Talk:Battle cry

Strange comments
"A war cry popular among native Americans was 'Qupla'. It came from the Mandarin word 'Quoplay' meaning 'to kill'. This cry was heard in the feature film Team America: World Police."

The above was deleted from the "Intimidating" section. I would say "sā" (also written "sa-1") to mean "kill." Considering the satirical nature of Team America I'd think that "Qupla" is more likely a parody of the Klingon language word "Q'apla" than the descendant of a ancient Chinese word brought over by Native American migrants some 40,000 years ago over the Bering land bridge.

Bulgarian battle cry
It was said that Turks misunderstood it. It is impossible since Turkish soldiers speaks Turkish, they would not understand neither Bulgarian nor Russian. So, they could not misunderstood something in a language that they already did not know. Most probably, that was a quote from a extra-nationalist Bulgarian history book. The comment is deleted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lardayn (talk • contribs) 16:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

US Navy Seals
Not just the seals, but the entire USN uses Hoo-yah at Boot Camp... And a few continue to use it out in the fleet... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drantin (talk • contribs) 12:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

Finnish battle cry
There is a popular, longer version of "Hakkaa päälle!" It goes like this:"Hakkaa päälle pohjan poika!" which roughly translates as "Cut them down, son of north!" This longer version can be heard numerous times in the previously mentioned "Unknown soldier". Sometimes the long version is shouted by only one person (usually officer), followed by shorter version shouted by numerous soldiers simultaneously. For example: "Hakkaa päälle pohjan poika!", by one man, followed by numerous simultaneous shouts of:"hakkaa päälle!" This replying is used as indication of loyalty, or kind of "we are with you"-cry to the man who originally shouted the long version.

Texian is the correct name of the army, not Texan
In the miscellaneous battle cries section, the Battle of San Jacinto is referenced, along with the Texian battle cries of "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad!" The correct name for the army involved in the Battle of San Jacinto, the Battle of the Alamo, and the Goliad Massacre is the Texian Army, not the Texan Army. Please do not revert this again, unless you have compelling reason to do so (more than just "reverting vandalism", which my edit is not intended to be). Please note, there is a wikipedia page Texian, which specifically mentions the Texian Army organized for the revolt against Mexico. Also, the pages for the various battles of the Texas Revolution frequently refer to the Texian Army as such. The Wilschon 05:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Poor article
This article does the subject no justice. It needs to give some explanation of the effectiveness and/or history of the battle cry if it is to justify its existence. A "list of battle cries" might be justified, which is what most of this article is - though I would lose all the fictional references and also distinguish between those that are only mottoes and those actually shouted in battle. Cyclopaedic (talk) 00:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Also, wikipedia is not a series of lists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.156.137 (talk) 22:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Roman Republic silence during advance
There is a book by the historian Adrian Goldsworthy called "Caesar" in my language (dutch) but I don't know what it's called in English. It states clearly that the men were expected to be quiet during the advance to hear commands from their officers. So I'm changing the phrase from just roman republic to early republic and late republic (caesar's and pompei magnus' era) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas271104 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Blanking of list
Please don't blank the list right away without first attempting to cite something yourself. Many can be found by simple google searches. Just because something is not referenced doesn't imply it is automatically original research too. tags are used for such cases. -- lTopGunl (talk) 16:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This was not done right away, the article has been tagged with since March 2009 and nothing has happened since. How many more years should we wait for citations to appear? If you find sources for the list it's easy to reinsert them by looking at the history.--Sus scrofa (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Knowing that the sources are present, and removing the content is against WP:COMMONSENSE. It has only and only been this way because we didn't have a volunteer to do the citing. It would take just a little more effort to google and cite instead of blanking or simply do nothing. I'll cite them in time anyway, but the point is the blanking was just bureaucratic. -- lTopGunl (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no way of knowing that the sources are easy to find. It certainly doesn't seem so seeing as how people kept adding to the list without citing sources. Nothing is lost by removing the uncited entries in the list, as the list is still in the history (commenting them out might have been better, IDK). Uncited statements shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Nothing is stopping anybody from using Google as you say, if the sources are truly so easy to find.--Sus scrofa (talk) 18:12, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What I mean is it is less likely for anyone to look in the history and find sources, and then restore. If it is simply unsourced, any passer by can cite. Try WP:GHITS for a test... it's a good tool for having an idea. -- lTopGunl (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The words baby and bath water immediately spring to mind. I don't think that it is neccessary to have a citation every single item on the list, if any sinle item seems to be particularly dubious than tag it is such.--15:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)--KTo288 (talk) 17:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, the entire article has been tagged for sources for two years, without which we don't know the validity of the entries (which goes beyond if they are merely used by military force so-and-so, to origin and symbolism, all fertile grounds for non-NPOV edits).--Sus scrofa (talk) 16:13, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure but it remains so, its all part of being a live and living wiki, its what gives wikis there energy, but unless you are willing to keep patrolling this article and reverting every edit that adds a warcry, the denuded state of the article is like a nice newly painted white wall in an underpass, someone passing by will feel compelled to help improve the article, e.g. "hey this article doesn't have anything on the fact that US paratroopers shouted geronima!" etc, and very soon this article will be back to where it was, with a list of uncited and possibly OR interpertations of the origin of such and such a phrase, it may be no better, and it could be a lot worse, as some who may actually know what they were writing about will refuse to replicate their previous work. Well thats fair enough, sometimes you need to slash back old growth to give room for new shoots to develop.


