Talk:Mines in the Battle of Messines (1917)

This page should not be speedy deleted because...
This page should not be speedily deleted because I am still expanding it. Please view it again in about 2 hours. --ViennaUK (talk) 19:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


 * This is one of my favorite articles on Wikipedia of all time. No joke, thanks for your contribution! 2600:1005:B062:736E:0:8:EC2:8201 (talk) 21:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

CE
Impressive: tidied a few German terms, used convert for metric-imperial and adjusted some of the bibliographical details. Perhaps a map/diagram and some photos are worth consideringKeith-264 (talk) 12:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

There might be something in here that's useful
Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography (1921) Keith-264 (talk) 20:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Tried various permutations of cutting and pasting the German article coordinates but only managed to spoil the view. Will ask around.Keith-264 (talk) 11:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Found all but one of the coords and copied the suggested method. Added a bit from the OH. Put a collapser on the mines section, I quite like it but revert as desired.Keith-264 (talk) 17:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Times history of the war XV another ex-copyright source with several pics.Keith-264 (talk) 11:59, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

clevelode
This seems a useful site but aren't we edging close to advertising?Keith-264 (talk) 06:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, so we must be careful with how much we take from the site. The major point of interest for me are the photographs of the craters. Ideally, we'd have photographs of the craters in the public domain on Wikimedia, but that would require a Wikipedia participant actually going to Ypres and then uploading them. ViennaUK (talk) 19:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Anyone fancy an infobox?Keith-264 (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * @Vienna, there's 2-3 paragraphs worth of narrative in the OH of the digging and maintenance of the mines, which I can add but it will be too much for the list so will need to go into the prose narrative. Is this what you envisage for the article? There's also about two paras worth of German mining and counter-mining.Keith-264 (talk) 12:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably not as part of the article on the Mines in the Battle of Messines (which mainly is a list), but it would be really great to have a mining warfare article specifically on WW I. There was so much going on, like at Vauquois, the Somme, the Alps, etc that it would be very interesting to have more on this. Alas my own expertise & time (at the moment) suffices about for Messines. But if you have more info available, why not consider a specific article like Mining warfare in World War I or similar? Best wishes ViennaUK (talk) 19:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

CE
Tinkered with the layout after adding the German mining section, change if desired. The notes section is full of prose, perhaps it could be moved to the narrative? Keith-264 (talk) 13:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Collapse Comment
If you want an un-collapsed list to be the main section, you'll be constrained by the frame to keep lots of prose separated in the notes, which seems a little awkward but as the Pub Landlord says, your gaff, your rules....;O)Keith-264 (talk) 07:18, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Prelude, aftermath, but what about the event?
One of the notes states that an explosion occurred 15 seconds late, killing allied soldiers. I'm not sure why 15 seconds would matter, but that's why I would read an article like this. A summary of what time the explosions occurred and also the damages would really help this article. Fotoguzzi (talk) 03:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * See Battle of Messines Keith-264 (talk) 08:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

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The not used "Birdcage" mines
Hi, I'm Belgian and know the Ypres Salient very well. Some internet sites provide actually very accurate (scaled!) maps of the trenches and the four unused mines at the extreme south (Birdcage): e.g. (1) and (2). Using the map established by Lt Col GPG Robinson, I found the following coordinates for the four mines on the territory of Comines-Warneton, with an accuracy of only a few meters (with respect to the map). All coordinates have the same degrees and minutes (50°44'x" N and 2°54'y" E), hereby the values of the seconds x and y: Mine 1: x=15,7 / y=45,4 Mine 2: x=18,5 / y=50,0 Mine 3: x=18,7 / y=44,4 Mine 4: x=21,8 / y=46,1

