Talk:Mephisto (tank)

Captured/salvaged and citations.
"a detachment of soldiers from the 26th Battalion, mainly comprised of Queenslanders, helped recover the abandoned tank and drag it back to the allied lines." is what the cited work says. Hengistmate (talk) 15:43, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think "captured" is reasonable in this case though. This wasn't just some abandoned beutepanzer left behind for the taking, they had to assemble an offensive force to secure it, before the engineers could drag it back. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Captain James Robertson's role in the capture of Mephisto
I saw an image detailing the capture of Mephisto, and though not written professionally I was surprised to find that almost all of the details in the image were correct -- with one exception: that Captain James Robertson of the 26th Battallion was partly responsible for the capture of the famed tank.

Here's the image: http://www.memecenter.com/fun/3353017/amp-quot-hey-guys-we-should-go-get-that-tank-amp-quot-amp-quot-why-amp-quot-amp-quot-why-not-amp-quot/comments

And here's a page from the Australian War Memorial that links James Robertson to this tank: https://www.awm.gov.au/education/schools/resources/mephisto-kit/robinson/

Is this source significant enough to update this page?

Mattygabe (talk) 17:54, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * G'day, Mattygabe, this ref might also help: . Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:59, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks like you have plenty of sources to do the update. Go ahead! Kerry (talk) 02:48, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Please take account of the fact that Mephisto was not the first A7V to fall into Allied hands. That was Elfriede. The recovery took place on the 22nd, not the 14th. Mephisto was not in No Man's Land when recovered. The 13 Australians were accompanied by 23 British troops and 2 salvage tanks. The "meme" appears to be an adolescent rant containing nine inessential expletives. In view of the above, does this constitute a reliable source? Hengistmate (talk) 07:55, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

P.S. The officer was J. A. Robinson, not Robertson, and at the time his rank was Lieutenant Colonel, not Captain. Hengistmate (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Some observations on this article
The recent apparent anxiety to insert at a very early stage detailed mention of Australian participation in the acquisition of Mephisto means there is no indication of when or even during which war the operation took place. The details given in the lead par of the men who took part are incomplete and partisan. Much information that is crammed into the lead can wait till further down the article. What "The Gun Carrier Company" is isn't explained, and there were two of them. It is not known for certain whether British tanks or gun carriers were used to tow Mephisto; the leading authority on Mephisto leans towards the latter. Whether the use of the word "captured" is justified is moot; it implies that the vehicle was defended or taken by force, which it wasn't. It had been lying abandoned for 3 months and, according to some sources, forgotten about. Maybe 50% of sources use terms such as "recovered" or "salvaged" instead of or as well as "captured". The battalion diary's account describes Mephisto as "derelict" at the time of its recovery.

The description section contains no dimensions and little in the way of details about the vehicle.

The section Capture and transport to Australia is inaccurate and confused. Mephisto was not dragged back to Allied lines; it was already within them. The bombardment with gas shells was a coincidence, not connected with the operation. The most reliable sources do not describe any firing by the Germans other than the shelling. The names of the probable 26 Bn working party are accurately quoted, but their names are not inscribed on the hull. Of the names that have been punched into the armour, five are from other Australian units and not connected with the recovery operation. Another two are unidentified, but it is believed that their names were inscribed at the same time as the other five. The six "Tank Boys" whose names are inscribed were not in 26 Bn between July & November, 1918. Recent research shows that they were members of the Tank Corps, and not Australian. Their names are inscribed on the rear of the vehicle, not the front.

It is not explained that Mephisto was partly submerged during the floods of 2011. On the other hand, the temporary mystery surrounding its whereabouts is long cleared up, and there seems little point in including it now.

Booktopia recommends "Tank Boys" as suitable for ages 10-12, and the Children’s Book Council of Australia reviewed the book favourably in 2014. The work contains a small number of historical and technical errors.

All the above is, of course, supported by reliable sources, as sometimes required by Wikipedia "editors". Hengistmate (talk) 21:14, 16 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks like you know what you are talking about. Feel free to fix any errors and improve the article, quoting sources as necessary. Happy to help. I believe the thing is still in the AWM, only a few hundred metres away; I can photograph any details. --Pete (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It is not mentioned in the article but I have attended a talk at Queensland Museum where they said that the museum's possession of Mephisto had been a protracted and controversial matter as possession of various "war trophies" was a hotly contested issue among the victorious allied nations. In the case of Mephisto, Britian and Australia disputed the matter, and then within Australia, Queensland claimed a greater entitlement over Australia more generally. All parties made claims about the "capture" of the Mephisto in support of why they should have Mephisto as a war trophy. So I would assume there were many different stories about its capture and some are almost certainly tainted with conflict-of-interest over the various disputes, which makes it a bit difficult to judge what's a "reliable" citation. I presume the article as it stands documents the Queensland version of events, which must have been the most compelling at the time since Qld ended up with Mephisto. Kerry (talk) 05:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Kerry: what you describe is one of Wikipedia's fundamental flaws. You just have to find a way round it.

