Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/French battleship Jean Bart (1911)

Article promoted by Zawed (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 08:20, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

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French battleship Jean Bart (1911)
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Jean Bart had a typical career for a French dreadnought of her generation. Her participation in World War I mostly consisted of swinging around a mooring buoy as she was tasked to prevent a breakout into the Mediterranean by the Austro-Hungarian fleet, aside from helping to sink a small Austro-Hungarian cruiser and getting torpedoed. Between the wars, she was extensively modernized, but would have been too expensive for another refit in the mid-1930s. Jean Bart instead briefly became a training ship before she was converted into an accommodation ship for the naval schools in Toulon and had to give up her name for a newly building battleship. She was captured when the Germans occupied Vichy France although they only made use of her as a target for the massive shaped-charge warheads that they were developing. The ship was sunk by Allied airstrikes in 1944 and was scrapped after the war. I've extensively reworked the article recently and I believe that it meets the A-class standards. I'd like reviewers to look for any stray AmEng and unexplained jargon in preparation for an eventual FAC.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Support - Lingzhi

 * Jordan, John & Dumas, Robert (2009). Never used in article. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:12, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Gone.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:43, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Are we missing a Halpern? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:48, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * We were.
 * "the new Richelieu-class battleship Jean Bart then building" --> "then under construction"? The subject-verb relationship sounds like the ship is building something.
 * Good catch.
 * "Jean Bart's captain was able to restore order..." Is that Henri du Couëdic de Kerérant? Was he injured during this, as the Google translate version of the French wikipedia article seems to state? There may be more to glean from that article. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:19, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Nothing I've seen so far can reliably source Couëdic as captain of the ship during the mutiny. Wiki-Brest says that he is, with a broken arm, but I don't think that the website is RS and he's not mentioned by name in Masson's article, nor in any of the books by Jordan or Dumas. The newspaper article says only that he was captain during the trials of the mutineers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * This is just a discussion forum, but such fora often provide links to acceptable WP:RS sources. Forex, it seems the captain at the time the ship was torpedoed was fr:Eugène Barthes. I really think the French government, French navy or French national library must have a complete historical list of such vessels/captains info somewhere or other. [Not sure if this is WP:RS.] I dunno, I suppose you could go ask someone who speaks French to query at the French Wikipedia or look around on the Internet.... hmmmm:
 * De LA TASTE Alfred Auguste Emmanuel (De juillet 1915 à mars 1916, Commandant le cuirassé "JEAN-BART")
 * MOULLÉ Frédéric Joseph (From April 1916 to May 1918, Commander battleship "JEAN-BART")
 * Du COUËDIC de KÉRÉRANT Henri Marie Léandre (En mai 1918, Commandant le cuirassé "JEAN-BART". Idem en janvier 1920)
 * OK so WP isn't RS, but you could find out where fr:Henri du Couëdic de Kerérant sourced their assertion that de Kerérant was captain during the mutiny. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:17, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * French Wiki seems to think that ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr is RS because they often don't even bother to cite it and just include an external link. I did a deep dive on Barthes and can't find anything useable other than the documentation for his awards of the Légion d'Honneur and his service as an admiral. Hell, the report written by Barthes about the torpedoing of Jean Bart doesn't give his first name, so all I can really say is that somebody named Barthes was in command of the ship when she was torpedoed. And another strike out on de la Taste, but all kinds of links to the privateer Jean Bart of the WW2 battleship of the same name. I'm sure that there's lists of these ships' captains, but it must be printed somewhere obscure because I'm not finding squat for reliable sources about them.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I give up. Wasted two hours searching today. Several sites etc say that Henri du Couëdic de Kerérant was the captain during the mutiny, that he took down the red flag and tore it up, and that he was injured somehow, but I can't find RS, except for one book in snippet view in Google books. Several sites also know that E.M.C. Barthes was the captain during the torpedo strike, but I can't find RS, except for one book in (illegible) snippet view again. Life sucks. In the latter case, I suppose you could try to make a case that ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr is RS. I dunno.  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:50, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I've always figured that captains are "nice-to-have" but not essential. I rarely even see them mentioned in books on the ships, unless it's in the rare biographies of individual ships. Sorry that you wasted your time; I was getting pretty frustrated this morning as well. Of course it didn't help that a lot of links keyed in on the Jean Bart name.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:11, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I enjoy finding things that are hard to find. Part of the price I pay for that is sometimes coming up empty-handed. C'est la vie. :-) ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:21, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * French Navy, World War 1 says "Although she stayed afloat and reached Malta safely, the French blockade of the Adriatic was moved south of the Otranto Straits and thus became more distant." Similarly but with fewer details, our version says "This attack forced the battleships to patrol no further north than the Ionian Sea". I wonder if our sentence can have more detail, giving forex some idea how many kilometers south the ships were forced to... would you say "withdraw"? And which is correct: blockade or patrol?
 * The patrols were in support of the blockade. Nobody gives a distance, just patrols in the Ionian Sea. I've rephrased that bit, see if it's an improvement.
 * Also on the same website, "Some sources, even recently published ones, describe "Jean Bart" as sunk in this attack." Did you see any source making that assertion? If you didn't see any, it might not be worth mentioning... up to you. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:16, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a surprise; I've never seen anything asserting that as it's pretty well known that she survived the war.
 * Support, while still requesting that you expand the sentence about how the torpedo incident shifted the blockade south... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:43, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spending the time to further research the article, even if it was unsuccessful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:32, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Support by Gog the Mild
I have done a little copy editing. Also:
 * "After the war she and her sister ship France were participated in the occupation of Constantinople" "were participated"?
 * "but was deemed in too poor condition to be refitted again in the 1930s." Optional, but I would write 'deemed to be in ...'
 * "was then disarmed and hulked as an accommodation ship" In British English 'hulk' as a verb means to disembowel an animal. Is it actually used in the sense that you use it in RSs?
 * Oh, yeah. The RN was particularly fond of hulking warships for various purposes in lieu of spending precious money on shore facilities. Conversely, I've never seen that usage of hulk in any BritEng book, ever. Interesting. Is it an old-fashioned term? OTOH, it does relate to the nautical term as hulked warships were sometime gutted of all their internal fittings to make more room for classrooms or whatever. More commonly they were disarmed, had some compartments consolidated to make the suitable for use as classrooms and may have had all of their propulsion machinery removed, if the Navy in question wanted to spend the money.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:43, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Hulk as a noun is perfectly acceptable. While I would only expect people with some knowledge of naval history to understand the word (hulk, not hulked), it is correct usage and, as you say, decommissioned ships were frequently converted to hulks. However, after diligent searching I can find little support for "hulked" in the sense of 'past tense of the act of converting a ship into a hulk'. No dictionary, on or off line, has it - I stopped looking after hitting double figures. The very occasional uses of it are also very informal, eg here. If you can come up with evidence that it is used in this sense in at least a reasonable minority of sources then fine, otherwise it needs to go. Personally, I would consider that as it caused even a reader like me, who knows what both a sheer hulk and a receiving hulk are, to pause and think "Eh! You what?" it would be better to reword in a more generally understandable way.
 * It's quite commonly used in books on wooden warships: Russian Warships in the Age of Sail, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817-1863, and French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786 were just the first three that I looked at.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I only have half a dozen age of sail books, all British orientated and all general histories or bios (Rodger etc) and it isn't in any of them. I also noted that the featured article on Britain's most famous hulk - HMS Temeraire (1798) - manages to get through the whole article without even mentioning the noun. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)


