Talk:Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France

[Untitled]
The Vichy Regime had legal authority over all France, despite Northern France being occupied. Kitkatcrazy (talk) 11:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is totally un-sourced, and I question some of its content. It contains rhetorical questions and bias (yes, I know its bias for the "good guys" in WWII, but its still not up to standards of what we should expect here. A total rewrite is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blazerbryant (talk • contribs) 00:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

This article probably shouldn't exist
I have reverted the article back to the "two lines of text" because that's all it really needs. The title of the article, if it should exist at all (because I can't find the phrase on Google except in reference to the wikipedia article itself), is a narrow reference to the pseudo-legal government entity of non-Vichy France. Most historians, I think, would simply call this the "German occupation of France during World War II", of which there is already a good article. The rest of the text, which I have removed, was added as a large chunk all at once, and for all I know, was an essay written by someone and copied to wikipedia en-masse. Blazerbryant (talk) 02:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

After discovering that the term "Military Administration in Belgium and northern France" is already used in the info-box on German occupation of France during World War II, which is a much better article that more succinctly covers all the information in the "essay" which existed here before, I have created a simple redirect. If anyone wants to write an article, up to wikipedia standards, with full citations, on the "legal authority" of the government in occupied France, feel free. But what was here before was just a bad article. Blazerbryant (talk) 02:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Once again, this article needs to be re-written, not purged. Both you (as well as this article itself, it seems) are confused about what this name is actually referring to. This is supposed to cover the German military administration that operated out of Brussels, and which was known as the Militärverwaltung in Belgien und Nordfrankreich ("Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France"). It was referred to as such because in addition to Belgium its territory also included the two French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais (see the adjoined map). The German occupation regime in France that operated out of Paris was an entirely different entity.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

This misunderstanding just seems to crop up again and again. I'm putting up a notice at the top of the article page.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 03:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not a war-historian, but it was obvious that the article that existed for this page before was, as I described above, totally inappropriate for Wikipedia, and as you said, confused about what it was referring to. I'm fine with the current status. Blazerbryant (talk) 03:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

PANONIAN's move and removal of content
User:PANONIAN has moved this article without an WP:RM, a discussion, or even a talkpage post. The infobox has also been stripped of insignia. To top it off, the move was almost done for the purpose of assisting User:PANONIAN in the perpetual dispute he created on the article about the Serbian counterpart of this territory. I've reverted these edits, and they should not be restored without consensus. -- Director  ( talk )  11:41, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Stop with false personal accusations, please. PANONIAN  07:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Clear consensus against the proposed title and none of the alternatives generated much interest. No prejudice against a new RM to discuss the merits of one of the alternative titles more thoroughly. (non-admin closure) Jenks24 (talk) 05:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France → Belgium and Northern France – I request renaming this page to title Belgium and Northern France since this article speaks about territorial unit not about German administrators. Name Belgium and Northern France is a common name for the territory used in most sources:, while name "Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France" was a name of German administration that governed territory. It is strange and unusual to name territory by the name of its administration. PANONIAN 07:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Propose different move. It should be moved IF it is about a territory, but I don't agree with the suggested title. If the article is supposed to be about an occupied territory (which this was), it should not be named 'Military Administration...', as that would naturally mean the article was about a military administration. However, it appears from a quick search of German sources that its name was 'the Occupied Territories of Belgium and northern France' (den besetzten Gebiete von Belgien und Nordfrankreich) that were under the supreme control of the German 'Military Commander in Belgium and northern France' (Militärbefehlshabers in Belgien und Nordfrankreich). This is an almost identical situation to that in the case of Serbia (Territory of the German Military Commander), and it appears User:PANONIAN is attempting to change the title of this article to strengthen his case for a change to the title of the Serbia (Territory of the German Military Commander) article to 'Serbia (1941-1944)'. Given he had shown no interest in this article prior to this requested move, I consider my responsibility to WP:AGF is reduced on this occasion, and that my observations are a reasonable extrapolation from his actions elsewhere. Instead, I propose it be changed to 'Occupied Territories of Belgium and northern France (1940-1944)', which reflects the nature of the territories and is sufficiently disambiguated. Peacemaker67 (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose While we could possibly find a better title (and we should also try to shorten the hatnote) this proposed new title is not on, as Belgium and northern France have a history a lot longer than these 4 years. PatGallacher (talk) 13:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I appreciate that the proposed new title looks a lot more natural, but Belgium and northern France have much more history than just this narrow period, so the new title would potentially be quite misleading. The article content is, substantially, about the administration rather than the area of land. However, I disagree with Peacemaker67; any discussion of moving other articles is a WP:OTHERSTUFF problem. bobrayner (talk) 14:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Its a POV move proposed solely due to the discussion on Talk:Serbia (Territory of the German Military Commander), where PANONIAN is attempting to elevate another German occupation zone of this sort, the Military Administration in Serbia, to the status of some sort of fantasy puppet state. That said, it may be a good idea to move the article to Territory of the Military Commander in Belgium and Northern France - if that was the official name of the territory itself. -- Director  ( talk )  15:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose mostly per DIREKTOR. This looks like forumshopping for the "Serbia" article. Additionally, the proposed title is unspecific to the point of being inappropriate. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 04:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Belgium and Northern France" is also a regional breakdown of the here and now, considering ethnic breakdown of France and Belgium. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 05:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose article would need to change to fit the title. Agathoclea (talk) 09:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose but German Administration in Belgium and Northern France might be permissible. The target would imply an article on these areas generally.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Talk:France during World War II
It's important to sort out the mess that are the WWII articles.

All input welcome. Thank you. walk victor falktalk 20:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)