Polish September Campaign
 * Balkan Campaign
 * Eastern Front
 * Mediterranean Theatre
 * North African Campaign
 * Italian Campaign
 * Middle East Theatre
 * South East Asian Theatre
 * South West Pacific Theatre
 * Western European Theatre
 * Axis invasion of France and the Low Countries
 * Battle of Britain
 * Battle of the Atlantic (Make Atlantic its own Theatre?)
 * Allied invasion of France and NW Europe
 * Strategic Bombing Campaign

Each theatre represents a broad geographical region in which a number of campaigns and battles were fought, and is constant throughout the war (although there may not have been military activity throughout the war). Each campaign represents a particular series of operations and battles over a specific time-span within a specific region.

Joshbaumgartner 23:50, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

rename back
This rename "Category:Campaigns and theatres of World War II" to 2Category:Theaters and campaigns of World War II" (Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 17) should not have taken place WP:RETAIN and WP:AT -- PBS (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)