Talk:Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand/GA1

GA Review
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I'll be reviewing this article for possible GA status. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm putting this article on hold to allow contributors time to address my concerns with the writing, referencing and neutrality of the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've tackled some of the writing and formatting points, and indented those I think are now solved in Nikkimaria's list. Feel free to change it if you think there's a more helpful way to indicate points that have been fixed. Olaf Davis (talk) 15:49, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Despite being on hold for nearly a month, this article still has significant issues with verifiability and neutrality. Thus, I'm going to fail the article as a GA at this time. If/when it is ready for GA, feel free to re-nominate it. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I am preparing a sweeping edit to address one way or another all the concerns listed in the collapsed GA article review below. The method I am following is to begin with the February 10, 2009 version of this article and edit and footnote from there as the current version has too many problems.  I will base the edit on February 10, 2009 because some of the items that the review wants corrected from the current version I cannot correct because I cannot find sources that support the material in question.  Also, there are consistency problems between sections where the editing of one section since February 10, 2009 caused another section to not be properly introduced or created other miscellaneous problems.  Broken links were also introduced since February 10.  8 months having passed since Nikkimaria gave the below helpful criticisms with almost no action taken, I decided to proceed alone.  I hope to make the revision in about 1 week.  Then, I think some readers/editors will want to restore some of the content that was created since February 10, 2010.  My hope is that when they do so, most of the new sentences will be footnoted and extra effort should be made to make sure the article still hangs together as a whole after the edits.  Particularly, if some of the graphics are gone, I hope other editors will add them back.  Sorry if through this process I delete some people's good contributions...please don't take offense, just add them back, as I said, footnoted and well fit into the article.Werchovsky (talk) 00:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Writing and formatting

 * "On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead (while traveling in an open-topped car) in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilić" -> a bit of a run-on sentence


 * "At the top of these Serbian military conspirators..." - Serbian military conspirators have not previously been referred to, unless you mean the assassins, in which case this should be made clear
 * "underground railroad" - two issues here. First, it is referred to both as a railroad and a railway - should be consistent. Second, the term is unclear and should be explained on its first occurence - it's not an actual underground railroad, but a network of people that operate secretly for some purpose.
 * "French Occupied Salonika" -> "French-occupied Salonika" with Salonika linked


 * An evidential approach must be taken to weed through the various claims and counter-claims concerning responsibility. - this phrase is unencyclopedic, in my opinion
 * as a fully sovereign state, as the Kingdom of Serbia - remove second "as"


 * "These disputes included a customs dispute (parallelism) with Austria-Hungary beginning in 1906 (commonly referred to as the "Pig War" as pigs were Serbia's major export to Austria-Hungary ), the Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909 where Serbia assumed an attitude of protest over Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (ending in a Serbian climb-down (meaning?) in March 1909), and finally the two Balkan wars of 1912–1913 where Serbia conquered Macedonia and Kosovo, taking these provinces from the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria."
 * There are many run-on sentences throughout the article that need to be fixed
 * The chronology in "Background" and "Preliminaries" is scrambled at times
 * Locations should be linked on first appearance (Belgrade, Toulouse, etc)
 * "Agreement in principle" - what does this mean?
 * "under the grounds" -> "on the grounds"


 * "a war against Serbia" - isn't the Black Hand on the same side as Serbia?
 * Inline citations should be after punctuation
 * "continue with plan for the assassination" - grammar
 * "grossly amateurs" - grammar
 * "the intention was provide for" - grammar
 * "The Serbian Prime Minister Pasic at the beginning of June 1914" - switch


 * "they handed the small card to Captain Popović" - what card?
 * Be consistent in the way dates are formatted - either "28 May" or "May 28", not both
 * Dates are generally not linked unless the topic of the page being linked to is germane to the topic at hand


 * "and link back up" - meaning?
 * "On the morning of 30 May Prvanović's revenue sergeants assembled and Sergeant Budivoj Grbić accepted the task and led Princip and Grabež with the weapons by foot to Isaković’s Island, a small island in the middle of the Drina River that separated Serbia from Bosnia." - grammar + clarity
 * Austro-Hungarian Redbook - what is this?
 * Nikola Pašić - is this the same person referred to earlier as "Pasic"?
 * Need consistency in names - Pasic vs Pašić, Grabež vs Grabez, Franz Ferdinand vs Franz-Ferdinand, etc
 * "encouraging them to bravery" - grammar
 * "After mass" -> "After Mass"
 * " - that the assassination had been unsuccessful - " - use en-dashes instead of hyphens
 * "Conspiracy to commit high treason carried a maximum sentence of death which conspiracy to commit simple murder did not" - grammar
 * In the table of sentences, why do some use curly brackets and others parantheses?


