Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of Krasnoi/archive1

Battle of Krasnoi
This is the first article by User:Kenmore. The guy has been working on it for several months and I think would really appreciate feedback, especially mild advices as to possible ways to wikify and improve the article before it may be considered for featured status. -- Ghirla -трёп-  13:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ t 19:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

My take:
 * You need in-line citations. The first 2 sections have none. The rest is- acceptible.
 * "...under General Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, inflicted heavy losses on the remnants of the dilapidated Grande Armée." Is dilapidated the right word here? That is usually used to reference the state of a structure. For a replacement, how about desintigrating or ruined?
 * The one picture of the battle strategy is horribly confusing. Make a simplified version.
 * Napoleon's decision was not an easy one to make. Segur describes the beleaguered Emperor's predicament as follows:


 * “So the 1st Corps was saved; but at the same time we learned that our rear guard was at the end of its resistance at Krasny, that Ney had probably not left Smolensk yet, and that we ought to give up all idea of waiting for him. Still, Napoleon hesitated, unable to bring himself to make this great sacrifice. But finally, as everything seemed lost, he decided what to do. He called Mortier to him, took his hand kindly, and told him, 'There is not a minute to lose! The enemy is breaking through on every side. Kutusov may reach Liady, even Orsha and the last bend of the Dnieper before me. I must move rapiedly with the Old Guard to occupy that passage. Davout will relieve you. Together you must try to hold out at Krasny until nightfall. Then you will rejoin me.' His heart heavy with despair at having to abandon the unfortunate Ney, he withdrew slowly from the field of battle, entered Krasny where he made a brief halt, then cut his way through as far as Liady"[28] I would use here.


 * It's a bit long and over-detailed. Maybe make seperate articles with individual strategy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Esoltas (talk • contribs).


 * Esoltas:


 * Can you tell me more about what you mean by the "one picture of the battle strategy" being "horribly confusing"? Are you referring to the black and white map? If so, I thought I had done a good job of numbering the events "1" through "12", with explanations for each number below the map. I thought that was a good way of explaining the flow of events over time and space during the four day battle. If you disagree, I'm eager to hear more.


 * Perhaps the black and white map should be replaced with something more polished?


 * I've made contact with the librarians at the United States Military Academy, trying to find a good map of the Battle of Krasnoi. There are very few available. They recommended that I try to obtain an atlas of battles created by Jomini, Ney's chief of staff. It allegedly contains a great map. I'm trying to locate the book right now.


 * "It's a bit long and over-detailed. Maybe make seperate articles with individual strategy" Are you referring to that one quote by Segur, or the overall narrative of the article? I've debated with myself about the article's length...maybe it's overdone, maybe not.


 * Thanks for the feedback.


 * kenmore

Balloonman
Overall this is a very good article and I found it to be an interesting read. You might want to have the Military Peer Review group take a look at it. But here are my comments:
 * Needs more citations early on.
 * There are no texts/further reading at the end. And the references aren't working.Balloonman 08:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Kenmore responds
I appreciate any and all criticisms...don't worry about bruising my ego. Be as harsh as you see fit in pointing out the article's weakspots.

The peer review started without my knowledge. I was planning to rectify the following weaknesses in upcoming weeks:

1. I still need to footnote sections #1 ("Background") and #2 ("Rout of Ozharovsky"). This is especially important because some major historians confuse the Ozharovsky skirmish with the Guard's feint two days later. I want to explain the distinction in a footnote.

2. I have a few more details to add to section #3 ("Defeat of Eugene") regarding specifics of the combat on that day.

3. I need to better research the data in section #6 ("Summary of Results"). There's some controversy as to how many cannon the French lost at Krasnoi -- some say 133, others say close to 200. Also, it's not clear how many of the cannon were lost at Krasnoi itself, as opposed to being guns lost on the 40 mile road between Krasnoi and Smolensk due to Cossack raids.

4. The same holds true for the 39,000 French casualties at Krasnoi: there's controversy as to how many of them fell at Krasnoi itself as opposed to being captured on the march from Smolensk to Krasnoi.

5. I still need to better specify corps and division numbers of Russian and French units involved, and to standardize the manner in which those numbers are used in the article.

6. I still need to do a final grammar and diction dust-up. No doubt sentence mechanics and paragraph construction in many instances need to be improved...from the perspective of being well or badly written, it has weaknesses and I intend to work them through.

Kenmore 09:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)kenmore

Very small comment: is Krasnoi and Krasny the same thing? If they are, it would be nice to provide any alternative transliterations in the lead, but spell it the same way throughout the article. (I believe that when I looked at it it was spelled differently in the figure captions and in the text).--Will.i.am 11:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, Krasny and Krasnoi are the same. My intention was to use "Krasnoi" throughout the article, but a Russian language native with an interest in linguistics changed it to "Krasny" on the grounds that "Krasnoi" is an English-language mistaken translation of "Krasny". The final rendition of the article will have a footnote regarding transliterations of the name, including "Krasnoye", "Krasnoe", "Krasnie", etc.


 * Kenmore 03:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)kenmore