Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/French battleship Charlemagne

Article promoted by Gog the Mild (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 13:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

French battleship Charlemagne
Instructions for nominators and reviewers
 * Nominator(s): 

Charlemagne was a French predreadnought battleship that was thoroughly obsolete when World War I began in 1914. Aside from bombarding Ottoman fortifications in 1915, she spent the war on secondary duties. I've extensively reworked the article to incorporate newly available material and believe that it fully meets the A-class criteria. I look forward to working with reviewers who will inform me otherwise.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 09:28, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

HF - support
I'll try to review this sometime over the next three or four days. Hog Farm Talk 21:54, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The 11,275 displacement figure from the infobox doesn't match up to anything in the body
 * Ditto the 727 complement figure, given that the background gives 750 for flagship crew and 692 otherwise
 * Is 14,200 PS (body) or 14,500 PS (infobox) correct?
 * steaming range also differs between body and infobox
 * Infobox gives deck armor as varying between 40mm and 70mm, but the way things are phrased in the body, it seems the 40mm armor is below the 70mm deck armor, so there was no place with only 40mm of armor?
 * The upper 70mm deck covered the entire hull. So you'd prefer just to use the thickness(es) of the thickest deck? That's not a problem, but I've often not done it that way.
 * Maybe 40 mm (lower) and 70 mm (upper) or something, to make it clear that there isn't a point where only the 40 mm splinter deck is providing protection? Hog Farm Talk 13:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the data for the thickest deck works well enough as I don't want to devote more than a single line to it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Charlemagne, named after the first Holy Roman Emperor - it seems odd to me to at no point here actually link to Charlemagne
 * It does, doesn't it.
 * Also noting I agree with Indy's concern about the Caresse collision note below
 * I've revised the wording on this and would appreciate your opinion given Indy's reservations.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * As a predreadnought, wouldn't she have been at least partially obsolete by WWI or even earlier? This seems worth mentioning if it can be supported by sources
 * "Her 138.4 mm guns were removed the following month" - wouldn't these have been 138.6 mm guns based on the prior description of the armament?

I think that's it from me. Hog Farm Talk 01:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sigh, I wish I'd remember to cross-reference the figures in the infobox and main body when updating articles! Thanks for looking at this. I think that I've addressed everything that you brought up above.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:11, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Comments Support by Indy beetle
-Indy beetle (talk) 21:26, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Could we get a brief note on why the French ordered the Charlemagne class of ships?
 * I generally save that for the class article.
 * It's not enough for me to holdup the review, but I hope you might reconsider on adding a brief note. That a specific ship is ordered to be built is not just a given thing, and a sentence of context wouldn't hurt, even if it is just a "The French government ordered the battleship and its sisters as part of the X naval expansion programme."
 * Added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * In the World War I section, Yavuz should be linked at its mention, and it should be made clear in the first paragraph that Charlemagne was operating against Ottoman forces. I don't think the average reader is going to realize without some clarification that the Yavuz, Kum Kale, Kilitbahir Castle, were Ottoman places.
 * Yavuz is linked in the lede and this isn't such a long article that readers will forget. Have worked in more references to the Ottomans
 * The battleship arrived at Bizerte on 3 April to begin a badly needed refit. "Badly needed" is something of an opinion, and it isn't exactly clear what was done during the refit which was apparently so urgently required.
 * Badly needed is a paraphrase from the source, but I've added the most urgent repair to better justify the characterization.
 * Thank you for the added context.
 * The footnote This is not mentioned in Caresse's detailed history of Gaulois, and may have been confused with Gaulois's collision with the battleship Bouvet on 31 January 1903. is sourced directly to Caresse, and seems like an original observation.
 * It seemed pretty obvious to me, but removed.
 * I get the common sense rationale behind explicitly noting this discrepancy in article text, but discussing things which are not mentioned in a given source, through an analysis of that source in comparison to others itself without the citing of an overarching historiographic review or comment of some sort (e.g. something like "Curiously, Caresse does not discuss any collision incident involving the Gaulois in his comprehensive studies of the battleship, in contrast to other sources." - Bob Smith, The French Navy During the Great War, p. 27), I think is still engaging in low-level WP:OR. There is theoretically an infinite amount of things we can point out are not mentioned by a given book, but without a different source making that observation itself it's impossible to fairly assign DUE weight in choosing to declare such omissions. This presents more of a risk on articles of modern socio-political controversy than the service record of a French predreadnought, but I'd prefer the whole note be removed on principle. I'll defer to and other reviewers if they think I'm splitting hairs here. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Based on my experience with Caresse-type works, I think it's okay to simply state that Caresse's history does not mention this; those types of works are generally extremely comprehensive. I wouldn't recommend that in most cases, but there's a fairly strong expectation that if a collision of any significance occurred, then Caresse would mention it. Hog Farm Talk 23:29, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * All I can say is that the Caresse article is a detailed history of the ship and covers the other collisions that Gaulois was involved in, so I can only presume...--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review, see if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:31, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Supporting. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:58, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Comments Support by Pendright
Back soon! Pendright (talk) 23:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

