![]() | On 3 August 2020, it was proposed that this article be moved from Italian conquest of British Somaliland to Italian invasion of British Somaliland. The result of the discussion was move. |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | A fact from Italian invasion of British Somaliland appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 18 August 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on August 3, 2010, August 3, 2011, August 3, 2014, August 3, 2015, August 3, 2017, August 3, 2019, August 3, 2020, August 3, 2022, and August 3, 2023. |
This article has scattered references to heavy fighting and casualties and yet the British records show 158 casualties and the Italians record " about 200". This is tiny considering the opposing forces were 24,000 vs 4,000. Am I missing something here? Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Note. A simple solution: if you don't agree with my last reversal, let's cancel the reference to casualties in the explanatory first template of the article. OK?-- Brunodam 18:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
The Eastern Epic figures for British casualties are not estimates, they are drawn from British army records. Therefore they are firm numbers with a credible citation. They are consistent with the fact that Churchill complained to Wavell that casualties were so low that it implied an effective defence had not been mounted. They therefore should remain. I leave you to decide about Italian casualties from Italian sources. Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 12:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Listen, Stephen Kirrage, I don't want additional "problems" (even because I have a lot of work and I cannot keep writing in wiki anymore). I am going to reverse for the last time to the "casualties" numbers that you have started to erase, and I am going to ask the intervention of a responsible administrator (because you don't agree with the elimination of the "casualties" in the initial template of the article).
I repeat that the Italian sources about "figures for British and Italian casualties are not estimates, they are drawn from Italian army records. Therefore they are firm numbers with a credible citation". I am using your same words, because both Italian and English sources are serious and believable in the same way. I don't know about Churchill's complaint/rage, but "an effective defence had been mounted" if nearly 3500 casualties happened in the campaign (ca. 500 British & Italians plus 1000 + 2000 Irregulars Somalis). That number is consistent with the casualties in other colonial campaigns, where many casualties were suffered by local "Irregulars". Of course, those numbers are very minimal for an european campaign like in the Battle of Moscow, but Somaliland was a depopulated area in colonial Africa....
Anyway, if you see the photo of the air raid on a British motorized column in the article, you can easily spot eight (or more) destroyed British vehicles: these vehicle were retreating with soldiers inside, who probaby were hurt (or killed). I guess that at least a dozen British were casualties in that attack, at least. Can you imagine that nearly ten percent of the "official" 158 British casualties have happened ONLY in that single air raid??? Something is missing here, as you said!
May be the official numbers of British casualties are a "propaganda" puzzle......Regards.-- Brunodam 19:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Sincerely, I am very sad to read what "Sayyid" wrote here
[2]. I hope he will understand that I (and I believe even Stephen Kirrages and others) have no racist bias toward the Somalian people. I add his book on the "Sources" and reinsert my Italian figures for Somali casualties that were erased by the anonimous 90.206.228.125 Regards.--
Brunodam
04:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
The red lettering in the photographs on this page is superfluous. They basically say what the captions below do and distract from the subject of the photograph. Is it possible to remove these?