"It is not known whether any German World War I tanks have been preserved." Chamberlain, P. & Ellis, C. (1969). British and German Tanks of World War 1, p79. Arco. Library of Congress Catalog Number 69-13590. You can't argue with that.

A moderately related example is the section on George S. Patton's activities in WWI. "Wikipedians" of a certain type were able to produce masses of reliable sources demonstrating that Patton led the British offensive at Cambrai, something that he absolutely did not do. If enough Wikipedians are wrong, they become right.

This is not the place to come over all Humean and ask How Do We Know Anything Is True, Anyway? We shall have to rely on our perceptions, and can therefore discount anything that is demonstrably untrue. There is no "conflict of interest" here. There might be conflicting accounts, in which case we can report that accounts conflict. However, if other information shows that an account can't be true, that must be reported, as well. If "the Queensland version" is represented here to the exclusion of other verifiable accounts, then that's wrong. What has happened here is that a mixture of inexperience, over-excitement, wishful thinking, partisanship, nationalism, sloppy journalism, and flawed sources have combined to produce a perfectly acceptable Wikipedia article. Against that, 40-odd years of research, correspondence, study of primary sources, cross-checking of sources, and all the things that are essential to a real encyclopaedia count for nothing. So whilst one cannot possibly suggest that the sources be chosen to support the known facts, let us say that sources must be very carefully evaluated for reliability.

Another party has recently made several edits to the article, which is what prompted me to find the time to post this message. As it happens, the changes are minor and don't address the article's historical inaccuracies to any significant extent. I look forward to Pete's help in getting this sorted out, and hope that Kerry will find that things develop to his satisfaction. Please feel free to discuss.

BTW, Kerry: was the lecture you attended delivered by Mark Whitmore, or had he retired by then? Regards, Hengistmate (talk) 22:53, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
 * "his satisfaction"? Was that caused by inexperience, over-excitement, wishful thinking, partisanship, nationalism, sloppy journalism, or flawed sources? :-) Kerry (talk) 07:03, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * More seriously, I think we are in agreement with each other, so I am not sure what you read into my remarks. I thought I was saying that the article was missing any mention of the dispute over who "captured" the Mephisto and hence was entitled to it as a war trophy. I think the article ought to include the other claims as per WP:NOV. My comment about the conflict of interest was not a comment about Wikipedians but about the possibility that all parties who were wanting the Mephisto as a war trophy had a motivation to exaggerate or even fabricate their claims in relation to its "capture". Whatever the truth or accuracy of any claims, it is a fact that Mephisto came to Queensland, which I presume means that the Queensland claim must have been seen as the strongest or most credible in 1919, and that's probably why the article tells a Queensland-capture story (history being written by the victor, as they say). But I'm not a military history person; my interest lies not so much in who/how Mephisto was captured but more in the role of war trophies in memorialisation here in Australia and the squabbling that went on over the allocation of war trophies to states, towns and districts. Kerry (talk) 08:08, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I offer by way of explanation for my virilisation of you: the known profile of Wikipedia's "editor"ship, especially in relation to articles on military history; the androgynous nature of your forename; and a habit of not reading User Pages since they are generally rather depressing and often a cry for help. I should have recalled that a friend of mine is an authority on the Mark I tank and also a woman, from Portsmouth.

As you say: Anyway. I think we're talking about two different things here. If a Queenslander says it's Christmas, and a Tasmanian says it isn't, we look at the calendar. If it's Christmas, we say so. We can, if we want, report that a Tasmanian disagrees, but we don't say that it might or might not be Christmas. Otherwise you end up with claptrap like the role of George Patton at Cambrai and Wikipedia articles will be interminable. If the Queensland version is correct, it goes in.

I'm going to make a start. The disruptors will already be circling, I'm sure. I look forward to your collaboration. Hengistmate (talk) 12:03, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Plagiarism problem.
In the section Capture and transport to Australia, the 4th par (beginning "Following its capture") is largely lifted verbatim from Czechura/Wise-Hopkins, p37. Including the incorrect info about the position of the chiselled names. Hengistmate (talk) 13:24, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Picture of tank flipping
Anyone else notice that the last picture in this article is flipping around? When one clicks on it it becomes upside down — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.184.77.101 (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Image added 21.11.2017
This caption is debatable. Mephisto was abandoned by its crew and lay behind German lines for three months before its location was occupied by Australian troops of the 28th Battalion. Recovery was carried out by two Gun Carriers, 23 men of the (British) 1st Gun Carrier Company, and 13 men of the 26th Australian Battalion.

