User talk:Djwilms/Archive 1

The truth
Please read the "aftermath" section of the Sino-French war article. It states that France got "most of what it wanted". If you read the section, it should answer a few questions. Also, look at most of the battles and you will see China lost most of them and suffered heavier causalties. User:Reenem (talk)

Re: Assyrians in Japan
Hi Djwilms, User:Nineveh 209 directed me here after you asked how to type in Syriac. Do you know how to read Syriac? If you do, you can just copy-and-paste each individual Unicode letter by going to Syriac alphabet. This method works well if you're just trying to write a few words, but it can take a very, VERY long time if you're writing up whole sentences or paragraphs in Syriac. Other than that, I can give you a link and instructions to download and enable Syriac fonts if you plan on writing a large amount. --334a (talk)

Contacting PHG help
Greetings. I'm trying hard to get a hold of a wikipedia user named PHG (stands for Per Honor et Gloria). I noticed you've been in contact with him/her via his/her wiki talk page. I am VERY new to this sort of posting and would like to contact him/her via email. PHG posted an article on a map I'm very interested in featuring in a documentary film I'm working on. Wondering if you could help me contact him/her? My email address is ben@committeefilms.com. I would appreciate communicating there as I'm quite new at this.--atariatari 18:08, 4 April 2010

Ichthus: January 2012
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Q&A
(Mystery question).

And the answer is... Bouët, Alexandre-Eugène, 1833-1887. Congratulations for your great work on the Sino-French war! Cheers PHG (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear [PHG],

Thanks a lot for Bouët. The index to my book can now take one more small step towards completion ...

I see you were the author of that nice little map of the S-F War. I wonder whether you would care to make some minor edits to it? Specifically, I think some dates need changing:

The campaign in Taiwan lasted from August 1884 to April 1885.

The date of the Battle of Shipu was 14 February 1885, and Zhenhai Bay (if we agree to call it a battle, which I'm very doubtful about) 1 March 1885.

The campaign in Tonkin I would date August 1884 to April 1885.

The Sino-French War is conventionally dated from 23 August 1884 to April 1885, though I'm inclined to date it from the battle of Sontay (December 1883). Still, I've kept the conventional dating in my main article, so perhaps your map could also reflect this.

Incidentally, the picture of a French launch attacking a Chinese ship is ascribed in Wright's 'The Chinese Steam Navy' to the battle of Shipu, not Foochow. I think his ascription is correct, and have recaptioned it accordingly, but would welcome any confirmation.

I think I'll do the Battle of Bang-Bo next.

Cheers, David Wilmshurst


 * Thanks for the comments Djwilms. Here's an updated map. You might have to hit the refresh buttom on your browser to be able to see it. Cheers. PHG (talk) 04:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear [PHG]

I loved your Japanese print of the Sino-French War! Do you have any others?

You might be amused to note that I have used Bouet's christian names and dates in the article 'Battle of Phu-Hoai' I contributed today.

I've got a few French warship images at home that I need to add to the article 'Far East Squadron'. I've got Parseval for sure, but you've already covered the main ones. I've seen pictures of Lynx and some of the other gunboats in published books, but don't know whether they're available on the internet.

Keep up the good work on illustrating my contributions! I've so far balked at contributing images because of all the form filling you have to do on copyright, etc, so I appreciate contributions by others.

Annam
Is there any reason you keep on referring to Vietnam as Annam? Also Vietnamese names are usually written with the syllbales broken like Son Tay.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 07:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

A couple of good points. As far as Annam is concerned, I'm probably influenced by the nineteenth-century French sources I have been using for my book on the S-F War, which invariably refer to Vietnam as Annam and the Vietnamese as Annamites. Vietnam sounds anachronistic, which is also the reason I am using Wade Giles in my book for Chinese names instead of pinyin (though I have reluctantly used pinyin for Wikipedia contributions). As for the convention on Annamese place names, thanks for enlightening me. Again, the nineteenth-century French sources tended to hyphenate them (e.g. Lang-Son, Tuyen-Quan). My practice is, now I come to think of it, inconsistent. Thus I use Sontay, Bacninh, Langson, but also Tuyen-Quan. I have no objection whatsoever to adopting broken syllables for Vietnamese place names. Does that also apply to personal names? E.g., would it be Prince Hoang Ke Viem or do you need hyphens?

--Djwilms (talk) 08:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the older colonial era books tend to use Annam a lot, although in more recent times, the main books about the colonial era like David Marr's books tend to not use Annam, except when discussing the explicit central third of Vietnam as a French protectorate. For Vietnamese names, they are always in single parts like Gia Long for both places and people - Saigon and Hanoi and Haiphong are basically the only exceptions due to prevalence in English.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 05:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, how many more articles have you got lined up on this. I'm afraid to say I don't know much at all about the chaos in northern Vietnam in the 1880s. I have been doing a bit of work on the 1860s in southern Vietnam though.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 05:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite a few. For starters, Bac Ninh Campaign, Hung Hoa Campaign, Thai Nguyen Campaign, Bac Le Ambush, Lang Son Campaign, Jilong Campaign, Battle of Danshui, Blockade of Formosa ... I also intend to seriously edit the existing articles on Siege of Tuyen Quang and Battle of Zhennan. Then there will be articles on the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and the Formosa Expeditionary Corps, not to mention the Cochin China Naval Division. Finally, biographies of Courbet, Millot, Briere de l'Isle (there's one already, I know), de Negrier and Giovanninnelli on the French side, and at least Liu Mingchuan, Sun Kaihua, Zeng Zizhe and Tang Chingsong on the Chinese side, plus elaborations to existing bios of Li Hongzhang and Liu Yongfu (or Liu Yung-fu, as it's presently titled. It's just a question of summarising stuff that's already in my book, so it shouldn't take more than a few weeks ...

--Djwilms (talk) 06:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * When's teh book being published? Who's publishing it?  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 06:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping for 23 August 2009 (the 125th anniversary, and all that), but HKU Press (University of Hong Kong) pointed out that anniversaries are only important for wars that people have heard of. So I'm now aiming for 2010. I've got to draw all the maps, for one thing. And there's a lot of Chinese material I haven't yet integrated into the main, very French-centred, text.

