Talk:South American dreadnought race/Archive 1

A few passages from a book that might interest
As I promised to Ed, I'm going to lay down a few passages from the Brazilian book "A Marinha Brasileira na Era dos Encouraçados, 1895-1910", written by João Roberto Martins Filho. Since I'm not a usual contributor of this article, I opted to write them down here in the talk page, so that you can pick which one might be useful.

1) The entire chapter 3 is devoted to late 19th century shipyards, including the British Armstrong and Vickers, the German Krupp, the Italian Ansaldo, etc... The author explained those shipyards' roles on influencing directnly and indirectly arms races, wars, etc... Important to this article is perhaps is page 128, where the author told about the Armstrong pressure over Admiral Julio de Noronha (the then-Minister of Navy) to acquire dreadnoughts instead of smaller ships as he had envisioned at first. Noronha refused to compel, but his successor Admiral Alexandrinho yielded, which resulted in the 1906 naval program. Also interesting is that on page 137 has the the curious information that Armstrong gave as a gift to the wife of the Brazilian Plenipotentiary Minister in London a ruby and diamond collar.

2) On page 140 he said the Argentine government decided to purchase two dreadnoughts on 1908 as a response to the Brazil. Although these ships were built by the American company Bethlehem Steel Company, the British Armstrong was contracted to build two ships to Chile on 1911. This was what Armstrong intended from the beginning: a regional naval race that could increase its foreign orders. All this is told on page 140. --Lecen (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll' add more as I read the book.--Lecen (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Lecen, this is very much appreciated. I'm away from my sources, but if I remember right, Topliss implies that pressure was put on Noronha but doesn't explicitly state it. I'll be able to add that for sure. I don't think any other source tries to say Armstrong tried to kindle the arms race, but it would certainly make good business sense. ;-) I'll look into this more. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:39, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added a bit from page 128. And a dumb question: should the author's name be "Martins Filho, Joao Roberto" or "Filho, Joao Roberto Martins"? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It should be Martins Filho, not only Filho. Filho means "Son". It is the same as the English word "Junior". I believe an author named "John Stevenson Junior" would be "Stevenson Junior, John", right? P.S.: Sorry for not continuing writing more pieces of the book. I'm moving to another town. Once all is done (next week!) I start it agan, don't worry! --Lecen (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, actually Chicago says it would be "Stevenson, John, Jr.", although what you say would seem to make more sense. I'll make the change based on Chicago (because that's what the rest of the article is in), but I'm going to use "Martins Filho" in the short cites. No worries on not continuing, I understand how annoying and time-consuming moves can be. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