The full caption on the AWM site https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1261?image=1 is more complicated:

"A German tank captured by the 26th Australian battalion, at Monument Wood, near Villers-Bretonneux, in France, on July 14th, 1918, and subsequently salved for the Australian War Museum by the 5th British Brigade of Tanks" (Official caption). At the 5th Tank Brigade demonstration ground, Vaux-en-Amienois, France, Australian soldiers inspect Mephisto, a German A7V tank (kampfwagen). After being bogged and abandoned on the battlefield it was recovered on 14 July 1918 by the 26th Battalion and a British Royal Armoured Corps unit." Hengistmate (talk) 11:19, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Centenary and accuracy.
Since we are approaching the former (i.e. the centenary of Mephisto's recovery from the battlefield), it might be fitting to attend to the latter. Finding the time is a concern, but I feel that historical fact should replace some of the myths in this account. Perhaps it's a principle that could be applied to the whole of Wikipedia at some point, but for the time being I'll concentrate on improving this article. All collaboration in good faith welcomed. Let's hope we can keep out the riffraff. Hengistmate (talk) 14:04, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Edits 18th March, 2019.
Have started revamping this article. IMO, a description of the appearance of Mephisto can be had at the A7V site. Apart from the artwork, it differs only in minute detail from the other A7Vs. There's nothing new in that section. The background is what matters in Mephisto's story.

When time permits, I shall improve the "Capture and transport to Australia" section, give a more precise account of Mephisto's movements during and after the battle, and dispel the current Australocentric view that the recovery was a prank by the 26th Bn.

Incidentally, "Peaceful Penetration" is a term coined by a French Foreign Minister to describe his country's economic control of Morocco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hengistmate (talk) 17:12, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Getting so much better all the time.
Things continue to improve. I have yet to insert all the references, externals, bibliography, etc. That will take a little time. Perhaps some of the more zealous "editors" can restrain themselves for a reasonable period. I have not gone into the question of "peaceful penetration" nor used the expression, since there is considerable debate as to the precise definition of this tactic during the War. The operations in the vicinity of Mephisto might not qualify for this description. To describe the actions without using the phrase is not wrong, and no sense of what occurred is lost; therefore I suggest we let that particular dog sleep. Hengistmate (talk) 12:32, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Edits, April 9th, 2019.
Right. There we are. It's now an account of what happened, rather than an Australocentric fable of cheeky larrikins smuggling a 36 ton tank out of France without anyone noticing and taking it, presumably at their own expense, to Australia. I have explained the chiselled names so as to dispel the notion sometimes expressed that they are the men of 26 Bn involved in the salvage, and I haven't bothered mentioning the latter by name because it's not essential. It would not surprise me if someone were to disagree.

Since Whitmore's 1989 book, research has identified more reliably some of the men whose names are inscribed on the vehicle, which is why they are discussed here. Mentioning the ABGROC connection is important. It was a unit comprising railway employees, from engine drivers to stationmasters, obviously very useful in operating the railways that supplied the Front. And all volunteers, of course. An incidental point is that there were no rail lines between Vaux and Poulainville/Bertangles, which means that there would be no ABGROC men at Vaux. That makes it probable that the "Tank Boys" inscription was done at Vaux, whilst the ABGROC names were inscribed at Poulainville. This is merely an observation. It is based on carefully researched primary sources, and therefore, obviously, cannot be allowed to appear in Wikipedia.

Jordan argues that the term “peaceful penetration” is inappropriate because it was used by higher command, sometimes for actions other than stealth raids, and that the term did not emanate from the original stealth raiders. In the circumstances, I think it's probably best not to create a hostage to fortune.

Thank you to Ms Raymond for her helpful improvement. If anyone feels that the article would benefit from further citations, please let me know, and I shall provide them. Hengistmate (talk) 10:55, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Pre-formatted Wikipedia citations in Trove
Regarding my "helpful improvement" mentioned above, I think I should point out that it is incredibly easy to cite anything in the digitised newspapers on Trove. When you are looking at an article, e.g. in the case of the Mephisto edit, look over to the left-hand tool bar where the first icon is a little "i" in a circle (if you hover it will say "Details"). Click that and scroll down to the bottom of the Details panel and you will find a pre-formatted Wikipedia citation for that newspaper article. Which looks like this:

All you have to do is copy and paste it into the Wikipedia article between the normal tags (if using source editor). If using the Visual Editor, use Cite > Manual > Basic and paste it into the text box, then Insert. It is far less work (and more accurate) than trying to manually create a citation to it. Note that almost all facets of Trove (books, journals, photos, maps, etc) have these pre-formatted citations (but the button you need is called "Cite This" in the other facets) so if you need to cite a book, just grab the citation from Trove (note if there are multiple editions, you have to look at the specific edition to get the "Cite This" button) and then just add in the specific page number(s) you are citing. These pre-formatted Wikipedia citations in Trove are great and I am often surprised how few Wikipedians seem to know about them. Kerry (talk) 23:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your very kind help. I don't really understand it, of course. Please don't call me a Wikipedian. Heaven forbid. Hengistmate (talk) 22:24, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Edits, October 2, 2018.
New information published in reliable source. Damage to Mephisto caused by artillery, not demolition charges and mistaken identity. Hengistmate (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

New information
Should we add information from this news article to the Wikipedia Article?https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/german-a7v-tank-autopsy-wwi/ Shktriib1 (talk) 10:17, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

What is the new information? Hengistmate (talk) 11:34, 17 July 2022 (UTC)