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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Goldstein, Edward. in Haller's Army. The Galitzianer, the quarterly journal of Gesher Galicia, May 2002. Not a peer-reviewed journal, per the website [1]: The Galitzianer is a quarterly journal focused on Galicia, covering topics of interest to Jewish family historians. Members and nonmembers contribute articles and suggestions for articles on a variety of subjects on Galician history and society, travel experiences, photos, research results, advice on obtaining records, and stories from their own Galicia family history. Town and regional research groups and town historians provide updates to each issue.
I'm not inclined to remove the material (although perhaps it ought to be removed given that it doesn't meet wikipedia criteria for reliability), the info doesn't seem particularly controversial, but given the nature of the source its info ought to be trimmed down or presented as such. Faustian ( talk) 20:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Please note that these two sections should be combined Haller's Army and Jews and Jews in Haller's Army... I see absolutely no need to have two separate sections devoted to the Jewish subject in this case. It seems unusually ethnocentric! The new section does detail and describe the allegations of pogroms against Ukrainians and Jews in Lwow that took place in a era of significant ethnic tension at the end of WWI, and also notes the service of Jews in the Haller's Blue Army. But, to include such inflammatory quotes given the fact that there is serious doubt as to where the Blue Army was at that time, and to concentrate only on Jewish victims, and omit any significant mention the Ukrainian casualties is again, very ethnocentric and bias. Instead a section about alleged civilian atrocities is much more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 02:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
"but, Faustian, both these sources are problematic, at least for the purposes that you seem to indent to use them for. The first one specifically says that it is referring to perceptions. It even says "What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered". This does not at all support the inclusion of the text you propose. The way you seem to want to put it into the article is actually quite misleading and bordering on straight up POV pushing done via out-of-context citation."
So,before you restrict my access you should really read the discussion page. Some people are dumping POV's onto Wikipedia and then claim it was sourced material! Not only that, when one administrator does not agree with them they go to another who will support his view. SHAME!!!
AND AGAIN PLEASE UNRESTRICT MY ACCESS UNDER IP ADDRESS 76.118.227.161 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.162.211.76 ( talk) 15:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
YOU CENSORED ME BY BLOCKING MY IP ACCESS, AND THAN WENT ON TO ADD HIGHLY BIAS AND QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE DESTROYING WIKIPEDIA. EVERY ONE CAN SEE YOUR DISREGARD FOR RULES JUST BY LOOKING AT THE DISCUSSION ABOVE!!! -- Xiiiiix ( talk) 05:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
In 2009 this article was moved from Blue Army to Blue Army (Poland) without any discussion ( [5]). A quick look at "what links to Blue Army" ( [6]) suggests that most links refer to the this Polish unit (and still have not been fixed despite two years passing). I'd suggest moving this back to Blue Army, and moving the current disambiguation to Blue Army (disambiguation). Thoughts? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 05:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
At this point I feel like serious intervention is required on the issue of neutrality for is page. We are running a very long discussion, and there are so many significant problems that still need to be addressed... never mind some of the quotes used, there are still major issues with how things are presented and worded in an overall context. Please see one examples below of what I'm talking about:
"After the Great War ended, the units were transferred to Poland, where they took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Bolshevik War, during which they engaged in anti-Jewish violence." The way this opening sentence is phrased in the introductory paragraph, and the prominence of the Anti-Jewish actions section further down page, gives the reader a false impression that the Blue Army's primary role during the war was to deal with Jew only... in a kind of similar fashion as the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), a para-military organization specifically designed for the purpose of dealing with Jewish civilians, who were deemed enemies of the state. I categorical object to such misrepresentations that are thinly veiled in the overall presentation and wording of the text.
The Blue Army was a regular military force, whose primary objective was to fight other military entities. And, during the course of regular military operations some groups of soldiers did participate in acts of looting, violence, and humiliation against Ukrainian, Jewish and Russian civilians. But, you would not know this by the way the current page is structured, where undue weight is give only to the Jewish victims as if they were the primary, and only target of the entire Blue Army.
Whether intentional or not, the current page structure is creating the wrong idea about what the Blue Army really was. Because of such serious misrepresentations there needs to be a thorough review of this page by neutral, and experienced wiki editors.