As requested by Ed sometime ago, I added a few extra references where possible. I'm really sorry for having taken so long. There is a passage in this article that says that "with plans for a third dreadnought after the first was completed, two scout cruisers (which became the Bahia class), ten destroyers (the Pará class), and three submarines". According to the book I used as source (which shows the bill promulgated by the Brazilian National Congress) they were three dreadnoughts (18,000 tons each), three scout cruisers (3,100 tons each) and 15 destroyers (650 tons each). p.105 There is no mention of submarines. Perhaps somewhere along the road the government gave up of some of the ships as it did with the third dreadnought. --Lecen (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I missed this post. I'm wondering if the design was altered later to make them more powerful (I can look at Topliss for that, I think)... was Martins using the bill passed on 20 February 1907? The submarines were eventually built, so I think Martins is referring to an earlier plan. Thanks Lecen. Also, if you still have the book, could you add Martins' assessment of the race to the Historiography section? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. I'll have some free time this friday and I'l try to look after any information I might have overlooked. --Lecen (talk) 12:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Epilogue chapter
"At this moment, the launch of the superdreadnought Orion, on 26 November 1909, created in the country [Brazil] a similar situation provoked when of the lauch of the Dreadnought at the end of 1906. On 7 May 1910, Admiral Bacellar, head of the Brazilian Naval Comission in Great Britain, instructed the Armstrong shipyard to interrupt the works on the Rio de Janeiro and asked for projects for a more powerful ship. Brazil was also worried about the two Argentine dreadnoughts then in construction on the United States." p.199 "On 11 October 1910, just three weeks before the change of administration [a new President had been elected], Alexandrino signed a new contract, for a ship with 12 cannons of 14 inches situated on six towers, with a displacement of 30 thousand tons." p.199 "Already chosen to replace Alexandrino, Admiral Marques de Leão made a trip to several shipyards in Europe, with a special stop on Germany, where he was invited to visit not only Kiel, naval headquarters of Krupp, but the Kaiser [Wilhelm II] himself, who -in a long talk- seems to have convinced him of how useless it was to equip great dreadnoughts with cannons larger than 12 inches (300 mm). The detail would leave open the possibility of a construction of the Brazilian ship in Gemrany, in case the contract with Armstrong was annulled." pp.199-200 "As a result of the new situation, between the end of 1910 and the beginning of 1911, the new minister asked Newcastle [Armstrong] for newer projects ... took the minister to accept the new and definite project of a ship with 14 cannons of 12 inches, and yet [it was still] one the largest [ships] in the world. On 3 June 1911, the contract was signed. On 11 January 1912, Marques de Leão left the ministry portfolio, being replaced by Admiral Belfort Vieira. As it always occurred in the Brazilian Navy, he seems to have attempted to change the ships' contract, replacing the 14 cannons mentioned for seven [cannons] of 15 inches (375 mm). Meanwhile, on 22 January 1913 the Rio de Janeiro was launched to the sea. However, at this point, it seemed certain that Brazil would give up of the purchase." p.200 "On September 1913, a month after Alexandrino took office on his second administration in the Ministry of Navy, Brazil instructed the Rothschild to negotiate the selling of the ship ... At the end, the Turkish government acquired the [ship] order. The business transaction was settled on 28 December 1913, and the ship was rechristened Sultan Osman I. When the war [World War I] erupted, the ship was confiscated by the English government on 3 August 1914, receiving the name Agincourt - with which took part on the famous Battle of Jutland, on May and June 1916." p.201 --Lecen (talk) 14:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC) "For all purposes, here ends for the Brazilian navy the mithological era of the dreadnoughts. As revealed by Francisco Alves de Almeida, the Minas Gerais and the São Paulo were absent of the modest Brazilian naval participation in the last months on World War I. According to this scholar, [who was] ex-director of the Servive of Documentation of the Navy, the emphasis on ships, in detriment of personal's training and infrastructure of [ships'] maintenance, had created an "unprepared and inefficient" Navy ... Already old [outdated] in their youth, the two dreadnoughts [São Paulo and Minas Gerais] ..." p.201 --Lecen (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

