Template talk:Ottoman battles

Scope
This template is intended to show the battles in fields and sea. Sieges and invasions are not field battles and their number in Ottoman history is very high; higher than a template may reasonably list. So I had to clear out several additions made by 77.83.212.157. (But still most of his additions are untouched.) Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 10:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Besieging a city may not be a battle per se, but assaulting one is. And certain sieges like Constantinople at 1453 or Vienna at 1683 are era-changers for the Ottomans, so I'm re-adding them. --Mttll (talk) 03:21, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Excuse me for my ignorance. But what is the difference between besieging and assaulting a city ? How can you siege a city with out assaulting it ? In Vienna 1683 a battle followed the siege. There is nothing wrong with including the battle od Vienna to this template. But 1453 was only a siege. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * When an army besieges a city, they can try to starve the defenders out (war of attrition, no battle engagement) or batter down the walls and gates (assault, direct battle engagement). The latter clearly belongs to this category. --Mttll (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * A battle is a clash in open space. Both sides have chace to defeat the other. Siege is a one sided clash. One side tries to capture the fort and the other tries to defand it. For instance 1683 bagan as siege (or as you classify assault-siege) . But when John III Sobieski of Poland arrived at Vienna, the Ottomans lifted the siege and engaged in the battle. Like 1683 in all other sieges Ottmans always fought except for the capture of Nicaea  in the early days of the empire.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 17:48, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Open space? Not at all. From Oxford Dictionaries:
 * Modern battle are usually fought in dense urban locations, not fields, and are still called battles. For instance, see Battle of Fallujah. --Mttll (talk) 02:41, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if fought in densely populated places, batles are always clashes between two sides. In battles the victorious side chases the losers. In sieges the defenders are called victorious when the siege is lifted even if they don't chase the siegers.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 07:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if fought in densely populated places, batles are always clashes between two sides. In battles the victorious side chases the losers. In sieges the defenders are called victorious when the siege is lifted even if they don't chase the siegers.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 07:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

You can have defensive and offensive parties in field battles as well. Seriously, the distinction seems to exist only in your head. 117 sieges are listed in the article, List of battles 1401–1800, including Ottoman siege of Constantinople and Belgrade. --Mttll (talk) 15:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

The time limits
The duration specified in the title of this template is 1300-1900. It is true that the legal entity of the Ottoman Empire survived till 1922. But during 1900-1922 Ottoman Empire fought three major battles (War of Tripoli against Italy, Balkan wars against all Balkan countries and First World war against allies) and a major revolt (of Yemen) not to mention the civil war in 1920. The number of battles in this relatively short period is very high. So it is best to exclude those battles fought after 1900 from this template. But of course another template dedicated just for those 22 years can be created. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 09:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I divined your purpose, but having six centuries' worth of battles is not a little amount either, if we go about including every single one of them. Excluding these last years is both odd and leaves the template's scope somehow incomplete, plus that 1900 is a very arbitrary cutting-off point. At this opportunity, I'd like to point out a few issues here: first, battle navboxes with such sweeping scope are very rare (I only know of this one) and of little use to the average user, since little context is provided as to the chronology, wider conflict/war/campaign they formed part of, etc. At best, this subject is covered in Battles involving the Ottoman Empire with far more detail. If you want to make this navbox useful, I'd recommend changing it to something like the Template:Grand Viziers of Ottoman Empire, with sub-boxes per century or historical period and then further subdivision (groups) by conflict. Cheers, Constantine  ✍  11:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree 1900 is pretty arbitrary. It's better not to exclude any battle involving the Ottomans because of its date. At worst, period sections can be collapsed. --Mttll (talk) 14:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Name
Changed to Template:Ottoman battles. Even in Turkish Wikipedia tr:Şablon:Osmanlı savaşları. Takabeg (talk) 13:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Periods of the Ottoman Empire
To my knowledge, they are established as the following:

Rise: 1299-1453 (Foundation to Constantinople) Growth: 1453-1683 (Constantinople to Vienna) Stagnation: 1683-1827 (Vienna to Navarino) Decline: 1827-1908 (Navarino to Second Constitutional Era) Dissolution: 1908-1918 (Second Constitutional Era to Mudros)

