Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Siege of Fort William Henry

Siege of Fort William Henry
Before I subject this to an ACR or FAC grilling (which I think it's not overly far from), I could use some feedback on this one. Some particular things I'd like commentary on:
 * does the chronology (of events preceding the siege itself) need to be improved?
 * was there a massacre or a "massacre" (i.e. something called a massacre that maybe wasn't one)?

Thanks!  Magic ♪piano 20:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Hchn2009

 * A couple of quick thoughts.


 * The Background section assumes the reader knows who the French and Indian war was between; might be worth expanding it to say the "French and Indian war, between x, y and z" perhaps or something like that. NB: since us Brit's named the war, we incorrectly took it for granted that everyone would know that we fought in it! :)
 * British Planning section. "William Pitt rising to take control over military matters. (Pitt eventually became Prime Minister after the poor results of the 1757 military campaign.)" I'd think that the second bit probably belongs in the consequences section later; you could then go for "William Pitt, not yet Prime Minister, rising to take control..." to keep the key point in about him not yet being PM.
 * Legacy. "The British did not try to build over the site of Fort William Henry" - wasn't sure about this sentence. Didn't try to build over in the sense of rebuilding, or constructing something else on top of it?
 * Chronology. Your chronology worked for me.
 * Massacre. I think the historiography of the term in this instance is very interesting, and I enjoyed your section on it. Personally, I'd go for massacre without the speech marks. 184 (albeit at max, 184) people being killed is a fair old number. I had a glance down the wikipedia list of events named massacres, and it appears that both in the 1700s and today the term has been applied to much smaller number of deaths.

Hchc2009 (talk) 07:24, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your feedback. I'll make some of the changes you suggest after I've had some more commentary. (I'm definitely leaning toward removing the scare quotes from "massacre" at this point.)  Magic ♪piano 14:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem at all; as usual, an enjoyable article to read. Hchc2009 (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)