FAC: prose comments
I am posting these here, to avoid cluttering the FAC discussion page. Most of these are, as you will see, pretty minor, but nonetheless need attention. I have only done the first few sections so far; doing the rest will take time, obviously, but I will get to it:-
 * Lead
 * From whom did the Argentine and Chilean governments order their dreadnoughts?
 * "The Brazilian government ordered one warship in the United Kingdom..." Surely, "from" not "in"? You say "warship" here, rather than "dreadnought" – is that significant?
 * "The war also had an effect on Chile, as both of their battleships were purchased by the United Kingdom". Later on you say these ships were "taken over"., which is different from "bought". Which is correct?
 * "Argentina's two dreadnoughts were delivered in 1915 because the United States remained neutral in the opening years of the war." Cause and effect do not seem obvious; what is the reasoning here?
 * For themselves? I thought that would be clear... 2 should be fixed. Bought is probably closest to the reality. They probably would have been taken over if Chile wasn't an important nitrate supplier to the UK. As for 4, I was worried about this sentence. The cause -> effect is that Argentina's ships were not bought by the US, like Chile's in the UK, because the US was not in the war yet. Do you have a better way to reword this? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Argentine–Chilean boundary dispute
 * "Both governments were distracted..." I think you mean "Each government was distracted...", since they were distracted by different things. The whole sentence should be split and rewritten along the lines: "Each government was distracted in the next few years, in Argentina's case by internal military operations against the indigenous population, and in Chile's case by the War of the Pacific (Guerra del Pacífico) against Bolivia and Peru. By 1890 a full-fledged naval arms race was under way between Argentina and Chile." (Note that "under way" is two words).
 * As a general rule, dates should precede the events to which they relate. Thus,  "The Chilean government added £3,129,500 to the budget for its fleet in 1887, which was..." creates  problems of grammar and ambiguity. Instead, write "In 1887 the Chilean government added £3,129,500 to the budget for its fleet, which was..." That removes all uncertainties as to meaning. There are further examples throughout the text that should be  similarly amended.
 * To say that the Argentines "then signed", and then give the date of signing, makes "then" redundant
 * These should be addressed. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 11:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Brazil's fade and reemergence
 * "Fade" does not seem like an encyclopedic term to describe a country's decline. Why not "decline"?
 * Ambiguity enters the first sentence with the comma after "1889 revolution". Suggest you remove it.
 * "they still retained..." Clarify: "the country still retained..."
 * The sentence we're discussing is too long and complicated as it stands. Suggest full stop after "in the interim", then: "By the turn..."
 * "devolved" is the wrong word. I think you mean "evolved"
 * Another overcomplicated sentence needing attention: "At the same time, the American government under Theodore Roosevelt tried using diplomatic means to coerce the Brazilians into canceling their ships, but the attempts were dismissed, with the Baron of Rio Branco remarking that caving to the American demands would render Brazil as powerless as Cuba, whose new constitution allowed the American government to intervene in Cuban affairs."
 * Also the next: "The new President of Brazil, Afonso Pena, supported the naval acquisitions in an address to the National Congress of Brazil in November 1906, as in his opinion the ships were necessary to replace the losses recently suffered by the navy, most notably the old Aquidabã, and the antiquated vessels of the current navy."
 * Still getting to these, but I thought "decline" made it sound too much like "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" when writing the article. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 11:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

