Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/French battleship Gaulois

Article promoted by Zawed (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 00:21, 28 July 2019 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

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

Gaulois was a member of the first multi-ship class of pre-dreadnoughts in the French Navy. Aside from having multiple collisions with other French ships, and sinking one of them, her peacetime career was fairly uneventful. When WWI began, she and her sisters were relegated to secondary roles as convoy escorts before they were sent to the Dardanelles to prevent the ex-German battlecruiser Yavuz from breaking out and to attack the fortifications defending the Dardanelles. The ship was badly damaged during one such bombardment in 1915 and had to be run aground to prevent her from sinking. Gaulois was repaired and returned to the Dardanelles. After a routine refit in France, she was sunk by a German submarine in late 1916 with the loss of only four crewmen while en route to the Eastern Mediterranean.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:02, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Image review


 * File:Gaulois_in_Toulon-Agence_Rol-2.jpeg: as per the EU tag, the image description page should include "reasonable evidence" of anonymity. Same with File:Cuirasse_le_Gaulois_endommage_aux_Dardanelles_en_1915.jpg.
 * It's down below the licensing. Should I move it up, perhaps to the author line?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to "Reasonable evidence of anonymity within 70 years of publication"? Think this needs a bit more elaboration. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:21, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. It's a press-agency photograph which I've never seen published with a photographer's name attached. And Gallica specifically says that it's public domain, which covers country of publication. How is this different from the Symonds & Co. photographs that ended up in the Imperial War Museum that were also taken by an anonymous photographer which we can freely use? And I'm using wording that you specifically approved in earlier Agence Rol photos, so what gives?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Without looking at the specific cases you're referring to it's hard to say whether there was something there that would have led me to a different conclusion, but also ... I'm not a robot?
 * Suggest adding the first part of your statement to the image description page. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * File:Cuirassé_le_Gaulois_touché_par_une_torpille_1916.jpg is also missing evidence of anonymity, and when/where was this first published? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:52, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Adding the anonymous declaration, but it says that it was published in February 1917.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments by AustralianRupert
Support: G'day, Sturm, this looks pretty good to me. I have a few minor comments/suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 05:02, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
 * slightly inconsistent: "Conning tower: 274–326 mm" (infobox) v. "conning tower had a 326-millimetre (12.8 in) thick face and 276 mm" (body)
 * slightly inconsistent style: "Nashville, TN" v. "Annapolis, Maryland"
 * "defenses" --> "defences" for consistency of ENGVAR
 * "armor" --> "armour" as above
 * "armored" --> "armoured"
 * rammed the battleship Bouvet: Bouvet is overlinked here
 * on 11 August to bombarded a Turkish --> "bombard"
 * suggest linking SM UB-47 in the body of the article
 * sources: all look reliable to me, although I wasn't able to confirm Gille. Can you tell me something about him, the work or the publisher?
 * Gille is a naval historian with at least three other books to his credit and Marines éditions is one of the two major nautical history publishers in France. The book is kind of a version of Conway's, with better photos and more operational detail, although its been made rather redundant by Jordan & Caresse.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:51, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, sounds like it meets the criteria. Added my support above. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:51, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by PM
This article is in great shape. I have a few comments: AR already mentioned the other things I noticed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:26, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * suggest a comma after "where she was repaired"
 * naval review links to a dab page
 * suggest "both captains were relieved of their duties" if that is what is meant, as the wording is a bit unclear
 * in some cases you have led with the rank in English, in others with the French. I personally prefer using the foreign rank, but just be consistent
 * I think that I've fixed all of these.
 * also, no explanation of what "Capitaine de vaisseau" means?
 * "escorted President Loubet" as he has already been introduced
 * I'm not familiar with target ships, was "Gaulois sank the target ship Tempête" accidental? It reads like that, but perhaps state if that is the case?
 * See how it reads now.
 * suggest " Shortly afterwards Gaulois moderately damaged the bow of the destroyer Fanion while training when it was struck by one of Gaulois's torpedoes."←"Shortly afterwards, one of Gaulois' torpedoes struck and moderately damaged the bow of the destroyer Fanion during training."
 * I struggled with this sentence for some stupid reason.
 * "Training Division of the ? Squadron" seems like something is missing here, as she had just be assigned to a division?
 * My sources aren't real clear about the training division and how it related to the Complementary Division
 * "Later in September, her main turrets" but then the problem seems to be with just her forward turret?
 * Forward turret had the worse problems, but they caught it early in the aft turret.
 * suggest "Following these repairs, in November Gaulois was ordered" and drop "in November" later
 * I think that simply deleting that introductory phrase works even better.
 * in the lead it says Yavuz was ex-German, but this is actually stated in the body
 * suggest "Gaulois became the flagship", as we've just been discussing Suffren
 * link SM UB-47
 * All done. See if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * All good, supporting. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:45, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Source review - pass

 * At the risk of appearing picky, the publication locations given for Corbett suggest that London has relocated to Tennessee.
 * Happy to take suggestions on how that might be clarified.
 * 'London; Nashville, Tennessee: Imperial War Museum in association with the Battery Press' would be the usual formulation.

The sources used are all reliable. I am unable to find any other sources which would materially add to the content of the article. I have not carried out any spot checks. I found no unattributed close paraphrasing. I consider the sources to be current. Everything that I would expect to be cited, is.

Gog the Mild (talk) 15:34, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking them over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by CPA-5
Oh no! This nomination wouldn't be promoted without my support here. I'll do this one tomorrow. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:48, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sound like a plan! You guys are reviewing so fast I'm having a hard time keeping my queue of noms up to strength. It's awesome to see.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I even barely missed this one so we're so fast that I almost miss some of the nominations.

That's anything from me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 19:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The sisters remained in Brest until they Link Brest here.
 * Washington, D.C. President Theodore Roosevelt Sea blue here.
 * another port visit to Lisbon before arriving Add Portugal after Lisbon.
 * Use Ottoman Empire instead of Turkey as a standardised version of each.
 * departed for Toulon via Malta three days later Pipe Malta's link to the Crown Colony of Malta.
 * Gallipoli/Gallipoli Peninsula is overlinked.
 * Saint Louis/St Louis is overlinked.
 * Thanks for the review. See if my changes are acceptable.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:09, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks great. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Support Comments from Parsecboy

 * I wonder if Corbett ought to be consulted on the Dardanelles operations? I haven't checked specifically for Gaulois, but I found he had greater detail on the activities of some of the other French ships I've done compared to what's in Jordan & Caresse.
 * In my experience, Caresse's solo articles tend to be a bit more detailed than his collaboration with Jordan. But I did use Corbett; see refs 17 and 18.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:14, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah, I had missed that in the bundled ref
 * Kind of nitpicky, but you might consider shifting the first photo in the career section to the left to avoid pushing the others down so far (at least on my screen). Parsecboy (talk) 17:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * They're four paragraphs apart, but sure. What are you looking at, your phone?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:11, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No, widescreen monitors at work and at home :P I've found that the wider the screen, the more problems I have with photo room. Parsecboy (talk) 23:57, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Huh, I'm viewing things on a 27-inch Retina iMac, but I limit my browser to about 2/3rds size so I can view multiple windows all together. I suppose that if each paragraph is so wide that they're only three or four lines tall, that would cause them to bump more than you'd expect.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:37, 27 July 2019 (UTC)