At this point the current makeup of the page violates a number of wiki neutrality rules, such as: Balance, Due and undue weight, Article structure, and Manual of Style/Words to watch. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 02:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Ok Faustian, while the above user was clearly being disruptive it seems like your response has been some kind of over-reaction completely the other way. You've started going out there trying to find anything negative you can find and stuffing it all into the article. It looks like you've even given up on trying to actually approach the subject neutrally. And in doing so you've started using sources which, as I mentioned above, should not be used to cite controversial claims and cherry picked the sources you are using. Hence the tag. Volunteer Marek 08:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
The IP that got banned posted this to my talk page [7]. Regardless of the fact that this user got banned (and I still think it was a case of certain admins being too eager to jump in with the ban hammer against an unestablished, and hence, "weak" user) I do think he raises some important concerns. Specifically, the "worst" in the Korzec quote, without any context seems to be POV. Likewise the role of German propaganda in exaggerating the reports of the events is completely missing from the article. Volunteer Marek 04:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
After their arrival to Eastern Europe Haller's troops engaged in looting, violence and atrocities against Jews.[11] Haller's troops established a reputation as, in the words of scholar Pavel Korzec, "the worst torturers of Jews." The main reason for this request is the use of the term "worst torturers of Jews." to describe anti-jewish acts attributed to the Blue Army. Per Wikipedia rule found on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch, phrases that include words such as "best", "worst", and "great" are considered Puffery and should not be used. I am aware that this phrase is a quote made by a Pavel Korzec, but it is still a point of view, and not many people would consider the Blue Army as the "worst torturers of Jews" surly they were not worst than the Roman Legions, the Tsarist authorities, Wehrmacht, or even the SS. And, to support this claim I would like to note that such a rule is found on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view which discourages users from posting statements that give undue significance to a personal points of view. Please see the excerpt below:
Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field.
Finally, the entire statement in question repeats the facts about looting and violence. Than, the next sentence restates those very same facts, but in greater details. So there is no need for the preceding sentence which only clutters the section. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 23:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
(Outdent) Thank you for the constructive approach. The problem with the Khmelytski comparison is that there is enough material on, and the topic is notable enough for, two seperate articles: one about the Blue Army and another one about its actions. With respect to the Khmelnytski article, the one about the uprising does indeed include plenty of unpleasant facts about what happened to Jews and others. This topic is less significant, so it all goes into this one article.
The lead of an article summarizes everything in the article. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article."
The crimes committed against Jews are prominant enough and well-established enough in the literature that they deserve a section or subsection in the article, and therefore a brief mention in the lead is warranted. I agree that the lead must not imply that pogromming was the main activity of the Blue Army - but still, these actions ought to be mentioned and not ignored in the lead. I am quite open in terms of any ideas about how this can be done, but it must be done somehow, and not simply removed (or dismissed as "accusations" or otherwise presented as not having happened). I will try another version.
Along those lines, statements by reliable sources, unless evidence proves otherwise (for example, in the case of Hagen's placing the Blue Army in Lviv in 1918) should not be qualified by words such as "accused of" - implying that there is doubt. Doing so is basically an editor's original research. Unless there are doubts in the reliable literature about an action we just describe it, not add "accusations" etc. For example, in the article about the , it is written "With this as their battle-cry, Cossacks and the peasantry massacred a large number of Jewish and Polish-Lithuanian townsfolk, as well as szlachta during the years 1648-1649. " Not "allegedly" or "have been accused of".
As for Korzec, it is a fact that the Jews perceive Haller's army very negatively and directly quoting him (he is himself a Polish-Jewish historian) gives the reader an idea of how seriously the Blue army is perceived by Jews. Summarizing him by saying "viewed negatively" somewhat falsifies his conclusion. He wrote that Haller's army were perceived as the worst torturers of Jews. He did not write that they were merely disliekd by Jews, or were seen as not very nice, etc. They were the "worst torturers" in the perception of the Jews, according to this relaible source. I will try to write an acceptable alternative.05:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Follow up
Ok, I think it's much better. There are a couple minor issues and ... Hagen:
In the first paragraph of the controversies section, it switches abruptly from discussing Ukrainians to discussing Jews. The sentence beginning with "Those officers and soldiers from the Blue Army who..." should be moved to a different part of the section.