--Djwilms (talk) 06:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing if you have a full book then these articles are going to be very detailed correct? How many pages are you intending the book to be?  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 06:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The book's around 600 pages long at present, and is written for the general reader of military history (I don't know whether you've read The Washing of the Spears about the Zulu War; it'll be a bit like that). I don't intend to give too much away in the Wiki articles, but enough to generate interest in the S-F War. The one I did this morning, The Battle of Hoa Moc, is about my preferred length. The account of the 1st Brigade's march and the battle takes up about 20 pages of my book. I could give detailed orders of battle if you think anybody would want them, but I wouldn't suppose there was that much interest, except perhaps among wargamers.

--Djwilms (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

--Djwilms (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please note that section headers are not to be capitalised except when it is a proper noun. I have changed some for you. HAppy editing,  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 06:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

A move
Regarding this move (moved Battle of Zhennan Pass to Battle of Bang Bo: the battle is more familiarly known as Bang Bo outside China), are you sure about this? I am no authority but "Battle of Zhennan Pass" gives 10x as many g-hits than "Battle of Bang Bo". Most of them are wikipedia+mirror hits, but of the remaining ones, "Zhennan Pass" still seems to outnumber "Bang Bo". I would say that this battle is NOT familiarly known, anywhere, anyway. --Миборовский (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right that the battle is not familiarly known, anywhere, anyway. I keep forgetting that, six years ago, I had never heard of it either. I hope when my book comes out it will be better known. I think it deserves to be, and I also think that de Negrier deserves a decent biography. But on your main point, I've compromised by retitling the article to get both names in. Although I've brought in the Chinese deployments, my description of the battle is mainly from the French point of view, and given the nature of the article I think their name, Bang Bo, should take precedence over Zhennan Pass.

One of my aims in writing a suite of articles on the Sino-French War is to combat the inaccuracies that appear in various Wikipedia articles that deal with it. The Chinese Wikipedia article, for example, claims that the French lost 1,000 men at Zhennan Pass. I think not. I've also seen claims that the Guangxi Army had only 8,000 men, not 32,000. And Ky Lua seems to have got lost entirely in some accounts. The French defeat at Bang Bo elides into the Retreat from Lang Son, with no mention of this major French victory on 28 March ...

--Djwilms (talk) 01:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar
Hi Djwilms! I added a barnstar on your user page, for your remarkable work on the little-known subject of the Sino-French war. Congratulations! PHG (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much! How about the legion d'honneur? Djwilms (talk) 06:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That could well be for when you actually publish your book I guess (I am looking forward to buying my own copy!) :) Cheers PHG (talk) 08:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Expand
You had great contributions of expanding the article Sino-French War. If you don't mind, I need you to expand article First Indochina War and Cambodian-Vietnamese War, by creating many articles about the battles and campaigns of these wars, thank. 71.107.108.244 (talk) 05:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Re Expand
Twentieth-century Vietnamese history is not really my field, I'm afraid. Once I've finished the stuff on the Sino-French War and the four Chinese regional navies, my plan is to go on to the Cochin China campaign (1860s), Francis Garnier's first attempt to conquer Tonkin (1873-74), and the Vietnamese can vuong resistance movement from 1885 to 1896. That lot should keep me busy for a few weeks at least. But I'll have a look at the existing stuff on these two wars, and if I think I can help by reorganising some material I'll have a go.

By the way, all my S-F War articles are default graded as Start Class or Stubs. I've asked for a review of the main article and a couple of other typical 'battle' articles, but my request doesn't seem to have attracted any attention yet. Do you know how to get these things reviewed?

Djwilms (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Can Vuong
Hi there. What stuff are you interested in from that era. I have written the articles on Truong Dinh and Pahn Dinh Phung.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 02:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

I'm principally interested in the period from the 'Hue Ambush' of July 1885 up to 1896, when the French could reasonably claim to have 'pacified' Tonkin. I got interested in what happened in Vietnam after the Sino-French War, as it has certain similarities to what has been happening in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. I've got a nice quote from Paul Puginier in April 1882, when he heard that Riviere was about to seize the citadel of Hanoi. He predicted that it would take the French 20 years to conquer Tonkin, and was not far out in his estimate. Needless to say, Riviere's young naval captains did not believe him.

Djwilms (talk) 09:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:French Cemetery Keelung.jpg
Hello. I came across Image:French Cemetery Keelung.jpg. I don't understand why the license is shown as it is. Can you explain why it's public domain. I don't see anything to that effect on Find-a-Grave. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Angus,

You're right, it shouldn't have that licence. I think that was one of several images I uploaded that day, and it may have got tagged with that license through a process of copy-and-paste. I will ask the Find-a-Grave people if they don't mind releasing it into the public domain. If they do, I will delete it and replace it with one of my own photos of the Keelung cemetery (not as good as theirs, though, sadly).

Djwilms (talk) 06:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Tonkin campaign
Hi Djwilms! Congratulations for all your work on the Sino-French war. I think it is truely amazing. On my part I have been beefing up the background in France-Vietnam relations. I also just created the Tonkin campaign article to refer to the 1883-1885 events preceding the Sino-French war per se. I also made a template for the battles of the Tonkin campaign. I hope this will be a satisfactory way of classifying the pre-Sino-French war events of the period. I also made a template to offer a better coverage of French Indochina: Template:French Indochina. Cheers PHG (talk) 09:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, PHG

Thanks for the compliment. You've got some nice stuff too in the F-V relations article. I particularly liked Courbet at Hue.

Yes, it's difficult to categorise things like the Son Tay and Bac Ninh campaigns. France was not yet at war with China (indeed, she never was officially, as neither side declared war in August 1884), yet French and Chinese troops were fighting each other. Some people talk about the Sino-French War starting in 1883, with the Son Tay campaign, but clearly August 1884 was felt to be the real start of the war at the time. I've tended to use the phrase 'the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the S-F War' in my articles.

I've been thinking about how best to disentangle Tonkin from the Sino-French War. One possibility might be for the article 'Tonkin campaign' to cover the period April 1882 (Riviere's seizure of the citadel of Hanoi) to February 1886 (de Maussion's occupation of Lao Cai). 1886 is also a good end point because it saw the official, ludicrously premature, declaration by the French that Tonkin had been 'pacified' and the downgrading of the Tonkin expeditionary corps to a division of occupation. There would then be room for another article from 1886 to 1896, Pacification of Tonkin, covering the insurgency in Tonkin and the real work of pacification. At the end of the Sino-French War the French only held the Delta securely, and large parts of western Tonkin were only brought under French rule in the late 1880s. I've spent several months going over Thomazi's blow-by-blow account of every skirmish during those ten years, and I am thinking of writing an article on the pacification, or at least one on the siege of Ba Dinh in 1886, a sort of Dien Bien Phu in reverse, with the French on the outside. The future Marshal of France Joseph Joffre, then a mere captain, had a starring role there, so that would also make it of interest.