 * Personally however I would trim and polish, tag individual entries as dubious and ask for individual citations for those less so, and only in extremis prune and execise things that seem to be obviously wrong, ie use some commonsense in what is done. I really don't believe that every single statement needs to be supported by a reference. Yes sometimes what everybody knows maybe wrong- maybe the fryd never cried uit!uit!uit! at Hastings, but assuming that everything added to the wiki is done so out of ignorance negates the power and beauty of what wikipedia is, as much as Verifiablity and NPOV are cornerstones of what we do here, as important is assuming good faith and the power of collective intelligence of contributers, that in the long term mistakes and inaccuraccies are ironed out and that as a work in progress articles are continously improved.


 * I really want to do anything that could be construed as an edit war ie. reintroducing the entire list, but to me some common sense reintroductions, would be those where there is consensus pan wiki even if unsourced, e.g. the communities at de, es, fr, it and pt wikis all seem to concur that "Santiago" was the battle cry of the Spaniards.--KTo288 (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, User:TopGun, asserted that sources were easy to find, but no battle cry has been added to the list since that time (June 2012), which makes it seem as if it is not as easy as that. I may have been to harsh in wiping out all uncited entries (battle cries with their own wiki articles do not need to be cited here, as long as they remain in step with their mother articles for instance), and I could go down the list, search on Google, search on Google Books, search on Wikipedia for sources and re-add entries one by one, but I don't see why the onus should be on me, when the people that object to my removals don't even want to do this for even one of the entries. --Sus scrofa (talk) 10:41, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Its easy to add a couple of sentences from memory, harder to look up sources on the net or open a book. Its taken slighly less work than opening a book and hunt for the appropriate citations. Anyway I've added three back into the article that are unsourced here but which have their own articles.--KTo288 (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

"Desperta Ferro" is not Spanish!
"Desperta Ferro!" is not a Spanish war cry. Spain didn't even exist in those years, as there were several kingdoms occupying the Iberian Peninsula. The foretold war cry was used in conjunction with "Aragó" and "Sant Jordi" only by Catalan-Aragonese almogavars during iberian skirmishes and the battles which made them famous on several places around the Mediterranean Sea. Please, revise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buran Biggest Fan (talk • contribs) 22:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Current text on the Italian battle cry "(Avanti) Savoia" may cause confusion
Under "Pre-modern", the article states that "During World War I in the Italian Front of 1915. Before battle, Italian soldiers would yell "Savoia" or "Avanti Savoia", which is "Come on Savoy!" or "Onwards Savoy!" in Italian (compare "For the king!" among British soldiers of the same era).", while under "Modern" it says that ""Avanti Savoia!" (English: Go Savoy!) was the patriotic battle cry of the Italian Royal Army during World War I and to a lesser extent, World War II. Infantrymen would scream this motto when launching an offensive attack, namely against the Austro-Hungarians.".

I believe this might cause some confusion, as it refers to WW1 as both pre-modern and modern, and the different paragraphs offer differing translations for "(Avanti) Savoia".

In addition to this are some lesser observations that might not be appropriate to call wrong, namely stating that "Infantrymen would scream this motto...", which might be construed as implying that this battle cry was exclusive to the infantry. It may well be, but I feel a change in term might be appropriate if it was not exclusive to the infantry. In a similar vein, it may be redundant to preface the term " attack " with the word " offensive " in " launching an offensive attack ", as all attacks are inherently offensive. Purvindxvi (talk) 02:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)