In the second paragraph it says "against the local populations" - but that's not exactly accurate. It was against *some" local populations. I think, unless they did this to the Poles as well. More importantly, looking at the source [9] I don't see how it supports the text 'After their arrival in Western Ukraine, Haller's troops engaged in acts of looting, violence and humiliation against the local populations'. What it does talk about is how Paderewski ordered an investigation after "reports of a new wave of anti-Jewish violence" by the Blue Army. The rest of the paragraph and the section, in fact are the ones that go on to discuss how these reports were in many cases German propaganda. This needs to be changed, along both directions.
Third paragraph "Haller's troops have also been accused of allegedly committing the Lwów Pogrom of 1918. Historian William W. Hagen states that ..." - I thought we were more or less in agreement to remove Hagen since he's just plain wrong here. If we keep this then the first sentence of the para should immediately alert the reader that this charge is false.
Volunteer Marek 22:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to retain the Neutrality Dispute tag... due to end of the year breaks, some of the contributors including myself took a pause from editing, but I don't think that a final consensus was reached. During this time, I had a chance to look at other Wiki pages, and how they address sensitive issues such as this one. And, I still believe that the language, and format used on the Blue Army page is bias. A perfect example is that of the Cossack page, and how it was edited over time... Throughout their history Cossacks have engaged in numerous pogroms, most recently the Kiev Pogroms (1919). But, nowhere on their page is there any mention of their violence against the Jews, instead, their participation is mentioned on specific pages related to individual events... not to mentioned that the language used to describe their actions is much more subdued and academic. Also, I would like to address and research the issue of just how many of such incidents took place... same as with the Cossacks... just because some of them participated in the Kiev Pogrom, the blame is not passed on to the entire group. I think that the same standard should be applied to the Blue Army, lets not forget that it had over 100,000 men in its ranks. Finally, I would like to supplement this point by providing an example based on the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan... Again, around 130,000 US military personnel served in Iraq at the height of the war, and there were some very highly publicized incidents of racist misconduct (thrill killings, rapes, and Abu Gharib). But, we are not passing on the blame to all US service members (The US military is not labeled as "racist", but the Blue army is called "anti-Semitic"). Same standard should be applied here. So, at the end I would like to continue the discussion. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 03:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Someone is re-adding sections of the text, that through previous discussions on the "Talk" were agreed upon as being inaccurate, and collectivity removed. I will thus delete the following sections listed below.
While fighting in the east, some Blue Army soldiers engaged in antisemitic violence.
Discussed on the "Talk" page: I will look over this again in more detail later. Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication.VolunteerMarek 05:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Changed!Faustian (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls.
Discussed on the "Talk" page: Thanks. Other than that the only thing that bothers me is the Arnon Rubin sourced claim of incidence of rape, which I mentioned before. Looking at the source again, it appears this is a self-published (possibly books-on-demand) source, which would make it unreliable in this instance. Part of the reason why I was concerned before is because the quote you gave above has some pretty bad grammar/English mistakes: "Polish army and gangs of maruaders were wreaking havoc on the Jewish population, excelled in that mater the Polish soldiers from Gen. Haller's army". Looking around what's available through the sneak preview on google books there's more mistakes like this. This is a pretty good indication that the book was in fact self published - no editor or reviewer to pick these things out.
Okay. So I'll remove the reference to rape and the neutrality tag.Faustian (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
It appears that someone has an agenda, and is more interested in a smear campaign, rather that maintaining Wikipedia's neutrality. I will also remove William W. Hagen's claims regarding the 1918 Lwów pogrom, as it is a "minority view" that has been solidly discredited by other historians. -- 91.150.222.61 ( talk) 10:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
User:Faustian, regarding this statement from the report in the intro section, you are using a quote that does not reference/name the Blue Army directly only Polish soldiers, using your logic, I should then add that the BA suspected that the Jews collaborated with Bolsheviks because that's also referenced in that paragraph. Btw, as you know the BA was tied to France and as Encyclopedia Judaica states "because of its French ties the Blue Army enjoyed independence from the main Polish command" so they were not a Polish army, and the quote you are using does not directly apply. -- E-960 ( talk) 06:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
One. Can we cite him directly, not through a reference to his work in another work? Second. Is he a reliable source? I am having trouble finding much about him. Is he a professional historian, or an amateur one? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:12, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Goldstein, Edward. in Haller's Army. The Galitzianer, the quarterly journal of Gesher Galicia, May 2002. Not a peer-reviewed journal, per the website [1]: The Galitzianer is a quarterly journal focused on Galicia, covering topics of interest to Jewish family historians. Members and nonmembers contribute articles and suggestions for articles on a variety of subjects on Galician history and society, travel experiences, photos, research results, advice on obtaining records, and stories from their own Galicia family history. Town and regional research groups and town historians provide updates to each issue.