 * "The one torpedo struck her in the wine store in the bow" Suggest either 'The single torpedo' or delete "The".
 * Yes.
 * "leaving Corfu only for maintenance and repairs." Perhaps "Corfu only" -> 'only Corfu'?
 * Indeed
 * "inspired by Socialist and revolutionary sympathisers" I am dubious about that upper case S.
 * "included six sailors, including one who later died of his wounds" Two variants of include in four words. Suggest ', one of whom later ...'

A high quality article. Difficult to find anything to pick at. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching all these little niggles.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:43, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem. Nice to work on an article with almost nothing to pick up on. One response above for your consideration. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Image review


 * File:Jean_Bart_Cuirasse_1913.png: what is the author's date of death?
 * 1958. Did I just run afoul of the 1996 change in copyright?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:51, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * File:Cuirassé_"Jean_Bart".jpg: which of the rationales from the Europeana tag is believed to apply? Per the tag, if possible a more specific tag should be added
 * Added.
 * File:1926_%2B--_Joseph_Schneider_(2)_servit_sur_le_cuirassé_d'escadre_Jean-Bart.jpg: not clear to me why the uploader would have the right to release this. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:04, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Deleted.

Comments Support by PM
This article is in great shape. I have very few comments: That's me done. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:37, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In the lead, suggest "She was sunk by Allied bombing in 1944, and after the war ended, was refloated and scrapped beginning in late 1945."
 * insert comma after "then under construction" in the Background etc section
 * full stop needed after " newly arrived sister Paris on 11 September"
 * "the battleships south of it into the Ionian Sea"
 * Charlier is mentioned but not linked.
 * there is a mention of "direct-drive cruising turbines", but what were these?
 * Not important enough to explain.
 * Who was Hervé? Link? Or redlink?
 * I can't find anything that gives a first name.
 * Souda Bay is in Crete, and Port Said is in Egypt, and Beirut was in French Lebanon, so they are a bit redundant?
 * where was the October-November 1932 refit conducted?
 * sources are what you would expect for a French battleship of this vintage, and all are reliable and of high quality. I am left wondering if Dumas and Guiglini offer anything unique.
 * Dumas 1985 is basically an extract of the earlier book that he did with Guiglini. I've skimmed the latter, but there maybe something there that somebody more fluent than me might find interesting. Maybe; its age and the far easier access to the French naval archives in this millennium don't lead me to think so. Thanks for looking this over; see if my changes are acceptable.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * All good. Supporting. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:16, 2 March 2019 (UTC)