More on the way. Brianboulton (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Demilitarisation
Hi! two Argentine cruisers, along with Chile's Capitán Prat, were demilitarized. What cruisers were demilitarized and how was it done? --Maxrossomachin (talk) 19:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there! According to Scheina, p. 52, Garibaldi and Pueyrredon were demilitarized, along with Capitan Prat. However, in footnote 40, p. 349, this did not include the heavy ordnance because Argentina did not have cranes that were capable of lifting the turrets. Presumably all of the other guns were removed. Regards, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:00, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! --Maxrossomachin (talk) 06:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Anytime! [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=South_American_dreadnought_race&diff=530105561&oldid=530097161 The clarifications] I added to the article may also help you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Image sizes
Per WP:IMAGESIZE, we would need extraordinary reasons to hard-code the thumbnail sizes. In he absence of such, we should stick to the default settings, which let users select their own settings. --John (talk) 11:44, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, we prefer to let users select their own image sizes. On my laptop these larger thumbnails overwhelm the article. We can see detail by clicking on the images and viewing them at full size. --John (talk) 08:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The larger sizes are to allow for more detail, which can't be seen at Wikipedia's default thumbnail size. I've made some of the less-significant images smaller. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Two isn't "some". If it was good enough for FA it should continue to be fine. Unless there is an overwhelming reason to force the images to display larger, they can go back to the peer-reviewed formatting. --John (talk) 08:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Significant textual additions have been made as well, yet the limited older version was good enough for FA. Should we go back to that as well? ;-) The lead image is larger because it is the first and to allow for detail in what is a grainy image. The launch photos are larger to allow for detail in the christening image; the other two are sized to match. The superstructure in the two Rio de Janeiro images, which is discussed in the first caption, are completely unviewable at thumbnail size. The first sailor image is larger so that their facial expressions can be seen; the second is a ridiculously grainy image, but we have nothing better to show João Cândido Felisberto at the moment. The three Minas Geraes images are at 260px so that the modifications discussed in the captions can be (somewhat) seen. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "In general, do not define the size of an image unless there is a good reason to do so". John, it's not "extraordinary", is it? Many editors, not to mention readers, would regard a detail-rich image as a good enough reason to make it bigger. When I ran the RFC here two years ago that successfully gained consensus for raising the default size from 180px, many commenters were in favour of 240px, not 220px. I settled on 220px in my entreaties to the WMF developers because it was very conservative and more likely to get action (which it did after a few months). I'd be making the Rivadavia a bit larger—important and tiny details there, and quite good res. Actually, the pics all-round in this article are of high quality for historical images, I think. Tony   (talk)  09:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Links possibly not correct
Hello. I just came accross the article and noted that at least two of the links in the table ″Major Argentine and Chilean warship purchases and orders, 1887–1902″ are incorrect. More specifically, Rivadavia links to Japanese cruiser Kasuga and Mariano Moreno does so to Japanese cruiser Nisshin. If those links are correct, it would be helpful to add a note explaining why. Thanks.--Jetstreamer $Talk$ 12:58, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and modified the links . Please check.--Jetstreamer $Talk$ 13:02, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Please read the linked articles! Both ships were sold to the Japanese as a condition of ending the naval arms race. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 14:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Noted.--Jetstreamer $Talk$ 15:22, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Minas Geraes class "much more powerful" than any other warship in the world?
The article currently states that, in 1910, "the new Brazilian warships were much more powerful than any other vessel in the world..." This statement seems slightly hyperbolic. Do we really think that these warships were significantly more powerful than the British St. Vincent class, for instance, or even the American Delawares? Perhaps slightly more powerful, if based solely on number of guns, but much seems like a stretch. Still, without access to the source, I don't want to change the statement without checking for thoughts first. Jrt989 (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi there, thanks for your comments. You've made a very good point, and I've changed this sentence to reflect that: "" The definition of 'power' may be being decided on the basis of armament—the Minas Geraes class had twelve 12-inch guns against the Delaware class' ten—hence the "seemingly", as that's not necessarily the best deciding factor. Please feel free to change the sentence further if you'd like. Regards, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 14:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ed. Nice article! Jrt989 (talk) 20:45, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Should this page override WP:CREDITS ?
It seems from this discussion and  WP:CREDITS that the credits in the captions on this page are un-necessary. Unless consensus can be reached on this page to override those two things I believe the "courtesyof" part of the captions should be removed.CombatWombat42 (talk) 02:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * That discussion isn't even twelve hours old, and despite your impatience, there's no immediate threat to the encyclopedia. Give it time, Flash. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * No need to attack me, The discussion on MOS is unlikely to get other comments because of the clarity of WP:CREDITS, everyone else likely considers CREDITS the clear policy on the matter and see's no need to comment further. Normally Wikipedia conforms to clear policy while consensus is reached on the talk page, but as you say, there is no immediate threat, that said continued personal attacks will make me want to enforce policy more strongly. CombatWombat42 (talk) 14:17, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You think that's a personal attack? Wow. Just, wow. Aside from your unfortunate interpretation of WP:PA, let me highlight one word in your post: "unlikely". Not "will not". "Unlikely". Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:19, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Quote templates
I recently placed bq (which used raw styling markup) in this template with quote. After an unexplained revert, and another with an abusive edit summary, this has now been replaced with bare HTML markup.

The three versions are styled thus:

Template:BQ (with "style=font-size:90%"):

"Template:Quote:"

" :"

As can be seen, there are absolutely no style differences between the first two, while the latter has smaller - and thus harder to read - text. Of the three options, only quote prevents raw markup from being exposed to editors. It should be restored. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree here, quote seems to be preferred method on Wikipedia, and using the standard is probably best unless there is good reason for it.
 * On another note, "The ed17" seems to have some WP:OWN own issues with this page, hopefully they will not continue. CombatWombat42 (talk) 20:03, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I wrote the article; am I not allowed to maintain it? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I came to use quote as a good standard and don't see a reason not to use it here, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

No further comments, so I'm restoring the version that used Quote. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been busy and mostly unable to edit. I opened up my TCMOS and looked up the relevant clause on blockquote formatting. It allows for simple paragraphing, so while I'd prefer the slightly smaller font to distinguish this from the rest of the text, I don't have enough on-wiki time to fight about it. I've also removed the remaining custom CSS styling. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

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