I'm not inclined to remove the material (although perhaps it ought to be removed given that it doesn't meet wikipedia criteria for reliability), the info doesn't seem particularly controversial, but given the nature of the source its info ought to be trimmed down or presented as such. Faustian ( talk) 20:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Please note that these two sections should be combined Haller's Army and Jews and Jews in Haller's Army... I see absolutely no need to have two separate sections devoted to the Jewish subject in this case. It seems unusually ethnocentric! The new section does detail and describe the allegations of pogroms against Ukrainians and Jews in Lwow that took place in a era of significant ethnic tension at the end of WWI, and also notes the service of Jews in the Haller's Blue Army. But, to include such inflammatory quotes given the fact that there is serious doubt as to where the Blue Army was at that time, and to concentrate only on Jewish victims, and omit any significant mention the Ukrainian casualties is again, very ethnocentric and bias. Instead a section about alleged civilian atrocities is much more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 02:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
"but, Faustian, both these sources are problematic, at least for the purposes that you seem to indent to use them for. The first one specifically says that it is referring to perceptions. It even says "What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered". This does not at all support the inclusion of the text you propose. The way you seem to want to put it into the article is actually quite misleading and bordering on straight up POV pushing done via out-of-context citation."
So,before you restrict my access you should really read the discussion page. Some people are dumping POV's onto Wikipedia and then claim it was sourced material! Not only that, when one administrator does not agree with them they go to another who will support his view. SHAME!!!
AND AGAIN PLEASE UNRESTRICT MY ACCESS UNDER IP ADDRESS 76.118.227.161 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.162.211.76 ( talk) 15:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
YOU CENSORED ME BY BLOCKING MY IP ACCESS, AND THAN WENT ON TO ADD HIGHLY BIAS AND QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE DESTROYING WIKIPEDIA. EVERY ONE CAN SEE YOUR DISREGARD FOR RULES JUST BY LOOKING AT THE DISCUSSION ABOVE!!! -- Xiiiiix ( talk) 05:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
In 2009 this article was moved from Blue Army to Blue Army (Poland) without any discussion ( [5]). A quick look at "what links to Blue Army" ( [6]) suggests that most links refer to the this Polish unit (and still have not been fixed despite two years passing). I'd suggest moving this back to Blue Army, and moving the current disambiguation to Blue Army (disambiguation). Thoughts? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 05:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
At this point I feel like serious intervention is required on the issue of neutrality for is page. We are running a very long discussion, and there are so many significant problems that still need to be addressed... never mind some of the quotes used, there are still major issues with how things are presented and worded in an overall context. Please see one examples below of what I'm talking about:
"After the Great War ended, the units were transferred to Poland, where they took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Bolshevik War, during which they engaged in anti-Jewish violence." The way this opening sentence is phrased in the introductory paragraph, and the prominence of the Anti-Jewish actions section further down page, gives the reader a false impression that the Blue Army's primary role during the war was to deal with Jew only... in a kind of similar fashion as the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), a para-military organization specifically designed for the purpose of dealing with Jewish civilians, who were deemed enemies of the state. I categorical object to such misrepresentations that are thinly veiled in the overall presentation and wording of the text.
The Blue Army was a regular military force, whose primary objective was to fight other military entities. And, during the course of regular military operations some groups of soldiers did participate in acts of looting, violence, and humiliation against Ukrainian, Jewish and Russian civilians. But, you would not know this by the way the current page is structured, where undue weight is give only to the Jewish victims as if they were the primary, and only target of the entire Blue Army.
Whether intentional or not, the current page structure is creating the wrong idea about what the Blue Army really was. Because of such serious misrepresentations there needs to be a thorough review of this page by neutral, and experienced wiki editors.