Djwilms (talk) 01:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Are you going to add Battle of Paper Bridge (May 1883) and Battle of Gia Cuc (March 1883) to the template, or do you consider the campaign as starting with Bouet's arrival in June 1883?

Djwilms (talk) 01:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Djwilms, were you thinking of seeking WP:FA or WP:GA status for any of your articles in the long run?  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 04:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi there. I wouldn't mind, if readers thought they were worth it. Some of the articles need a bit more work but a few are just about finished. The ones I am proudest of at present are the main article Sino-French War, Bac Le ambush and Keelung Campaign.

Djwilms (talk) 04:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Djwilms! Thank you for your comments. Just one point about the start of the Sino-French war, but my main source on the subject (Jean Randier, La Royale) states that there was indeed a declaration of war on 22 August 1884, which I guess would clarify where exactly the war starts: p.384 "Un dernier ultimatum avait été adressé à Pékin le 19 Aout. Il resta bien entendu sans réponse et le 22, Courbet apprenait que la guerre avait été declarée." also "Informé de la déclaration de guerre, le 22 Aout 1884, Courbet fait prévenir le Vice-Roi du Fou-Kien de son intention de combattre, par notre Vice-Consul, de Bezaure". Would you have any other information on the subject? In any case, I guess we could have "Tonkin campaign" from 1883 until 22 August 1884 (the beginning of the war), then the Sino-French war (22 August 1884-April 1885) which of course includes the Tonkin war theater during that period, and, to your point, Tonkin pacification after April 1885. What do you think? Cheers PHG (talk) 20:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi PHG,

Randier is wrong about the declaration of war. On 22 August 1884 the French cabinet sanctioned an attack on the Foochow Navy Yard and the Fujian Fleet, but this was not a declaration of war. Technically, the attack was an action by France to assert her rights under an 'etat de represailles' (I can't be bothered with the accents) for the Bac Le ambush. Ferry couldn't declare war because the Chamber of Deputies would not have supported it, with the result that he fought the Sino-French War on a shoestring, conjuring up troops from wherever he could, mostly from the army in Africa. He was sustained by the French parliament so long as things went well, but with the Retreat from Lang Son in March 1885 the vultures gathered. I'm going to beef up the article 'Tonkin affair' to deal with the French politics of the Sino-French War. It's good back-stabbing stuff.

On your other point, although there would be a degree of overlap with the Sino-French War, I would date 'Tonkin campaign' from 1883 (let's start with Bouet and the creation of the Tonkin expeditionary corps) to April 1886 (the official date for the end of the campaign, Tonkin being deemed to be pacified), so that it runs for the life of the expeditionary corps. Although my focus has been on the battles with China so far, there was an awful lot going on behind the front lines to entrench the French positions in Tonkin, and I could easily expand what you have done already to mention the expeditions directed against the Vietnamese rather than the Chinese. It would also have the advantage that I could move a lot of stuff from Tonkin Expeditionary Corps to Tonkin campaign and keep the focus of the former article on orders of battle and officers. Then, as you say, a separate article on the real, as opposed to the official, pacification of Tonkin.

Djwilms (talk) 01:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me! Cheers PHG (talk) 04:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Siege of Đà Nẵng
See this. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 08:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Award
Thanks very much for the encouragement, Bananabucket. I'll get through the entire French colonial period by hook or by crook, you see if I don't!

Djwilms (talk) 07:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Use of Cochinchina
Cochinchina look more common than Cochin China. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 07:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine. I'll emend it whenever I come across it in my articles. I've already been using the adjective 'Cochinchinese' when referring to the tirailleurs cochinchinois (Cochinchinese Riflemen). Djwilms (talk) 01:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, because the original name is in French as Cochinchine, it's one word, no separate. So we will write the same thing in English as Cochinchina. Cheer. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 01:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Cochinchina campaign
Hi there 96.229.193.68,

Thanks for your comments. I should be able to tidy up the article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng as you suggest. I do have more information on the attack itself, and I'll put it in in the next couple of days.

Turning to the articles dealing with the battles of 1858 to 1862, my article Siege of Đà Nẵng is still a work in progress, and I intend to add a lot more detail on the siege itself in the near future. The article presently contains a lot of extraneous material better suited to an article on the campaign as a whole, and I intend to create an article Cochinchina campaign (1858-1862) (I can't think of a better title at present, but any suggestions will be welcome) and shift a lot of stuff from both Siege of Đà Nẵng and the related article Capture of Saigon to it. I am presently translating Thomazi's account of the capture of Saigon into English, and will shortly be in a position to add a lot of detail to that article.

I have no problem in principle with adding military conflict boxes to my articles, though they can often be rather simplistic, particularly in terms of counting casualties. And what constitutes victory and defeat? To take just one example, check out my article Keelung Campaign, which is one of my better ones. Then try to decide who won the campaign, and why. You could argue that it was a victory for the French, who won most of the battles, or a victory for the Chinese, who tied down substantial French forces in an inconclusive struggle around Keelung. Trying to resolve these problems has been one of the reasons why I have so far avoided using these boxes myself.

Djwilms (talk) 01:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi PHG,

Please see the above comments. Would you be able to do one of your neat templates for 'Cochinchina campaign'? It would initially include Siege of Đà Nẵng and Capture of Saigon, and would include under French personalities Rigault de Genouilly, Charner and Page. I eventually intend to create articles on Capture of My Tho and Capture of Bien Hoa to complete the military side of the campaign. And there would be space for biography articles of the Vietnamese commanders. There's a lot in Thomazi which I will put in shortly.

Cheers,

Djwilms (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Here you go. Cheers PHG (talk) 05:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi PHG,

What a splendid template! Thanks very much. By the way, I'll be doing something on the attack on the Ki Hoa lines shortly. It may end up as a separate article, but for starters I'll probably place it in Siege of Saigon. Djwilms (talk) 06:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Capture of Biên Hòa
Please move Capture of Bien Hoa to Capture of Biên Hòa. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 05:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You're great. Could you tell me, when you log in, how did you move that the edit history comes along with it? 96.229.193.68 (talk) 07:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi there 96.229.193.68

Dunno ... I just went to the original article Capture of Bien Hoa, selected 'Move' at the top of the page, pasted in the name with accents and clicked on 'Move'. Everything then happened automatically. Djwilms (talk) 07:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Siege of Saigon?
Hi PHG,

I've been fiddling around with my new article Cochinchina campaign to incorporate material from your article Capture of Saigon. I'm wondering whether your article might be more profitably retitled 'Siege of Saigon'. The capture took one day; the subsequent siege lasted a couple of years (I've got a lot of stuff in Thomazi on both the capture and the siege). It would add to the somewhat weak category Sieges involving Vietnam, and would be on the same footing as the analogous article Siege of Đà Nẵng. What do you think?