 * The paragraph under the table says that only two died of TB in prison, while the table claims three
 * "denies that Russia had one single agent in Serbia at the time" - does that mean that they had no agents or many agents?
 * "high words" - meaning?
 * "accepting points #8 and #10" - since the points are not enumerated here, you should describe the points referred to instead of simply numbering them
 * Choose either "20th century" or "twentieth century", not both
 * According to WP:LAYOUT, External Links go after Further Reading

Accuracy and verifiability

 * All existing "citations needed" tags must be addressed before the article can achieve GA status
 * Is Alexander a Prince or a Prince Regent?
 * Who is Kaiser Karl? Wasn't Wilhelm the Kaiser during World War I?
 * Citations needed for:
 * Initially Serbia was content to live within its small borders, which encompassed only a fraction of the ethnic Serbian population
 * The attackers threw the corpses of King Alexander and Queen Draga out of a palace window, ending any threat that loyalists would mount a counter attack
 * The new dynasty was more nationalistic, more friendly to Russia and less friendly to Austria-Hungary
 * Serbia's military successes and Serbian outrage over the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina emboldened nationalistic elements in Serbia and Serbs in Austria-Hungary who chafed under Magyar rule and whose nationalist sentiments were stirred by Serbian "cultural" organizations
 * In the five years prior to 1914, lone assassins – mostly Serbian citizens of Austria-Hungary – made a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina against Austro-Hungarian officials
 * The 14th anniversary of the morganatic oath fell on 28 June and they were happy to celebrate it far from Vienna
 * With the death of its President, Apis and his fellow military conspirators (drawn heavily from the ranks of the May 1903 coup) had come to dominate the remnants of the "Black Hand"
 * However, the participants decided only to dispatch Mehmed Mehmedbašić to Sarajevo, to kill the Governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek.
 * Thinking the police might be after him, he threw his weapons (a dagger and a bottle of poison) out the train window
 * testified at the Sarajevo trial that at about the same time, (a little after Easter) they were eager to carry out an assassination and approached a fellow Bosnian and former guerrilla fighter known to be well connected and with access to arms, Milan Ciganović, and through him Major Tankosić and reached an agreement to transport arms to Sarajevo and participate in the assassination.
 * Princip and Grabež had a falling out with Čabrinović over Čabrinović's repeated violations of operational security.
 * This trip is a point of unresolved controversy.
 * The three sent a postcard to "Black Hand" Provincial Director for Bosnia-Herzegovina Vladimir Gaćinović in France.
 * The following morning, 28 June, Ilić walked on the street from assassin to assassin encouraging them to bravery.
 * Due to a mistake, three local police officers got into the first car with the chief officer of special security; the special security officers who were supposed to accompany their chief got left behind.
 * The procession sped away towards the Town Hall leaving the disabled car behind. Cvjetko Popović, Gavrilo Princip and Trifun Grabež failed to act as the motorcade passed them at high speed.
 * The only obvious measure taken was for Count Harrach to take up a protective position on the left hand running board of the car. This is confirmed by photographs of the scene outside the Town Hall.
 * Pushing forward to the right hand side of the car, Princip fired two shots from a Belgian-made 9x17mm (380 ACP) Fabrique Nationale model 1910 semi-automatic pistol.
 * Princip later claimed that his intention was to kill Governor Potiorek, not Sophie.
 * As reported by Count Harrach, Franz-Ferdinand's last words were "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" followed by six or seven utterances of "It is nothing..." in response to Harrachs' inquiry as to Franz-Ferdinand's injury
 * Under questioning by defense counsel Cubrilović described in more detail the basis of the fears that he said had compelled him to cooperate with Princip and Grabez.
 * In the case of Veljko Cubrilović the court was not persuaded that his acting out of fear justified acquittal or a lighter sentence, but the acting out of fear argument may have contributed to the acquittal of several peasants with minor roles.
 * Cabrinović, though, began placing some blame on people in Serbia.
 * The court did not buy the defendant's stories attempting to hold official Serbia blameless.
 * The court heard arguments regarding Princip's age, as there was some doubt as to the prompt and accurate registration of his birth but concluded that Princip was under 20 at the time of the assassination.
 * In late 1916 and early 1917 secret peace talks took place between Austria-Hungary and France. There is circumstantial evidence that parallel discussions were held between Austria-Hungary and Serbia
 * Kaiser Karl laid out Austria-Hungary's key demand for returning Serbia to the control of the Serbian Government in exile: that Serbia should provide guarantees that there be no further political agitation emanating from Serbia against Austria-Hungary.
 * For some time Prince Alexander had planned to do away with Dragutin Dimitrijević and the officers loyal to him as they represented a political threat to his power.
 * Prince Alexander commuted six of the death sentences
 * On 18 June a telegram completely lacking in specifics ordered...
 * According to Serbian Military Attaché to Vienna...
 * In 1924 J. Jovanović went public stating...
 * J. Jovanović's account changed back and forth over the years and never adequately addressed Colonel Lesanin's statement
 * By choosing a military loyalist to convey the message, and by not including any of the specifics such as the conspirators' names and weapons, Pašić, a survivor, hedged his political bets against the various possible outcomes and consequences of the impending assassination.
 * Apis' confession, however, states...
 * it was forbidden to speak of the Sarajevo attack during the trial
 * This meshes with Dedijer's theory...
 * The overlap in membership between the Serbian Military and the "Black Hand" makes most evidence ambiguous for the purpose of determining which organization was responsible for the Sarajevo attack.
 * The entire paragraph beginning with "Apis' confession to ordering the operation..."
 * The information was received by Pašić early enough, according to Education Minister Ljuba Jovanović, for the government to order the border guards to prevent the assassins from crossing.
 * The circumstantial evidence against Ciganović includes...
 * Apis' confession to ordering the assassination of Franz Ferdinand states...
 * The article, "Rossiiskaia Kontrrazvedka I Tainaia Serbskaia Organizatsii'Chernaia Ruka'" which may be thought of as Russia's current official position on the subject, denies that Werchovsky ever worked for the Military Attaché's Office and denies that Russia had one single agent in Serbia at the time.
 * At the time of publication, Entente apologists argued that "out of the way" might not necessarily mean assassinated.
 * Most of the "Consequences" section
 * And the tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news/ "An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much."
 * Urban, take the Appel Quay. It's June the 28th, the seventh bullet's for...