At this point the current makeup of the page violates a number of wiki neutrality rules, such as: Balance, Due and undue weight, Article structure, and Manual of Style/Words to watch. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 02:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Ok Faustian, while the above user was clearly being disruptive it seems like your response has been some kind of over-reaction completely the other way. You've started going out there trying to find anything negative you can find and stuffing it all into the article. It looks like you've even given up on trying to actually approach the subject neutrally. And in doing so you've started using sources which, as I mentioned above, should not be used to cite controversial claims and cherry picked the sources you are using. Hence the tag. Volunteer Marek 08:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
The IP that got banned posted this to my talk page [7]. Regardless of the fact that this user got banned (and I still think it was a case of certain admins being too eager to jump in with the ban hammer against an unestablished, and hence, "weak" user) I do think he raises some important concerns. Specifically, the "worst" in the Korzec quote, without any context seems to be POV. Likewise the role of German propaganda in exaggerating the reports of the events is completely missing from the article. Volunteer Marek 04:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
After their arrival to Eastern Europe Haller's troops engaged in looting, violence and atrocities against Jews.[11] Haller's troops established a reputation as, in the words of scholar Pavel Korzec, "the worst torturers of Jews." The main reason for this request is the use of the term "worst torturers of Jews." to describe anti-jewish acts attributed to the Blue Army. Per Wikipedia rule found on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch, phrases that include words such as "best", "worst", and "great" are considered Puffery and should not be used. I am aware that this phrase is a quote made by a Pavel Korzec, but it is still a point of view, and not many people would consider the Blue Army as the "worst torturers of Jews" surly they were not worst than the Roman Legions, the Tsarist authorities, Wehrmacht, or even the SS. And, to support this claim I would like to note that such a rule is found on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view which discourages users from posting statements that give undue significance to a personal points of view. Please see the excerpt below:
Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field.
Finally, the entire statement in question repeats the facts about looting and violence. Than, the next sentence restates those very same facts, but in greater details. So there is no need for the preceding sentence which only clutters the section. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 23:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
(Outdent) Thank you for the constructive approach. The problem with the Khmelytski comparison is that there is enough material on, and the topic is notable enough for, two seperate articles: one about the Blue Army and another one about its actions. With respect to the Khmelnytski article, the one about the uprising does indeed include plenty of unpleasant facts about what happened to Jews and others. This topic is less significant, so it all goes into this one article.
The lead of an article summarizes everything in the article. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article."
The crimes committed against Jews are prominant enough and well-established enough in the literature that they deserve a section or subsection in the article, and therefore a brief mention in the lead is warranted. I agree that the lead must not imply that pogromming was the main activity of the Blue Army - but still, these actions ought to be mentioned and not ignored in the lead. I am quite open in terms of any ideas about how this can be done, but it must be done somehow, and not simply removed (or dismissed as "accusations" or otherwise presented as not having happened). I will try another version.
Along those lines, statements by reliable sources, unless evidence proves otherwise (for example, in the case of Hagen's placing the Blue Army in Lviv in 1918) should not be qualified by words such as "accused of" - implying that there is doubt. Doing so is basically an editor's original research. Unless there are doubts in the reliable literature about an action we just describe it, not add "accusations" etc. For example, in the article about the , it is written "With this as their battle-cry, Cossacks and the peasantry massacred a large number of Jewish and Polish-Lithuanian townsfolk, as well as szlachta during the years 1648-1649. " Not "allegedly" or "have been accused of".
As for Korzec, it is a fact that the Jews perceive Haller's army very negatively and directly quoting him (he is himself a Polish-Jewish historian) gives the reader an idea of how seriously the Blue army is perceived by Jews. Summarizing him by saying "viewed negatively" somewhat falsifies his conclusion. He wrote that Haller's army were perceived as the worst torturers of Jews. He did not write that they were merely disliekd by Jews, or were seen as not very nice, etc. They were the "worst torturers" in the perception of the Jews, according to this relaible source. I will try to write an acceptable alternative.05:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Follow up
Ok, I think it's much better. There are a couple minor issues and ... Hagen:
In the first paragraph of the controversies section, it switches abruptly from discussing Ukrainians to discussing Jews. The sentence beginning with "Those officers and soldiers from the Blue Army who..." should be moved to a different part of the section.