Djwilms (talk) 03:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem with me! Cheers PHG (talk) 05:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi PHG,

Me again. I notice you have given the date 18 February 1859 for the capture of Saigon, whereas Thomazi's account gives 17 February. I've provisionally emended to 17 February, but if you have a better source for 18 February I will be happy to reconsider.

Djwilms (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXI (September 2008)
The September 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Paper Bridge
I think the title is not okay. Maybe we can't translate directly, which means the article should be renamed as Battle of Cầu Giấy, Battle of Cầu Giấy Bridge, or Battle of Giấy Bridge, is it better? 96.229.193.68 (talk) 06:17, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, 96.229.193.68,

In the French sources, the battle is almost invariably called Paper Bridge, though I have seen Battle of Cau Giay on occasion. I think western readers who know anything at all about Riviere's death would think of Paper Bridge rather than Cau Giay, so I think we need to keep Paper Bridge in the title somewhere. We could always do the same thing as I've done with the Battle of Bang Bo/Zhennan Pass, viz. put one of the names in brackets. How about Battle of Cầu Giấy (Paper Bridge)? Djwilms (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with title Battle of Cầu Giấy (Paper Bridge), cheer. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 02:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Background on French help with Gia Long
Hi Djwilms, I am a bit surprised with your writings about Gia Long and Minh Mang's dealings with the French and Pigneau. From my understanding, the modern books - anything since WW2, all say that the French govt didn't go through with the assistance deal of 1500 odd men and few boats and in the end, Pigneau arrived in 1789 in Saigon with free-lance French officers. Cady, Hall, Karnow, etc, all the guys listed in Gia Long all cite around < 300 and say that by the time Gia Long fully won in 1802, not many were left (only a few dozen) and by the time Gia Long died, only four were left. Chaigneau, de Forsans, Vannier and Despiau I think. Per the paper by Mantienne, which I cited in Gia Long and Citadel of Saigon, it appears that modern consensus is that the French trained the Nguyen military in the 1790s and after that the Nguyen understood how Vauban and European boats and forts worked and they then built the later forts themselves. I don't think Thomaxi views are the prevailing ones anymore. Thoughts? Keep up the good work.  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 05:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi YellowMonkey, You're probably on much stronger ground than me here. I've read up on Gia Long and Minh Mang essentially as background for my interest in the Sino-French War, and I haven't gone into their reigns in great detail. Having just taken a glance at the article Gia Long, I can see that there's a lot there that I wasn't aware of. I'm perfectly happy to revise what I've written already, but I'd need to get myself up to speed on this stuff before I worked out how to do it. But if you feel strongly about it, by all means revise it yourself.

Djwilms (talk) 06:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi YellowMonkey, me again. I've amended the section in question after doing a bit of checking. The mistake was entirely my fault: I'd just tended to assume that Vaubanesque citadels like at Son Tay had been built by French engineers. Thomazi, who is generally good on matters of fact if not of interpretation, attributes four citadels, all in Cochinchina, to Olivier de Puymanel. Here's the passage:

. . . we should mention Olivier de Puymanel, a volunteer who disembarked from Dryade in 1788 at the age of 20. The bishop so appreciated his qualities that he appointed him his chief of staff. When he died at the age of 31, in 1799, worn out by his efforts, he had accomplished a considerable work in Cochinchina, notably in directing the construction of Vaubanesque fortresses covering the principal strategic positions of the country—Vinh Long, Ha Tien, My Tho, Bien Hoa and so on—and which our soldiers, seventy years later, would be not a little surprised to find facing them.

So perhaps not Hanoi, Son Tay and Bac Ninh ...

Djwilms (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I have a lot of books in PDF form that I can email to you if you want. And papers as well.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to chose Australia's next top model! ) 03:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi YellowMonkey ,

Thanks very much. Do you have any books or articles that deal with the Cochinchina campaign? That's the area that I expect to be working on in the next few weeks, and I'm sure I'll soon reach the limits of Thomazi's account, useful though it is.

Djwilms (talk) 04:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The more general book is by McLeod, which concentrates on the period from 1858-1874. That is more about politics and Tu Duc's tactics and is more about political strategy rather than military tactics. Nevertheless it has info about the Catholic minority and how the French and the Emperor tried to deal with them. There is a book called "The French Presence

in Cochinchina and Cambodia Rule and Response (1859 - 1905)" by Milton Osborne which seems to be more about the general French rule. Some other books that I checked out recommended "The French Conquest of Cochinchina 1858-1862" which is a PhD thesis by Nguyen Thanh Thi at Cornell under some famous professors who wrote lots of books. The third one is not in pdf, but I can send you the pages as images if you want. There is also a profile paper on Phan Thanh Gian - the main mandarin in the peace negotiations - which is on JSTOR which you should have because you are at a university. I also have a paper about the 19th century Nguyen forts and navy.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to chose Australia's next top model! ) 07:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * poke. If you drop my an email I will respond with the papers.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 04:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Reminder again in case all this was swamped by the bot notices.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to chose Australia's next top model! ) 01:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi YellowMonkey ,

I think I'm going to need to sort out my user page. It's getting a bit long. Of the books you mention, the one that immediately appeals is the paper on the Nguyen forts and navy. Having mistakenly assumed that some of the citadels in Tonkin were built by the French, I would be interested in establishing when they were built and by whom. This is more for my Sino-French War book than for Wikipedia, but I'll doubtless add a couple of sentences to Son Tay Campaign and Bac Ninh campaign and other relevant pieces. My office email is davidjohn@cuhk.edu.hk if you want to send it to me by email. Thanks in advance,

Djwilms (talk) 01:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just sent them.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 02:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Interested in working on the French Revolution
Greetings, I got your name from the WP:FRANCE members' list. Are you interested in working towards a substantial improvement to the French Revolution article? It is one of the most viewed throughout the encyclopedia, and should be of excellent quality. In my dream world, I'd like to separate the article into multiple sections, with each editor taking a particular part to improve. I hope to see you at the article! Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Lazulilasher, I'll have a look at it and see if I can usefully contribute anything. I'm an academic editor by trade so I might at least do some copy-editing, even though it's not a period I'm particularly familiar with. But I'm tied up at present on a series of articles on the French in Vietnam (the Cochinchina campaign, the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War), so it might not be immediately.