Yet, there is a difference approach in this article, but I don't know which historians use it nor do I understand the significance of the dates. --Mttll (talk) 14:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In all Turkish History books OIttoman history milestones are given as
 * 1453-1579 Growth
 * 1579-1683 Stagnation (1579, death of Sokollu Mehmet Pasha)
 * 1683-1792 Decline
 * 1792-1922 Dissolution (1792 Treaty of Jassy, (beginning of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire)
 * with the footnote that the written docoments of Stagnation are 1606 (treaty of  Zsitvatorok, when Ottoman sultan acknowledged Holy Roman Emperor as his equivalent) and 1699 (treaty of Karlowitz, when the sultan acknowledged the lost of vast territories.) I'll add one thing more:For the last period some books prefer Tanzimat (a package of reforms)  in 1839. But no book considers 1827 or 1908 as a beginning or end of any period. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Now I see there might be a mistake on my part, but if what you say is right, the following articles need to be fixed:
 * Rise of the Ottoman Empire
 * Growth of the Ottoman Empire
 * Stagnation of the Ottoman Empire
 * Decline of the Ottoman Empire
 * Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
 * Or could it be that Turkish and international sources use different dates? The terminology seems exclusively Turkish in origin though. --Mttll (talk) 22:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To prevent a possible edit war, I ususally don't make major changes in the articles created by other editors (except obvious numerical error, links etc.) Colloboration is best. But most of these articles were created by an editor who is no more active in WP after 2006. So we weren't able to come to a mutual understanding. Still I may correct the said articles in the future.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, I don't think dreading edit wars to that extent is healthy. It's nothing less than a tragedy if moderately prominent articles such as those were allowed to mislead readers for 6 years. Wikipedia encourages its editors to be bold. Moreoever, no editor owns any Wikipedia article in any way, shape or form. --Mttll (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Colors
This template has nine subsections. Four of them are for naval batles and the rest are for land battles. Feeling it is somewhat complicated, I used colors to distinguish land battles and naval battles. Blue is universally used to show water-related items and brown or khaki is used for land-releted items. But for reasons completely unknown to me, User:Frietjes keeps desaturating the colors. Her rationale wp:deviations actually doesn't forbid using colors. I'll call her. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 20:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * the guidelines at wp:deviations state that "In general, styles for tables and other block-level elements should be set using CSS classes, not with inline style attributes.", so this means we should avoid groupstyle or group1style etc unless there is a very good reason not to do so. I, personally, find the excessive colouring to be unprofessional looking, and harder to read.  there are plenty of navboxes with far more subgroups than this one that are doing just fine without arbitrary colouring.  and, last time I checked, these colours are not universal. Frietjes (talk) 20:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * When an editor creates an article or a template, other editors are invited to contribute to it. Expanding, fixing, adding a cat or linking are valuable contributions and I am always thankful for such contributions. But playing with the color is not something I would find valuable. Although WP suggest not to engage in an edit war on template colors, the color of this template had been changed several times w/o a good reason. An editor thinks that the two colors I've used to distinguish naval and land battles are unprofessional looking. So what  ? I think just the opposite. Please stop this time and energy consuming edit war. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 20:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * indeed, there is still no consensus for your change. Frietjes (talk) 17:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * indeed, there is still no consensus for your change. Frietjes (talk) 21:04, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Fall of Constantinople
User Cplakidas has added "Fall of Constantinople" with the comment "most important battle of all missing." Well, I have no objection, but I want to make my point clear. I started this template and soon I realized that there is no standard definition of battle among the participants. My original aim was to list the open field (or sea) combats between two armies. But it soon turned out that the sieges and captures were also considered as battles. I am afraid there are too many of them. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 08:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, a siege is by definition a battle. Unless you clarify the template scope as being only "pitched battles", then sieges belong here as well, especially since naval battles are already included. On the importance, it is true there are many battles and that inclusion can be somewhat subjective, but I should think that the battle that is held to have marked the end of the Middle Ages and gave the Ottoman Empire its "classical" capital, merits inclusion by whatever criterion one could think of. Constantine  ✍  12:00, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with @Nedim Ardoğa, in medieval and early modern warfare there was a stark difference between field battles and sieges, and it would be much better if this list were limited just to the former. This also gives it an easily manageable criteria for inclusion - sieges were infinite in number, battles were rare. Chamboz (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2017 (UTC)