It is easy to mark this coordinates on Google Earth, and 'discover' with Google Maps or Wikimedia Maps that the mines are situated along a small road named "Chemin des Loups" (Wolves Way), as confirmed on the website of the municipality of Comines-Warneton (last sentence of (3) in French). By means of Google Maps - Street View, one can even identify the electricity pylon damaged when mine 3 exploded in 1955. I stop here, otherwise I must write a book instead of a 'talk'. If desired, we can discuss this matter later (I have 'drawn' a Google Maps picture with the mines and also the shafts M1 and M3 from where the mines could be fired). (1) https://simonjoneshistorian.com/2017/05/01/lost-mines-of-messines/ (2) http://bbcfm.be/battle%20of%20messines%20and%20the%20underground%20war.html (3) http://www.villedecomines-warneton.be/loisirs/tourisme/office-du-tourisme/decouvrir-la-ville/patrimoine-memoriel/zone-de-front

PierreMatthias (talk) 22:24, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Fascinating. Thank you very much for getting in touch and for your comments. Do you think you could add some of your insights and local knowledge to the article? That would be greatly appreciated! Best wishes ViennaUK (talk) 19:16, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

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Why use the ß when writing Füsslein?
Any particular reason? Seems unnecessary and confusing in an English article. 97.124.155.252 (talk) 00:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's how his name is spelt; foreign languages are like that. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Casualty numbers
Before I go on a big research tangent about the casualty number of 10,000 German soldiers, which seems both too neat and too high to me - is that number a consensus on this page? The only citation it has is Mining Magazine, which is hardly peer-reviewed. Especially given the eye-catching claim that this was 'one of the deadliest non-nuclear explosions', I'd say we need to be a bit more skeptical here. — Arcaist (contr —talk)  17:05, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It's from the Official History which has been repeated by lots of other sources. I tried to look at the web source because Spencer Jones has credibility but I couldn't get into it at work. I'll have a look now I'm home. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've put it in the Analysis section but I don't think we can treat it as a revision, more a challenge that can't be ignored unless he writes it in an article or book. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 19:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making those edits, that makes more sense now. I'll try to add a few edits, since it's not just Jones who's arguing for an Allied misreading of the figures. Passingham says explicitly in Pillars of Fire: "It was estimated that 23,000-27,000 casualties were suffered by them [the Germans] between 21 May and 10 June. Of this figure, over 10,000 were officially reported missing, many of whom were undoubtedly vapourised or blown apart by the effects of the mines." (p. 163)
 * So 10,000 were all those missing in three weeks, and we shouldn't assume that every single missing German soldier perished in the attack. — Arcaist (contr —talk)  20:14, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

"....many of whom were undoubtedly vaporised or blown apart by the effects of the mines." This tends towards the 10,000 rather than away from it [many] Keith-264 (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * That's not how it reads to me. These were casualty numbers from three weeks of fighting and artillery barrages, and from the context it's clear Passingham is simply speculating in the absence of real numbers. Given that 'missing' also included all those taken prisoner, it's not realistic to assume all those 10,000 in a three-week period simply died in the attack. Qualifying that with an "approximately" overstates the case, I think.
 * If anything, we should say that estimates range from a few hundred to several thousand, but that no exact number has been determined. — Arcaist (contr —talk)  21:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I can agree to that provided we don't teeter over the line into OR. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

German mining, 1916–1917
For this and other reasons the withdrawal proposal was dropped as impractical (nicht vertünlich) "tünlich" is not a real german word, should it say "möglich"? 2003:C8:EF15:7A4A:8999:4DCE:5AD:97A (talk) 16:28, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Is it really true that the mines killed up to 10 000
This well sourced article written by a historian seems to disprove it

https://simonjoneshistorian.com/did-the-messines-mines-really-kill-10000-germans/ 83.250.242.38 (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I have no idea how i missed the fact that this article mentions the source I'm citing 83.250.242.38 (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Dubious
"Vertünlich" is not a word in German, and I can't find it anywhere on the Internet outside of reports on these mines. This looks like a mistaken transcription. I am wondering what the original word was. —Kusma (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Tried in a translator and got nothing. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * My best guess (my qualification for making a guess is that I am a native German speaker) is that the original may have been tunlich, and then "ver-" and the umlaut were added by people who do not understand German. "Tunlich" was not common in 1917, and is very rare nowadays. —Kusma (talk) 10:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)