Cheers, Djwilms (talk) 03:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Siege of Da Nang
Hi PHG,

Can you shed more light on the provenance of the image in the article Siege of Đà Nẵng claiming to show French troops disembarking at Da Nang in 1858? I ask because I have seen that image before in a French book on the Sino-French War, only there it claims to show French troops either at Thuan An in August 1883 or at Keelung in October 1884 (I don't have the book to hand in the office, so I'm relying on my memory). I would have thought that the uniforms, particularly the pith helmets, were those of the 1880s, not the 1850s, so I'm doubtful that this is really an image of the landing at Da Nang in 1858.

Djwilms (talk) 01:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi PHG,

I've tracked down the picture of the marine infantry going ashore in Huard's book La guerre du Tonkin (Paris, 1887), and it's definitely from 1883 and depicts the landing at Thuan An on 20 August. I've therefore moved it to Battle of Thuan An. Nice image, though.

Djwilms (talk) 01:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much Djwilms for properly identifying the image! Cheers PHG (talk) 05:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

New ideas
1) When you create articles about battles or any other campaigns, I would like you to add the "Infobox Military Conflict box", just like what I did.

2) For all articles that their titles had Vietnamese name, you should put (or redirect) them in origin Vietnamese words, which support Vietnamese tone marks. (e.g.: Lang Son Campaign to Lạng Sơn Campaign).

3) I think you had looked at article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng. There's something strange. You read the entire article, you realize that it mostly talked about the background, causes, materials, loses, and results. But for the bombardment itself, it had only but a few words about it. So if you more informations, please expand and write more about the attack, thank. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, 96.229.193.68,

I've rewritten the article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng to remove a certain amount of repetition and to go further into the background and significance of the incident. I'm trying to find out more about why the negotiations failed and the circumstances in which the battle started. The suggestion that the French opened fire first is also intriguing, and I'm certainly open-minded about this. For the time being, though I prefer to rely on Thomazi, old though he is, than the history of Vietnam by Chapuis quoted in a previous revision, which seems unreasonably biased against the French. For the time being, I'd prefer not to use this source until I've looked further into the incident. If necessary, I will reinstate it.

Djwilms (talk) 09:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, 96.229.193.68,

I've changed the name of the article Battle of Paper Bridge as we discussed. I'm also beginning to add infoboxes to all the campaign or battle articles I've written where there was an obvious victory or defeat.

Am I right in assuming that the flag of Vietnam after 1863 was plain yellow (see my infobox for Capture of Nam Dinh)? If not, do you have a suitable flag icon for these infoboxes?

Djwilms (talk) 01:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations!
I have just discovered the amazing amount of work that you have put into the Sino-French War related articles. I had started the Sino-French War article back in 2003 with a poor 2 line stub, hoping that someone would add material to it so that I could learn something in the process. Thank you and congratulations! olivier (talk) 06:45, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear olivier,

Thanks very much for the kind words. I have dipped into the history of the article and I noticed that it had some good stuff in the early days that seemed to get lost a bit later. I'm shortly about to publish a book on the Sino-French War, so I've got masses of stuff at my fingertips. I started contributing SF War articles to Wikipedia in May 2008, in the hope that people would spot and correct any mistakes before the book comes out, and things have sort of mushroomed since then. I find doing Wiki articles utterly addictive, and also very much enjoy searching for suitable images to illustrate them. I'm now heading back into the 1860s and 1850s with Rigault de Genouilly and learning a great deal myself in the process. I dare say I'll get back to Pigneau de Behaine eventually ...

Djwilms (talk) 07:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear olivier,

I have just looked at your 2003 stub. It's not at all poor: it combines the virtues of brevity and accuracy, which not all articles do. All my stuff starts out like that, also, though I normally try to add at least one footnote to prevent my articles getting tagged right from the start.

Djwilms (talk) 07:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, there was no tagging back in these days... Just out of curiosity: did you eventually get reviews and help in your research from posting these articles on Wikipedia? In order to move to the next level, some of these articles could be nominated as good articles. That would draw attention to them and generate feedback. You can nominate them yourself or tell me which ones you want to see nominated and I will do it (it may take a while before I do it though). olivier (talk) 07:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear olivier,

I'd love to see some of them upgraded; they're mostly stuck on Start Class or have not yet been noticed. My personal favourites at present are Keelung Campaign and Bac Le ambush, which are nicely illustrated. I'm going to be doing some scanning of images in the next few days from Huard's La guerre du Tonkin (Paris, 1887), which has over a hundred marvellous engravings of battle scenes, French generals, Vietnamese decapitations, etc, and a lot of the more pedestrian articles should blossom as a result. Anything you could do to upgrade Keelung and Bac Le would be greatly appreciated.

I work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and I'm giving a talk next week to Chinese history postgraduates on 'Who won the Battle of Zhenhai?' I'll be using the English and Chinese Wikipedia articles as material for the talk. The contrast between the two articles is striking. I'll know that I've finally got through with my own interpretation of the SF War when people begin translating my articles into Chinese (or indeed, into French, for that matter)! Somebody has added some of my Chinese generals to the Chinese article on the Battle of Zhennan Pass, but they've still kept the absurd casualty figures of over 1,000 dead in the 2nd Brigade. Hence my sly comment at the end of my own article Battle of Bang Bo (Zhennan Pass).

Djwilms (talk) 08:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You should encourage your history students to start editing Wikipedia. Asian history really is poorly covered on Wikipedia, partly because of a dearth is people who have and can read Asian hisotry texts and the fact that htere is not much in English.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to chose Australia's next top model! ) 02:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear  YellowMonkey ,

I agree with you completely. I'd also like them to start translating the masses of Chinese stuff on the Sino-French War into English. I can read Chinese, but they would be able to do the job much more quickly than me. I'll put in a plug for Wikipedia editing in my talk.

