Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)

Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
I believe the article has quality good enough for GA at least. Your comments would be greatly appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The article has now reached a GA status. I'd like to thank the reviewers, whose comments were very useful in improving the article. Are there any other issues to be addressed, or would you recommend moving the article to A-class?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin
Looks quite good. A number of minor things to fix, though: Kirill Lokshin 04:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Month/day dates need to be properly linked.
 * The infobox is a mess, and needs to be cleaned up. I would format the top section as |conflict=Soviet invasion of Poland and  |partof=the invasion of Poland in World War II .  Some indication of the actual number of troops involved would also be helpful; the numbers of divisions alone don't really say much.
 * There are too many images. The ones in the body should be staggered along both margins, to avoid having text squeezed between two images in the same spot; the gallery should really be broken up, with some images worked into the text and others sent to a gallery on Commons (which should then be linked here).
 * The "See also" section should be eliminated; if there's no other option, seealso within particular sections is more useful, but at least some of the links can be given in the text or the infobox.
 * The "External links" section might be better off being merged into "Further reading".

Reply to some points:
 * Could you deal with the infobox? It's not my specialty, I am afraid...
 * Elinks are for html resources, further reading for print, per MoS/GtL, IIRC.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done some cleanup of the infobox; you should probably still look at putting overall troop numbers into it, though. Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be nice, and I will look for estimates, but they are difficult to find. The subject was not well researched (due to Soviet censorship), and by mid-September it was quite chaotic. Even if I can get the number for the 'undestrenght KOP battalions', how can we count the more or less random units of Polish army who fought the Soviets? And some units, KOP included, likely followed Rydz-Śmigły's orders and didn't engage in combat, while others obviously did. It's a pretty good definition of chaos, I believe.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * True, that. I think that even vague ranges would be helpful in giving some sense of how large the forces involved were, though; this applies to the Soviet numbers as well, since the actual size of divisions and brigades in the Red Army tended to vary quite a bit. Kirill Lokshin 20:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried to address that, but I cannot find any good estimates about Polish strengh in the east. Polish wiki in article about KOP has unreferenced estimate of combined KOP units on 21 September numbering 8700, and that's the best I can dig up :( Soviet numbers are referened at 800,000; and we have their order of battle (albeit unreferenced). Polish army order of battle in 1939 has no information about the Eastern front.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Please feel free to nominate this article for A-Class. :-) Kirill Lokshin 18:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PocklingtonDan
Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "The Soviet invasion of Poland took place sixteen days after the onset of the Second World War, that started on September 1, 1939 by the German attack on Poland" - Messy, rephrase, break into two sentences if necessary
 * "minor Polish resistance....230,000 or more became prisoners of war" One quarter of a million men seems like a large force, why was resistance only minor? 6,000 deaths and 230,000 captures is an odd ratio.
 * "The Polonization" - you shouldn't use obscure terms without explaining them inline IMO
 * intwar -> interwar?
 * "and Battle of the Bzura, Polish major counteoffensive, was" -> "and the Battle of the Bzura, a major Polish counteoffensive, was"
 * "Polish last fall-back plan" -> "The Polish plan for a final fall-back action"
 * "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists rose against the Poles" -> "The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists rose against the Poles"
 * "half a day after the Soviet Union declared that the Polish state no longer existed; and days after such a pretext was conceived" - I don't understand this sentence
 * "Soviets murdered 42 members and patients of a Polish military hospital" - these would have been foreign national combat troops in wartime, I would say murdered was a bit strong in such a case even if they were unarmed and in hospital at the time, perhaps "killed in violation of internetional treaties" or similar.
 * "Despite their country attacked by both of its powerful neighbours" -> "Despite their country being attacked by both of its powerful neighbours"
 * "Soviets conquered about 250,000 square kilometers " - > "The Soviets conquered about 250,000 square kilometers "
 * " Poles comprised the largest group" -> " Poles comprised the largest ethnic group"
 * Gallery - this section is not necessary IMO, I would put images inline in the article where relevant or not include them at all
 * Formatting of Prelude section needs looking at, a lot of whitespace.
 * I suspect the main editor might not speak English as a first language, the article needs a good copyedit from someone really fluent in English I would say.
 * The picture at the top right is grainy and unclear, can a better image be found?
 * You have a bout five maps all in different forms and colours and sizes. Could this data all be put in one map or one cohesive series of maps?

Reply to some points: --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * '6,000 deaths and 230,000 is an odd ration' - indeed. Unless the army is ordered not to fight the second opponent (who doesn't always have such qualms), is concentrated on the other side of the country and mostly beaten by the first one (so that most soldiers encountered by the second one are 1) few in number 2) already beaten/fleeing/regrouping...
 * please don't hestitate do do minor copyedits (indeed I am not a native English speaker and I miss quite a few akward phrases)
 * Maps - it would be great, but map makers are few and far in between on Wiki. We are lucky to have that many maps, you know :)


 * Just contact: WikiProject Maps and wait what happens. On the captured troops, the Russians did capture their supplies in an area with difficlut conditions for any transports. Perhaps the whole retreat and resupply strategy of the Poles - hiding in the swamps where the German tanks couldn't hunt them down and their Romanian allies could supply them should be explained. Wandalstouring 20:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to say I am not that familiar with that strategy. That said, the Invasion of Poland (1939) needs bringing up to modern FA standards...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Llywrch
Hi Piotr -- I did a little copy editting on this article (typos, punctuation, a little grammar), but one passage left me confused:
 * While accusations and claims of betrayal remained part of Western literature regarding the Soviet occupation of Poland, within the People's Republic of Poland, as in the entire Eastern Bloc at large, the events of the Soviet invasion of Poland and their aftermath were forbidden to be taught or researched; or at best portrayed as "liberation" of the Polish people from "oligarchic capitalism," in order not to damage the image of 'Polish-Soviet friendship' spread by the respective communist governments.

At first glance, there appears to be a contradiction here: the subject wasn't allowed to be taught or discussed at all -- & yet there was an "official version" of what happened. I tried to rewrite this passage to remove the contradiction, but because I did not go to school in Poland, I don't know the situation you are trying to describe. Is it that for the most part, the subject was off-limits & any mention strongly discouraged, but if it could not be avoided the "official version" was brought out; or that the "official version" was widely available (e.g., it appeared in textbooks & the encyclopedia) & further research or discussion forbidden?

Otherwise the primary problem with this article is that someone will need to carefully comb thru it to make the style consistent (e.g., I noticed three different ways the date is given) -- which is admittedly minor. -- llywrch 18:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I will correct this para as best as I could. The government stance towards the subject varied with time, which makes it somewhat confusing (and still vastly underresearched). I hope somebody will comb through with a style-copyedit.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you have come up with the best way to explain this issue, Piotr -- that the official stance varied; I don't think anything more needs to be said -- until the research is done. I made a few edits to your rewrite, & hope they made your explanation clearer. -- llywrch 22:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)