 * Need to be consistent in referencing format. If you're going to use the short note-long ref format, it needs to be used for all references
 * If dates are used in the notes for some, they should be used for all
 * Notes 61, 99, 100 need expansion
 * Notes 58 and 63 are the same but use a different page format
 * Notes 28 and 29, 30 and 31, 93 and 43 and 32-34 are the same and should use the multiple reference format
 * Be consistent in whether you use "p" or "pg" for pages in Notes
 * Need ISBN numbers for all books

Broad

 * The "major political developments of the twentieth century" are beyond the purview of this article, IMO
 * The early part of "Background" could be shortened, as most of that information is provided in the "Further information" articles

Neutrality

 * Take a look at WP:WTA - the use of certain words is discouraged because they add an editorial bias to the article
 * The following statements need to be edited to conform to WP:NPOV
 * false charges
 * An evidential approach must be taken to weed through the various claims and counter-claims concerning responsibility.
 * at last recognized
 * Serbia was content
 * The new dynasty was more nationalistic, more friendly to Russia and less friendly to Austria-Hungary
 * the most famous of these failed efforts
 * particularly hated figure
 * inspiration to future Serbian assassins
 * they were happy to celebrate it far from Vienna
 * an ideal bridge
 * restive Serbian youth willing to commit revolutionary or terrorist acts
 * ill-armed and grossly amateurs
 * ever talkative Čabrinović
 * without coming to any coherent conclusion
 * The court did not buy the defendant's stories
 * Bosnia's unique status
 * The truth, however, lies elsewhere
 * a telegram completely lacking in specifics
 * vague and misleading remarks
 * J. Jovanović's account changed back and forth over the years and never adequately addressed Colonel Lesanin's statement
 * Pašić, a survivor, hedged his political bets
 * moribund
 * makes most evidence ambiguous
 * denied the involvement of his office unconvincingly
 * may be thought of as Russia's current official position on the subject
 * skeptical Hungarian Count
 * accepting, finessing, disingenuously answering or politely rejecting
 * apparently accidentally
 * blown out of proportion
 * It could be argued that this assassination set in motion most of the major events of the 20th century, with its reverberations lingering into the 21st
 * generally linked
 * This, in turn, led to many of the major political developments

Stable
No issue noted

Images

 * The caption to the first picture needs to be edited for grammar
 * The two pictures at the beginning of "Background" should be placed later in the article
 * The images are compliant with fair use policy