Djwilms (talk) 02:31, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Does anyone at your uni do Vietnamese history?  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 03:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear  YellowMonkey ,

I'm not sure, as I work as an academic editor for the entire university and have no official connection with its Department of History. I'll try to find out for you. I'm giving my talk on the Battle of Zhenhai on Friday merely in my capacity as an enthusiastic amateur. The good thing is that it has forced me to work on editing that particular article in the past couple of days, as I've asked them all to read both the English and Chinese Wiki articles on the subject as background to my talk.

Djwilms (talk) 03:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Ship Images
Dear PHG,

Wow! I've just seen your photos of Chinese warships from the Fujian fleet in the articles Battle of Fuzhou and Fujian Fleet. They're really something! But do you mind if I take them out of the tables I made and arrange them instead in a gallery of photos (with ship names in both English and Chinese), so that it makes the table more easy to read? See my article Tonkin Flotilla for the general idea.

Djwilms (talk) 02:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear PHG,

Have a look at what I've done to Battle of Fuzhou and see what you think. I've also removed the image of Dingyuan from the gallery of ships of the Fujian Fleet. It's a bit irrelevant in this context, and her absence from the battle is mentioned in the text of the article.

I'm going to do a similar table on the French ships at Fuzhou, with details of captains, crew, armament etc, so I can transfer the sketchy details on the French ships that appears at the top of the French photo gallery. The result will make the article look much neater, with two nice fact-filled tables and two impressive photo galleries.

Djwilms (talk) 04:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear PHG,

I've just added the skeleton of the French ship table. I'll fill it in gradually over the next few days.

Djwilms (talk) 04:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This all looks great! Cheers PHG (talk) 10:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks PHG,

Keep hunting for ship images, both French and Chinese. I followed your paper trail to the Chinese article you got Yangwu from, and was delighted to find Zhang Peilun as well. I'd been looking for a photo of him for some time.

Djwilms (talk) 01:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

PS Did you like my skull and crossbones Black Flag Army flag in the Sino-French War infobox? A bit of a joke really, but see my comments under Talk for that article ...

Djwilms (talk) 01:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear PHG,

Congratulations on those lovely images you've just put into Battle of Fuzhou. I must get hold of Randier's book. I've not seen the photographs of the dead Chinese ships before.

Djwilms (talk) 03:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thesis on "French Conquest of Cochinchina"
Would you like me to email scans of this, some of the info on the battles are quite detailed.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to chose Australia's next top model! ) 02:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear  YellowMonkey ,

Yes please. I've got some quite detailed descriptions of the 1873 battles involving Francis Garnier, but not much at all on the Cochinchina campaign (basically, only the battle descriptions in Thomazi's two books from the 1930s). He's accurate enough on military matters, but he gives only an outline of each engagement, and I'd love more detail.

Djwilms (talk) 02:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Flying across the ocean. It should have arrived now. If you want me to scan the maps in higher resolution, do feel free. I did start cropping the scans to save time but it started becoming a real time sink. I hope this gives better coverage of the battling it out. It also gives great detail on Tu Duc's political strategies and Vietanmese local militia.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 04:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear  YellowMonkey ,

Thanks very much. I'll get back to the Cochinchina campaign once I've finished putting infoboxes in all my Sino-French War articles. And I see we now have lots of valuable additional information on the Beiyang Fleet, so I can update my tables in that article. I'm rather enjoying this Wikipedia editing. You never know what wonderful new stuff fellow enthusiasts will come up with between one day and the next.

Djwilms (talk) 04:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * How did the talk go?  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 04:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear  YellowMonkey ,

Very well, thanks. Some appreciative gasps from the audience (Chinese PhD students) of my photo of Arlington in Chinese dress (see Battle of Zhenhai). I appealed to them to start contributing to Wikipedia, and particularly to import more accurate information into the Chinese Wikipedia Sino-French War articles. And I discovered that the Department of History has a microfilm collection of the North China Herald (Shanghai English-language newspaper), so I can read the entire nine-months collection for the Sino-French War and see what they were saying in China about. I'm sure it will contain masses of fascinating new information.

Djwilms (talk) 04:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Writing
Take it easy. I think it's ok to say that his victories were well-received by public opinion in France and that he was deified.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model! ) 02:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Djwilms. It's OK really, don't bother. Since such expressions as "restored the honour of French arms" can be considered as an abstract and arbitrary value judgement, the best solution would be to present it as some authors' opinion, with actual quotes and references (there must be plenty of those), and this would nicely depict French patriotic sentiment at that time (a reality as you rightly point out). Ne vous laissez pas dévier de votre voie, Professeur! Keep up with your amazing contributions! Cheers! PHG (talk) 06:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi  YellowMonkey  and PHG,

Thanks for the sympathy and encouragement, guys. I'll hunt around for a suitable quotation from Henri Brisson, Admiral Galiber, General Boulanger or somebody equally eminent. Personally, I would have thought that General de Négrier's assessment was good enough, that Courbet had given hope back to France, but apparently not.

Djwilms (talk) 08:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. By the way, lovely Battle of Fuzhou images, PHG! I've just seen the latest ones. The oil painting of the attack by the torpedo boats is magnificent.


 * ✅ with the cropping of the image at Siege of Tuyen Quang! (you may have to click the refresh button to see the change). I am delighted that you like the oil painting of the Battle of Fuzhou. I'll keep my eyes open in case there are more like this, but regarding Charles Kuwasseg, this seems to be it. Please keep me posted when your book is published. I will definitely be one of your very first buyers! Cheers PHG (talk) 07:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks PHG,

That's much better. I saw that image some time ago and wasn't able to get any better resolution than you have. Solution: buy it!

Take a look at Battle of Phu Hoai and Tonkin Expeditionary Corps for my latest image uploads on Bichot. Oh, the Qing soldiers photo is fascinating. I wonder where that was taken ...Djwilms (talk) 07:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Image
I hope you could find any picture about the bombardment of Da Nang. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 02:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi there,

I'd love to find a suitable image for that article, but I haven't come across anything yet. I don't know whether PHG or  YellowMonkey  might have anything. They seem to have much more on pre-Sino-French War Vietnamese history than I do.Djwilms (talk) 02:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like you to create article Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport fire from here, you may write a short paragraph, I will expand it later; and these categories:938, 981, 966, 967, 968 in Vietnam, thank. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you
Hi Djwilms. Thank you for your message! I have contacted the deleter of these images, because it is quite unclear to me why they were deleted, and in any case no warning was issued, making it is quite impossible for the uploader to react and provide the necessary information. Yes, I am quite a huge fan of Silk Road stuff too. I wrote such articles as Christianity among the Mongols and expanded Rabban Bar Sauma. Some people meet these subjects with total disbelief, but I think these instances of cultural interaction are absolutely fascinating. Cheers PHG (talk) 04:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Article reviews
hi Djwilms, if you want a good review, I suggest you pick one of your more complete articles and submit it at WP:MHR because multiple people will come and discuss stylistic issues and such, rather than an assessment where they will just go to "B". It's also more interactive as a learning experience instead of sitting around reading policy documents and so forth.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model! ) 08:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi  YellowMonkey ,

Thanks for the advice. I've submitted Keelung Campaign (my personal favourite) for a review at WP:MHR, and will await the response with interest. I've had a look at some of the comments made on other articles, and they all seem to be helpful. I'll probably get told my footnotes are too academic, for a start ...

