Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Ceresole

Battle of Ceresole

My new article-in-progress. Obviously, massive copyediting is still needed, as are maps; I intend to provide both shortly. I'm quite interested in whether the overall narrative is understandable; one of my sources calls the battle "marvelously confused," which is something I hope the article has avoided. Any other comments or suggestions would also be extremely appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 22:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

UberCryxic

Well normally I wouldn't give a review if I have a nomination up, but since this is just peer review and not FAC, we'll forget that. I suspect that's the same reason why you haven't reviewed mine. Anyway, this means that I expect a review from you too, or else I'm going to complain really obnoxiously!

Great article as usual, but let's see....

-Way too many red links. Creating articles for all of those would be too much work, so I suggest just leaving some subjects without links at all.

-The narrative is comprehensible yes. Your choice of structure and categorization makes it idiot-proof (that is, dividing the narrative between the different sectors of the battlefield).

Ummm....other than that and what you mentioned (maps and heavy copyediting, which I'll be happy to give before you nominate for FA) it's really a terrific article.UberCryxic 01:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments! I've added four maps (they're not particularly pretty, but I'm no artist) that should make things a bit easier to follow. I'll work on copyediting tomorrow. As far as the redlinks, I think it'll be better in the long run if I just stub them out, rather than de-linking them; maybe somebody will actually fill in the stubs with some useful information that I don't have. Kirill Lokshin 07:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, most of the historical redlinks have been stubbed out. The bulk of what remains are random places in northern Italy; they're certainly notable enough for articles, but I don't have any information about them at hand. (A RamBot for Europe would be extremely useful in cases like this!) Kirill Lokshin 21:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Vedexent

First of all, I must say I'm very impressed with the level of research and scholarship that must have gone into this article. Given the number of hats you wear just running around Wikipedia, I'm not sure when you find the time.

I can see how the battle might have been "marvelously confused", but your breaking the battle up into sections, and detailing a "blow-by-blow" account seems to have cut through a lot of the fog.

I also realize this is a "work in progress", however there are a couple of suggestions I would make just for clarity and readability for those readers who aren't avid military historians.

• The lead: In the lead you cover the significance of the battle to military historians but you do not detail what significance the battle had to the war. You cover this nicely in the Aftermath section, but it isn't part of the lead.
• The "situational map": Except for the infobox map (where one has to squint to see the red arrow), there really isn't one. You go through loving detail of the tactical/strategic layout of the front line in the Prelude section, so the information is there, but a map of the towns, lines, and the initial actions before the battle (Boutières seizing San Germano and Del Vasto attacking Carignano) would be invaluable.
• Order of Battle: The order of battle is quite complex and detailed. Detail is good, however, you might consider adding a summary/comparison table at the end of the Prelude section. Something like a column for each side, rows for each unit type, commander(s) for each type, and appropriate strengths. This would give the reader the ability to take in the relative strengths and make up of the two forces "at a glance".
• The initial battle maps are clear, but seem to be "table top" maps: there is no geographical detail in them whatsoever - even though you describe the geography in the text. Again, it would be helpful to add troop strengths to units and not just their commanders. I suspect that the symbols you use are a convention used to convey some of this (otherwise why have blocks of differing sizes, orientations, and "fill patterns), but I'm not a student of military cartography, and I don't think many casual readers will be either.

I think that overall, the scholarship and narrative are first rate. I especially like your addition of a Historiography section. As you've noted yourself, the presentation needs some tweaking to make it better "accessible" to the "causal lay-reader", but for a work-in-progress I think this is 80% of the way to being a spectacular article (and the 20% is only taken off because I know how much work/pain-in-the-ass maps, tables, and diagrams are to make). - Vedexent (talk) - 09:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the many suggestions! Adding a table-form order of battle and indicating troop strength on (at least one of) the tactical maps should be easy enough. The topography and situational maps will be a bit more difficult, as I'm no cartographer (and Oman's map helpfully omits the geographic features of the battlefield itself!); I'll see if I can find a halfway-decent map of the Piedmont that has some of these places marked, and then add in the requisite troop movements. Adding a key to the tactical maps would probably be a good idea as well. Kirill Lokshin 17:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've added a (pretty crude) table listing the order of battle. I'm not sure if the current format is a good one, or if a different form/presentation/choice of data would be easier to read, though. Kirill Lokshin 19:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense to me. I had envisioned rows being matching unit types, while you've laid them out geographically, but a little thought on my part would have pointed out that this accomplishes the same thing as units of similar types "face off" against each other. Your schema does "double duty" then, and is a better idea than mine :) - Vedexent (talk) - 21:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

oldwindybear

I was truly impressed with the level of military scholarship that went into this article. It is not an easy battle to explain, and yet it was done so well that I was genuinely astonished. Many military historians are not familiar with this - and would be hard pressed to even name the major commanders. Kudos for this one. old windy bear 21:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Larry Dunn

I think the article is marvelous, and a great addition to Wikipedia. I have one suggestion.

In the second paragraph of the section titled "wholesale slaughter," you refer to the interspercing of pike and arquebus done by ranks in several of the regiments at Ceresole. Quite right, but the implication is that this is typical of pike and shot tactics, whereas it was in fact a strategem used rarely, if ever, and is one thing that makes this battle so noteworthy. The more normal functioning pike and shot formation has the pike block in the center, with sleeves of shot on either side. I would suggest something like this:

The pike and shot infantry had by this time adopted a system in which arquebusiers and pikemen were intermingled in combined units; both the French and Imperial infantry contained men with firearms interspersed in the larger columns of pikemen.[45] This intermingling of pikes and small arms made close-quarters fighting extremely bloody.[46] The pike and arquebus sub-units generally maintained their own sections of the unit's frontage, with pikes occupying the center with the arquebusiers to either side, but for this battle a further ruse was planned -- the French infantry had been arranged with the first rank of pikemen followed immediately by a rank of arquebusiers, who were ordered to hold their fire until the two columns met; Montluc, who claimed to have devised the scheme, wrote that:

(Bold text is the jist of the suggested revision.) It could actually be further developed -- that's just off the top of m head. Just a suggestion to point out the uniqueness of the arangement of troops. Again, a fine effort!Larry Dunn 19:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments! Your suggestion is a very good one; the normal arrangement was alluded to in the footnotes and the "Historiography" section, but a more obvious placement is probably appropriate here. I've added a brief note ("The mixed infantry was normally arranged in separate clusters, with the arquebusiers on the flanks of a central column of pikemen") in the place you suggested; hopefully, it gets the jist of your suggestion mostly right.

(While there is, as you point out, more material that might be added there, I'm not sure that this particular article would be the best place to go into some of the finer details of different pike-and-shot formations. The overall theory there is probably worthy of an article in its own right.) Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)