User talk:Glst2/Archive1

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Battle of Vienna
Could you tell me why you insist on including the following two quotations (translated by yourself) in article Battle of Vienna? What value do they add other than creating undue weight? Why don't you also quote the opposing party if you want to present the exchange of letters prior to the battle?

On March 31, 1683 another declaration, sent by Kara Mustafa on behalf of Mehmet IV, arrived at the Imperial Court in Vienna. Its wording left no room for doubt what would await in case of Turkish success: "'To You, Cesar of Rome, and to You, King of Poland, We pledge Our most holy intent to bring war upon Your tiny country, with 13 kings and 1.3 million infantry and cavalry; and this army, which is beyond anything You or Your followers could ever imagine, will trample You underfoot with its horseshoes, and deliver it to fire and sword without any mercy whatsoever. Primarily We order You to await Us in Your residence city of Vienna so that We can decapitate You; and You, little King of Poland, are to do the same. We will exterminate You and all Your followers, and We will wipe every living being from the face of the earth, if only it is a Giaour. We will subject children and adults to the most atrocious tortures before killing them in the most ignominious way imaginable....'."

On the same day, Kara Mustafa sent the traditional demand for surrender to the city: "You, commander of the city, and you notables and residents of the city of Vienna, be herewith advised: through the mercy of God the Almighty, sun of both worlds, (...) and by command of His Majesty the greatest Sultan of the age, who is Allah's shadow on Earth, we have entrenched our unbeatable troops around the city of Vienna so that we may take it and spread the teachings of Islam which alone hold truth. (...) If you become Muslims, nothing shall befall you. If you capitulate but do not convert, you will be granted mercy and pardon as well and you can go wherever you want. (...) But should you choose to resist, and if it is the will of Allah the Almighty that the fortress shall fall through the overwhelming power of the Padishah, there shall be no mercy or pardon for anyone; by Allah, your possessions shall be plundered, and your children shall all be enslaved."

You are being selective in your transaltion. Why? One can not escape but notice the ending of your quotations:
 * "We will subject children and adults to the most atrocious tortures before killing them in the most ignominious way imaginable...."
 * "your possessions shall be plundered, and your children shall all be enslaved"

Amazing. What are you trying to say? Tell us more. Do not take us for fools and stop this bigotry.--Nostradamus1 (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Nostradamus1, what I am trying to do is to provide encyclopedic content, verifiable through the several citations which I also provide (and which you chose to delete as well). Searching Google Books for the key phrases of the German text from which I translated, such as [und du, kleiner König von Polen] will confirm the references and their ISBN numbers within seconds. I am not “taking us for fools” and there is no bigotry involved. Everybody is invited to look at my contributions and to judge if I am doing anything that smacks of that. Please stay civil, and adhere to WP:EQ.


 * You are also accusing me of “being selective in translation” (typo corrected). If this refers to the ellipses (...) which I inserted (to indicate, honestly as one should, that something WAS left out) – well, trust me, it does not get any better if the tiresome rambling in between were included. (If the community so wishes, I could translate all of it.) If the quotations end as they do, this is because the text ends here.


 * What value does this add? Simple: it adds first-hand evidence of Ottoman “conversion or annihilation” attitude towards Vienna and its population at this precise time immediately prior to the Battle of Vienna. It is therefore justified to include it in the respective article, just as it is not only perfectly justified but actually essential for the completeness of the article on Heinrich Himmler to illustrate his organized extermination of the Jews by providing translations of selected sections of his Posen speech.


 * Concerning the more general NPOV assertion: if you have access to the entire “exchange of letters prior to the battle” to which you refer (I am not aware of any actual correspondence as such), please by all means translate this additional material and use it to extend and improve the article Battle of Vienna. I am also vaguely aware that some Turkish historians (and at leats to an extent, the Turkish government) appear to maintain that what happened at Vienna in September 1683 was hardly more than a minor border skirmish, but as I do not have access to verifiable documents supporting this I did not include this in my edits. If anyone has such hard evidence, please add it to the article. -- Glst2 (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2008

(UTC)
 * Your quotations are of no encyclopedic value. Bringing Heinrich Himmler in an attempt to gather more into the guilt camp? Your personal translation is unacceptable. As I indicated you are clearly pushing your point by ending your selective quotations according to your POV. There can be no place for it. I will continue with my response in the relevant discussion page.--Nostradamus1 (talk) 03:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)