Djwilms (talk) 08:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * You seem to have gone to WP:MHA which is just the "B" and "Start" labels. not WP:MHR  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model! ) 08:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi  YellowMonkey ,

Whoops! I'll move it. Thanks for spotting that.

Djwilms (talk) 08:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That area is also well populated so you should get lots of tips.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model! ) 04:34, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking
It appears that you are only wikilinking when the target article exists and will appear blue, because I see in your articles there are a lot of officers and military forts and places etc that are wikilinked and only blue and no redlinks. It's acutally encouraged for people to link to articles that don't exist to remind and encourage people to create the articles. So you should link them. Also I see you said on your page that you bolded articles on Sino-French War that you intend to create earlier, but I changed this to redlinks per the WP:MOS. I see you have done this in Hong Kong Morris also, although I think that if you created articles on the club members they will be deleted per WP:N.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model! ) 04:45, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi  YellowMonkey ,

Don't worry, I have no intention of creating articles on any of the 100+ members of the Hong Kong Morris, not even myself!

I understand the rationale for redlinks, and will try to be more generous with them from now on. I haven't been so far because I personally think that red links to non-existent articles look ugly and spoil the readability of an article. But that's just my own aesthetic preference. More to the point, they are an intimation of mortality. If I linked up every minor fort I mention in my Sino-French War articles (there's 20 or so in Keelung Campaign, just for starters), I could spend the rest of my life trying to write about each of them and I'd be dead before I finished. I suppose in theory someone might come along a couple of centuries from now and write an article on Fort Gardiol (an undistinguished French fort at Keelung, which existed for a grand total of eight months before the Chinese flattened it after the French evacuation in June 1885), but I don't really want to think about that prospect! As you have observed, what I've done so far is link to subjects which I think are sufficiently important to merit an article, and which one of these days I intend to write myself (some of the Cochinchina campaign French admirals come into this category). But is it the intention to link absolutely everything? What about, say, the company captains of French battalions that I mention in footnotes? I've put them in for the benefit of wargamers and others who like that sort of information. Personally, I would prefer to leave them unlinked until somebody demonstrates that they were notable in some way. That happened, for example, with Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, a naval lieutenant in the Sino-French War whom I mentioned in the article Battle of Fuzhou. I didn't know, until somebody pointed it out to me, that he later became an admiral, and as such is the subject of a Wikipedia article. I then went through all my articles linking him up wherever he appeared. Something like that might happen again in one or two cases, but I would be surprised if many of my so-far unlinked officers turned out to be as notable as Boué de Lapeyrère.

On the aesthetic point, is it only me who doesn't like redlinks or are there others out there who also find them intrusive?

Djwilms (talk) 06:31, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I have already had some useful comments on Keelung Campaign and am revising the article accordingly. Thanks for the suggestion of going for a peer review.


 * I too would only redlink names which I think have a good chance of becoming articles in light of the notability of their subject. Redlinking also works as a soft request for an article creation. It is your redlink to Léonard Charner that motivated me to right an article about him :) Cheers PHG (talk) 06:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!
Hi Djwilms! Thank you so much for your testimony, I truely appreciate! Wikipedia can be quite annoying, even revolting, at times, but I believe that overall it is a good project. You once said that you did your PhD thesis on the Nestorians. It is actually an area I stumbled upon by chance, but found really interesting because of its implications in terms of East-West interraction. Please don't hesitate to ask if you need my collaboration on anything. It is a pleasure to have people of your caliber contribute to this encyclopedia! Cheers PHG (talk) 20:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello
You clearly have a advanced knowledge on the Cochinchina campaign, i ask of you if you could tell me the name of good books about this subject. Also we are having a long dispute over whether Spain had an sphere of influence and whether they wanted to create a colony (along side the french) in Indochina, could you please help us resolve this dispute ? 

Greetings--EuroHistoryTeacher (talk) 04:09, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi EuroHistoryTeacher,

I'm by no means an expert, and I'm heavily dependent on the accounts of the campaign given by Thomazi. Taboulet might have something on the subject, but I don't have him with me at present, so I'll have to get back to you on that. In the meantime, this is all that Thomazi has to say about Spanish participation in the campaign: The Spanish presence alongside us was always motivated by the protection of the missionaries, though perhaps they too were thinking of material advantages. At around this time [i.e. 1861] Admiral Charner wrote to Colonel Palanca, 'The Spanish are our allies, not our auxiliaries. But there can be no question of partitioning the territory of Saigon. Spain may find compensation for her glorious sacrifices elsewhere, in Tonkin. Such is the spirit of the instructions of the emperor Napoleon.' In fact Spain withdrew from the affair without cashing in on this somewhat imprecise promise.

Thomazi, La Conquête de l'Indochine, 46–7

This, of course, says more about French than Spanish motives ...

I'm not aware of any authoritative accounts of the campaign in English. There's a brief account in Henry MacAleavy's awful book 'Black Flags over Vietnam', but MacAleavy is so unfair to the French that this book (written during the Vietnam War) is a travesty of historical writing. In fact, one of the main reasons I started writing my own book on the Sino-French War (nearly finished) was because I disagreed so violently with MacAleavy's version.

I'm very much learning as I go along for the Cochinchina campaign, which I have used only as brief background in my Sino-French War book. So far I have been using Thomazi's two books on the French conquest of Indochina, both written in the 1930s. I'm sure Taboulet also has a lot to say about the period. All three of these French works must be used with caution as far as motivation is concerned, but I've normally found them to be accurate in matters of pure fact.