My comments are so minor in the scheme of things that I'm moving to support the nomination at this time. Pendright (talk) 01:06, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Lead:
 * The battleship was initially assigned to the Northern Squadron (Escadre du Nord) and was not transferred to the Mediterranean Squadron (Escadre de la Méditerranée) until 1900.
 * "but" was not tramsferred


 * The ship was transferred later that year to the squadron assigned to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations on the Salonica front.
 * Since squardron is unspecified shouldn't it be "a" squardron?


 * Lead does not mention anything about armament, speed, or armor?

Design and description:
 * The ships' anti-torpedo boat defences consisted of twenty Canon de 47 mm (1.9 in) Modèle 1885 and two 37 mm (1.5 in) Maxim guns, fitted in platforms on both masts, on the superstructure, and in casemates in the hull.
 * defences -> sp?


 * Other:
 * armour - sp?

Construction and career
 * Charlemagne, was the namesake of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor,[7] was ordered on 30 September 1893 as the name ship of the three battleships of her class.[8]
 * Suggest the sentence be rephrased to show Charlemagne's title after his name.


 * A 100 mm cartridge spontaneously ignited in a magazine on 30 December 1904, but Charlemagne suffered no damage from the incident as the magazine was quickly flooded.[16]
 * Any injuries or fatalities?


 * The divisions of the battle squadrons had been renumbered on 5 January and the 4th Division was now the 1st Division of the 2nd Battle Squadron.
 * and the 4th Division "became" the 1st Division

World War I:
 * After the French ships were ordered to be relieved by six other British battleships,[24] Bouvet struck a mine and sank almost instantly while Gaulois was hit twice, one of which opened a large hole in her hull that began to flood the ship.
 * Any injures or faltaliti3s?


 * Charlemagne was slightly damaged when her armour belt was dented when she was struck by a shell on 25 May.
 * armour -> sp?


 * They sold her to an Italian company which demolished her in Savona, Italy.[32]
 * "that" demolished her

Done - Supporting - Pendright (talk) 01:06, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The article's written in British English, so the variant spellings. And I've addressed most of the issues that you brought up, as small as they were.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the rejoiner. Yogi Berra once said, "Doing the little things can make a big differece." Always a pleasure! Pendright (talk) 00:20, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Image review
Hawkeye7  (discuss)  22:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * File:Charlemagne-Marius Bar-img 3122.jpg Is a photograph, not an artwork. Suggest PD-France or PD-old-70-expired instead.
 * File:00-9861p Brest le port et l'arsenal.jpg - PD-old-70-expired vrai
 * File:Dardanelles defences 1915.png - Wikipedian generated - PD - okay
 * File:Charlemagne off Mudros 1915 IWM Q 13412.jpg - PD-UKGov - okay
 * All done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Source review

 * Footnotes all appear to be formatted uniformly
 * You do have one pair of refs that are out of order - if you ctrl+f for reversed brackets (i.e., ][) you'll find it at "...(Division des bases navales du corps expéditionnaire d'Orient).[30][19]"
 * Cited sources are all of very high quality, Caresse, Jordan, Roberts, etc. are all established historians of the French Navy. Parsecboy (talk) 22:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that; fixed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)