Talk:Non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War

Boldface
The relevant section in BOLDFACE is "If, however, a term is strictly synonymous with the subject of the article, then bold face should be used in place of italics." Combined with the reasons given in my edit summary, I think that is sufficient to justify boldface in this instance. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 08:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts for improvement
I'll try to review it for GA properly within a few days. Few early thoughts: 1) more images can be added 2) note 1 should have an English red-link, which would achieve the purpose behind WP:RED and be meaningful to the reader 3) the structure is a bit unclear, mixing structure and history. I'd suggest restructuring around a history section 4) I think that the Agreement and Committee are notable in itself, and should be redlinked instead of bolded. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 00:12, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I couldn't think of any images. There are people mentioned in the article, but I did wonder whether this is that relevant to the international diplomacy they are discussing. (I specifically had a look for pictures of any of them meeting each other, more or less without success - there are one or two German ones, but Hitler features in the, which I thought was rather unnecessary).
 * I've added the portraits of Chamberlain and Blum; both heavily associated with non-intervention and both one-time leaders of their countries, makes the most sense to pick them out. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Armindo Monteiro" is red-linked in the main text, I'm not quite sure what you mean.
 * Structure/history: the article in its entirety follows a more or less chronology. (Whilst I can see the subtitle "Control plan" might hint at a non-chronological section, it doesn't. It needed breaking up – it's sort of "This bit of time when they were mostly discussing the control plan".) I'd welcome your further thoughts.
 * This a bit of a special situation. "Non-Intervention Agreement" and "Non-Intervention Committee" redirect to sections on this page, as a stand in for the more extensive articles which haven't been written yet. I think it's too early to spin them off (with "main" links, for example) as they'd end up being mostly duplicates of each other - the two things don't really exist outside the framework. It's convenient, at the moment, to have them both here (whilst they are not reams long). But it is, in essence, the redirects that would be annoying, particularly since most actually relate to non-intervention in general, despite one of the two terms being linked (this page was at "Non-Intervention Committee" before I expanded it). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:39, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Lead
I have removed two sentences from the lead, for different reasons.

Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * A resolution approved at the XXXII Universal Peace Congress noted: "Congress considers that a policy of non-intervention, or of abstention, is shown to be insufficient in principle and in practice dangerous, for it paralyses those states which obey it and becomes advantageous to those which violate it."[ref]
 * Uncontextualised. Often quoted on a single side of the debate but here presented without any additional information. Sticks out to the reader and is overweighted, in so far as we don't discuss it in the article (I wouldn't be opposed to doing that).
 * In effect the policy denied Western arms only to the Republicans because Franco was able to obtain whatever arms he needed from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and the British and French Governments appeared determined not to support any Left-wing Spanish Government against European fascism.
 * Some innaccuracies here, mostly as a result of not being able to discuss each side of the argument in such a small space. Franco most certainly did not get "whatever arms he needed" from the Germans or Italians. He got a fraction of it, some late, some different. "British and French Governments appeared determined": the positions of both governments were complicated. In the case of the French, there was considerable assistance to the Republicans. Also, why "Western"? The Soviet Union signed the declaration as well and its position ought to be considered, as it is in the main article. Overall it fails to accurately summarise the article.
 * if the french provided 'considerable assistance to the Republicans' - i don't see that set out in the lead. it says 'occasionally so'.  Spain is in western Europe - why were  Western arms denied basically only  to the Republicans? - this question is fundamental - the Soviet Union, faraway, 'helped' the Republicans to a lesser extent than Hitler and Mussolini who openly supported their fellow fascist - it was partly the' hypocritical unfairness of 'Non-Intervention'  that led to some growing intellectual anti-Fascist protests in the West'(Tosco Fyvel) . Sayerslle (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

one big blunder and couple of other minor things
let's start with minor things, at least these which I found in the first paragraphs:


 * “Italy and Germany supported the Spanish Nationalists from the outset of the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union began supporting the Spanish Republicans four months later” – the Soviets made a decision to intervene militarily in late September, which is not 4 but 2 months following outbreak of the civil war. In terms of non-military support, they made this decision even earlier, as Soviet propagandists appeared in Spain in August
 * “Part of the policy of appeasement, it was aimed at preventing a proxy war from escalating into a European-wide conflict” – the appeasement qualification is arbitrary and does not take into account controversies in historiography. It is not difficult to find respected scholars who claim that though indeed the British opted for non-intervention in order to prevent a local conflict becoming a continental, the Foreign Office by no means intended to appease Hitler or Mussolini
 * “On 3 August 1936, Charles de Chambrun, the French ambassador to Italy, presented the French government's non-intervention plan” - it is the British, not the French, who triggered the concept. When Blum and Delbos visited London between July 25 and 27 (at the time the French were selling arms to the Republic), Baldwin and Eden warned them to be cautious and suggested if anything big is going to develop (like Italo-French war), the UK would remain neutral. That made the French reconsider and eventually turn towards neutrality and non-intervention
 * Chamberlain with Blum are picked up as faces of non-intervention in the top photo. I find it controversial. The heart and mind behind setting the non-intervention scheme was Baldwin. Chamberlain took over in late May 1937, when the non-intervention machinery has long been rolling

and now comes a biggie: the most oustanding blunder are repeated references to “signing” a "Non-Intervention Agreement". There was no signing, and the term “Agreement” is misleading.

There was no international pact or treaty on non-intervention. There was nothing to be signed. Individual countries made unilateral declarations; first France, then Britain, and then other countries. These declarations were usually worded as “adhering to the terms of non-intervention” as specified in the French declaration. So yes, one might say that there was sort of “agreement”, but constant references to “Agreement” wrongly suggest it was a formal document, while there was none.

Unfortunately getting things straight requires re-writing the whole article, which I do not feel like doing. This note is supposed to be just a heads-up, if someone reading the article bothers to have a look at the talk page.

--2A02:A317:2144:1A80:6D70:F49E:C7FE:658D (talk) 11:23, 26 July 2022 (UTC)