Djwilms (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If EHT would like to email either Djwilms or myself, you can get a copy of "The French Conquest of Cochinchina" a book which deals with the campaign. More importantly, there are a lot of pages about the political buildup, including the alliance with Spain and the details thereof.  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 04:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Djwilms (talk) 01:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Pescadores vs Penghu
I just checked your user page. You're writing a book on the Sino-French war? Wow! Pretty amazing.

I almost said that maybe I should just defer to you and admit that you must know what you're talking about in regard to the Pescadores. But then I thought "No, the guys writing a book! He must have all kinds of reference materials lying around. It's not like asking him to cite references means going to the bookstore or library." And if you don't have them lying around, you must be going to the library and/or bookstore frequently anyway.

Good luck on your book! Readin (talk) 03:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Dear Readin,


 * Please don't defer to me on anything to do with the Pescadores Islands unless you think my arguments make sense! My only interest in the islands is historical, plus the fact that I visited them once, in the course of researching my book, to drop a tear on the memorials to the French dead of 1885.


 * References. Well, it will need some work, though the last time I looked, the Times Atlas of the World called them the Pescadores.


 * I firmly believe that Wikipedia should not try to anticipate name changes but should follow the practice of the most authoritiative English-language sources. I don't know exactly how the policy of the world's leading atlases and encyclopedias is decided, but any decision to change a long-standing name must take into account several factors.  Preferred usage in the country concerned must obviously be one factor, but cannot be the only one.  Other factors must be whether the new name is likely to stand the test of time (which is why atlases normally wait a few years before accepting name changes such as Burma to Myanmar), and how well-known and well-established the existing name is.  The degree of official support for a name change must be another factor, and here it does not help matters that Taiwan's government is recognised only by a few banana republics.  Beijing has largely replaced Peking in English (except in historical contexts) because the PRC government wishes it so, and the Western world's academics and cartographers have been happy to oblige an up-and-coming power.  Sad but true.


 * Even if the Wikipedia community decides to rename the Pescadores Penghu, as I greatly fear it will, I would still wish to safeguard the term 'Pescadores Campaign' for the unpleasantness of March 1885. I hate seeing names in historical articles changed anachronistically.  For example, the battle between the French and the Chinese around Keelung on 1 October 1884 was fought for a hill invariably called Mount Clement by Europeans at the time.  Given that the sources for the battle are overwhelmingly French (and it's not my fault there are so few Chinese sources for the fighting in Taiwan), I have duly called it Mount Clement in my Keelung Campaign Wikipedia article, but have then glossed it with its present Chinese name (Huo-hao-shan) and the Chinese characters.  That seems to me to be the most sensible way of approaching this kind of problem.  Any non-specialist reader who comes across a reference to the 1885 Pescadores campaign in a French source and wants to follow it will naturally expect to find the reference under the name Pescadores, not Penghu.


 * Djwilms (talk) 04:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The naming convention that is Wikipedia policy starts with Use the most easily recognized name

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:


 * The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

It is those criterion that I hope we can find evidence on. There are other rules, but I doubt any of them apply here. Personally I don't really have a preference for either name. I've had approximately equal exposure to both and equal knowledge of both. I knew both referred to islands of Taiwan, but I only recently realized both were the same place. I regret this confusion because had I heard only one name twice as often, it would have clued me in to their importance and I would have made a point of learning more earlier.

Regarding the historical usages, I believe there is a Wikipedia policy or guideline that says to avoid anachronisms. I think they give an example of using "Gaul" rather than "France" when talking about events that happened there during the time of the Roman Empire. If that is the case it makes sense to continue to use the name "Pescadores" in the article about the Pescadores Campaign. I made basically this point a couple days ago to Gumuhua on his talk page. Readin (talk) 04:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi again:

"politically-motivated use of Penghu when the islands are normally known in English as the Pescadores; (b) the politically-motivated replacement of Wade Giles by pinyin; and (c) your bizarre habit of not using capital letters for French, Chinese, etc."

My aim was to use pinyin as the standard, i dont see how thas related to politics, unless u consider that Ma is now selling out taiwan to the chinese because pinyin will be the legal standard in taiwan starting next year (2009)..

(c), my mistake only, again, apologies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gumuhua (talk • contribs) 00:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year

 * All the best with your writing in the new year..... YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 05:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Happy New Year
Hi Djwilms! Happy New Year to you. All my best wishes! PHG (talk) 07:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

PHG ArbCom request
I've posted a request for possible additional evidence at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/PHG/Evidence. Cool Hand Luke 18:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Template
Hi Djwilms! Thank you for your message, and good luck with the article! Here is the template in question. Cheers PHG (talk) 06:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You're very welcome. I had made some contributions about the Nestorians during the Middle Ages (their contribution the spread of Christianity to the East), but I'm afraid I do not know anything about the more recent events! I guess it's generally better to avoid controversial topics on Wikipedia (I generally do so of course, except when my own contributions are challenged!) It is a great honour to be contributing with people of your caliber :) Cheers PHG (talk) 06:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi
Hi Djwilms! I think I am leaving. It was a pleasure to work with you! Cheers PHG (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Some questions about the Pre-20th Century Christians of the Shemsdin district
Hello Djwilms,

I have recently replied to your post in the discussion page of the Assyrian Genocide article, in which I refuted your opinion. However, looking back I do agree that the figures may be overestimated. Still, I think Cutts' population estimates should be taken with a grain of salt. There were undoubtedly villages and other dwellings he missed on his travels, and the time at which they were taken predated the massacres by at least 40 years.

At any rate, I have only had a chance to read a few pages of your book on Google, but I did go through Cutts' Christians Under the Crescent in Asia quite thoroughly. In the meantime, I was wondering if you could help me with something. My brother and I are in the process of making our family tree, and it turns out that my great great grandfather was a Malek of an Assyrian village in the Shamezdin (Shemsdin) district. His name was Malek Breemu (or Brīmu), and he was the malek of Baţīmu (or Badtemu, Batīmu). Have you ever come by this village or the name Malek Breemu in your review of the literature and manuscripts when writing your thesis/book? Malek Breemu would have been alive around the same time in which Cutts' book was in the process of being written (i.e. during his travels), roughly corresponding to the mid-19th century.

I have a feeling that the village Baţīmu may in fact be the Bet Daiwe (another spelling I have seen is Bitiwo) or Bidiwi as it appears in Cutts' list in the appendix of his book.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I am very eager to learn more about my family's history. We Assyrians have a very limited knowledge base when it comes to such matters. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Šarukinu (talk) 18:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)