In the second paragraph it says "against the local populations" - but that's not exactly accurate. It was against *some" local populations. I think, unless they did this to the Poles as well. More importantly, looking at the source [9] I don't see how it supports the text 'After their arrival in Western Ukraine, Haller's troops engaged in acts of looting, violence and humiliation against the local populations'. What it does talk about is how Paderewski ordered an investigation after "reports of a new wave of anti-Jewish violence" by the Blue Army. The rest of the paragraph and the section, in fact are the ones that go on to discuss how these reports were in many cases German propaganda. This needs to be changed, along both directions.
Third paragraph "Haller's troops have also been accused of allegedly committing the Lwów Pogrom of 1918. Historian William W. Hagen states that ..." - I thought we were more or less in agreement to remove Hagen since he's just plain wrong here. If we keep this then the first sentence of the para should immediately alert the reader that this charge is false.
Volunteer Marek 22:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to retain the Neutrality Dispute tag... due to end of the year breaks, some of the contributors including myself took a pause from editing, but I don't think that a final consensus was reached. During this time, I had a chance to look at other Wiki pages, and how they address sensitive issues such as this one. And, I still believe that the language, and format used on the Blue Army page is bias. A perfect example is that of the Cossack page, and how it was edited over time... Throughout their history Cossacks have engaged in numerous pogroms, most recently the Kiev Pogroms (1919). But, nowhere on their page is there any mention of their violence against the Jews, instead, their participation is mentioned on specific pages related to individual events... not to mentioned that the language used to describe their actions is much more subdued and academic. Also, I would like to address and research the issue of just how many of such incidents took place... same as with the Cossacks... just because some of them participated in the Kiev Pogrom, the blame is not passed on to the entire group. I think that the same standard should be applied to the Blue Army, lets not forget that it had over 100,000 men in its ranks. Finally, I would like to supplement this point by providing an example based on the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan... Again, around 130,000 US military personnel served in Iraq at the height of the war, and there were some very highly publicized incidents of racist misconduct (thrill killings, rapes, and Abu Gharib). But, we are not passing on the blame to all US service members (The US military is not labeled as "racist", but the Blue army is called "anti-Semitic"). Same standard should be applied here. So, at the end I would like to continue the discussion. -- 76.118.227.161 ( talk) 03:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Someone is re-adding sections of the text, that through previous discussions on the "Talk" were agreed upon as being inaccurate, and collectivity removed. I will thus delete the following sections listed below.
While fighting in the east, some Blue Army soldiers engaged in antisemitic violence.
Discussed on the "Talk" page: I will look over this again in more detail later. Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication.VolunteerMarek 05:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Changed!Faustian (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls.
Discussed on the "Talk" page: Thanks. Other than that the only thing that bothers me is the Arnon Rubin sourced claim of incidence of rape, which I mentioned before. Looking at the source again, it appears this is a self-published (possibly books-on-demand) source, which would make it unreliable in this instance. Part of the reason why I was concerned before is because the quote you gave above has some pretty bad grammar/English mistakes: "Polish army and gangs of maruaders were wreaking havoc on the Jewish population, excelled in that mater the Polish soldiers from Gen. Haller's army". Looking around what's available through the sneak preview on google books there's more mistakes like this. This is a pretty good indication that the book was in fact self published - no editor or reviewer to pick these things out.
Okay. So I'll remove the reference to rape and the neutrality tag.Faustian (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
It appears that someone has an agenda, and is more interested in a smear campaign, rather that maintaining Wikipedia's neutrality. I will also remove William W. Hagen's claims regarding the 1918 Lwów pogrom, as it is a "minority view" that has been solidly discredited by other historians. -- 91.150.222.61 ( talk) 10:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
User:Faustian, regarding this statement from the report in the intro section, you are using a quote that does not reference/name the Blue Army directly only Polish soldiers, using your logic, I should then add that the BA suspected that the Jews collaborated with Bolsheviks because that's also referenced in that paragraph. Btw, as you know the BA was tied to France and as Encyclopedia Judaica states "because of its French ties the Blue Army enjoyed independence from the main Polish command" so they were not a Polish army, and the quote you are using does not directly apply. -- E-960 ( talk) 06:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
One. Can we cite him directly, not through a reference to his work in another work? Second. Is he a reliable source? I am having trouble finding much about him. Is he a professional historian, or an amateur one? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:12, 22 October 2018 (UTC)