Talk:Batavian Republic

Fleshing out
Though the article is adequate as a stub, I think it would benefit from fleshing out, and providing notes and references (as requested). I intend to give a little more detail about the several Constitutions of the new Republic, the three coups d'etat, and the dismal story of the Schimmelpenninck regime. The relationship with the French republic and empire and its vicissitudes may also bear a little more description. This will take a while, so please bear with me.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC) This is taking more time than I expected :-) I try to put as many pertinent wikilinks in this article as possible and it makes for slow going. Let me therefore set out my "program" for those maybe anxiously following my progress. I intend to complete the following subsections of the "Stages of the history of the Republic" section: And then an Aftermath section and a Note about the historiography of the Batavian Republic. Until this program is complete the article will look a bit ragged, so please bear with me a bit longer.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "revolutionary" States-General
 * Struggle for a constitution
 * The Uitvoerend Bewind
 * Russo-British invasion of 1799
 * The Staatsbewind
 * The Peace of Amiens and aftermath
 * The Schimmelpenninck regime
 * I have now finished the rewrite, though there are always details to take care of.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:02, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Worries about writing style
I think the improvements are very good. But, I notice a colloquial style which does not fully fit the serious nature of Wikipedia. Could you please try to use a more scientific style of writing for future improvements. One of the problems with the very narrative style used is that it introduces problems with neutral point of view. For example consider this opening line: "The final days of the Dutch Republic were quite eventful. After the disastrous Fourth Anglo-Dutch War the Patriot party staged a revolt against the authoritarian regime of stadtholder William V that was struck down by an intervention of William's brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia in June 1787.". IMHO this has several subjective elements that do not fit WP:NPOV. "Quite eventful" - sais who. "Disastrous Fourth A-D war" - disastrous value judgement. "Authoritarian regime" - a very derogatory phrase, either give a source, or use a less controversial phase. I hope this helps. Arnoutf (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose one could always write more "scientifically"; it is an ever-receding fata morgana :-) However I stand by my qualifications "disastrous" for the 1780-1784 war, and "authoritarian regime" for William V. I have added citations from the sources I already used, but I could easily find many other historians who share my opinion on these points.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Batavian Republic box
I think the box is nice in itself, but I think Amsterdam only became the capital under the Kingdom of Holland in 1808 (there was a flap about this anniversary not being properly celebrated this year). In as far as there was a capital this should be The Hague, I think (de facto, as under the old Republic). I don't think there was an official language, but next to Dutch at least Frisian should be mentioned as a de facto spoken language (and maybe other regional languages).--Ereunetes (talk) 22:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There was an official language. Just like the fact that Batavia was an independant country, and therefore not a piece of France. Sometimes, de facto is the same as official. More often, such is not the case. Would you know that England has once been a Republic? That is, if we relate only to official facts. Nudge nudge. We know what that means. --82.134.28.194 (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

"Young Turks"
May I suggest that the use of the term "Young Turks" is an anachronism here - the term wasn't coined until the early 1900's. I suggest using a more generic term. Tobeprecise (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

'with its discrimination of'
Discrimination _against_, maybe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.176.105.153 (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit war
I am afraid we are having an edit war on our hands.User:Loginnigol just reverted two of my edits, one in which I provided the citation he previously had asked for himself in the lead; the other in which I modified a phrase to answer his criticism of the phrase "Anglo-Prussian". I don't know what got into this person: I complained on his talk-page, but he is clearly in a great dander. I'll try to revert this latest revert, as it is pure vandalism.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I just removed the Refimprove-template that User:Loginnigol added on 8 April 2013 at 20:08 and which appears part of the harassment I pointed out above. I think the article is adequately supported by references, and the one reference he asked for in the lead has already been supplied. So there is no cause to put the template on the article.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Dutch Republic not "the intermittent constitutional monarchy/republic"
I have removed the POV-phrase "the intermittent constitutional monarchy/republic" from the "Background" section, because the Dutch Republic was never a constitutional monarchy, not even "intermittently", as stadtholder William V would have been the first to acknowledge. Though stadtholders Wiliam III, IV and V at times achieved powers that were almost dictatorial this never altered the constitutional position of the stadtholder as an appointed functionary, with an "instruction" from the sovereign States of the provinces that appointed them. The fact that the office became "hereditary" in all provinces after 1747 (before that only in Friesland) only meant that the only candidate for the office was the current head of the House of Orange-Nassau (in earlier stages of the Republic's history non-members had been stadtholders). But he still had to be appointed and receive his instruction, as happened in 1766 when William V was appointed. William V always took care to acknowledge the sovereignty of the States General, even during his exile after 1795. Furthermore, the deleted phrase does not add anything useful to the section, even if it were correct.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:53, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Map in the wikibox
Would it be an idea to change the map in the wikibox to a better one? I find that the current map is a little too abstract with some of the borders.

FatMax1492 (talk) 10:16, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

"Army of Holland (France)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Army of Holland (France) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 18 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 19:07, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

"Armée de Hollande" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Armée de Hollande and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 18 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 19:09, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

NPOV language problems
To quote WP:NPOV:
 * Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity. Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Do not editorialize. When editorial bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed. The only bias that should be evident is the bias attributed to the source.

This article is a mess of non-neutral, editorializing language. It looks like some of this goes back to the time of the GA reviews and was noted therein. Frankly, I'm surprised it passed GA and that it hasn't come up since and been de-listed. Just glancing at the intro, phrases like "French overlords" and "slavishly follow French dictates" are obviously and wildly inappropriate. CAVincent (talk) 05:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I tried to at least clean up the lead, but it looks like a significant re-write of the article's language is needed. CAVincent (talk) 05:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Enlighten me: how many good articles did you write yourself? We would all like to profit from your expertise. The revisions you made amount to watering down the text and contain at least one spelling error (the past tense of "lead" is "led" not "lead"). Ereunetes (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I say to-may-to & NPOV, you say to-mah-to & "watering down the text", I guess. I tend to value NPOV over vivid writing in Wikipedia main space. Sorry about the typo. You could have fixed it yourself, of course, this being the encyclopedia that anyone can copyedit. CAVincent (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2023 (UTC)