I was attempting to "clean up" (not change) some of the sentences and I noticed the mention of the Dunkirk, as in the Battle of Dunkirk. According to whoever wrote this section (or added this bit of info), the Duke of Aosta ordered that the departing British be left alone . . . like Dunkirk. The problem is that the Germans never left the British alone at Dunkirk. The Germans decided to save their armor at Dunkirk, but, from what I have read, the air force continued to attack vigorously. I suggest this be deleted unless a quote from the Duke of Aosta is used. Mkpumphrey 15:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
"He did this in the hope of a possible future peace agreement between Italy and Great Britain (thanks to the mediation of the Vatican)." My issue is with the "thanks to the mediation of the Vatican" part. The Duke of Aosta may have thought that the Vatican would intervene, but that does not mean it ever happened. It is still not appropriate that the Vatican should be "thanked" for something that it would most likely not choose to be involved with. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, the Vatican was never involved in a peace agreement between Italy and the UK after this invasion. There is one big problem with this "thanks" since the Vatican is being thanked for something that probably never happened. Mkpumphrey 15:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Moved narrative items from East African Campaign (World War II) to avoid unnecessary duplication but had to re-edit this page to fit it in and harmonise citation styles. Keith-264 ( talk) 17:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
To me, the current title of the article sound rather odd. "Conquest" sounds rather archaic - would we talk about the "German conquest of France" in 1940? I'd suggest that "Italian invasion of British Somaliland" would be a much more natural title.— Brigade Piron ( talk) 16:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Italian conquest of British Somaliland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:21, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Revised and expanded aspects of the article to give a fuller picture of the events. Keith-264 ( talk) 13:28, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@ Havsjö: "The Somalis supporting the British suffered about 2,000 casualties during the invasion and occupation; about 1,000 Somalis became casualties fighting on the Italian side.[50]" The sources tend to discriminate between Europeans and Africans regulars and irregulars and the sources disagree. Perhaps it would have been better in the casualties section sharper to make the distinction between Ascari (regular army "native" troops) and irregulars, which both sides used. The source refers to 2,000 Somali casualties in British service and another 1,000 in Italian service not Somali soldiers in military service per se. Pls amend your edits accordingly, Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 10:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Our losses altogether amounted to 2,209 men (Italians killed, wounded or missing: 161; native troops, 1,688)*, thus broken down in the three stages of the operation: first stage, 59; second stage, 1,445; third stage, 525 [note 1: officers: 16 killed, wounded 46; NCOs: 6 killed, 11 wounded, 1 missing; Italian enlisted men: 17 killed, 64 wounded; native enlisted men: 426 killed, 1,409 wounded, 33 missing]. Losses sustained by the air force (which lost four aircraft shot down) must be added to these: 13 killed, three wounded, 7 missing. Enemy losses can only be specified with regards to the number of prisoners captured by us: white British troops 26 (including 11 officers); coloured troops 38. General Wavell in his report mentions the following British losses: 8 British officers killed, 4 wounded, 4 missing; 8 British NCOs killed, 18 wounded, 17 missing; 22 Indians or Africans killed, 80 wounded, 99 missing, and notes: "These relatively light losses was owed to the fact that most of the troops that came under attack were in well-fortified positions and that the withdrawal, skilfully carried out with the help of darkness, was not hampered or pressed by the enemy, presumably as a consequence of the heavy losses they had suffered during the day". [The following equipment] remained in our hands: 5 guns, 5 grenade throwers, 30 heavy machine guns, 71 miscellaneous machine guns, 5,396 rifles, a few million cartridges, three tanks, 128 motor vehicles in working order or repairable, 7,500 tons of miscellaneous commodities, 5,000 tons of engineering materiel. Our units reported 9 British aircraft shot down and five destroyed on the ground; General Wavell specified the losses as 7 aircraft shot down, 10 badly damaged and a certain number lightly damaged.
Nearly finished but need to read it through. Keith-264 ( talk) 12:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: move ( closed by non-admin page mover) Kadzi ( talk) 08:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Italian conquest of British Somaliland → Italian invasion of British Somaliland – I raised the WP:POV implications of the word conquest some years ago. Invasion is used widely on Wikipedia and is also more accurate in the case of this particular case. For other articles which use invasion in the context of the Second World War, see: Italian invasion of Egypt, Italian invasion of Albania, Italian invasion of France, Japanese invasion of French Indochina, German invasion of Denmark (1940), etc. I'd add that Japanese invasion of Burma was recently moved from conquest following a WP:RM discussion on the same issue. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 08:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I was going to wikilink this but it says 2nd battalion and the wp page I found says 3rd; on the principle of first do no harm I am going to just note this as a slightly puzzling thing and move on. Possibly a reorganization since ww2? Elinruby ( talk) 11:07, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Playfair has the 2nd Battalion pp. 78, 128. Keith-264 ( talk) 20:07, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
@ Samyatilius: Why did you change British Somaliland (the name at the time) to Somaliland? Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 16:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
![]() | On 3 August 2020, it was proposed that this article be moved from Italian conquest of British Somaliland to Italian invasion of British Somaliland. The result of the discussion was move. |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | A fact from Italian invasion of British Somaliland appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 18 August 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on August 3, 2010, August 3, 2011, August 3, 2014, August 3, 2015, August 3, 2017, August 3, 2019, August 3, 2020, August 3, 2022, and August 3, 2023. |
This article has scattered references to heavy fighting and casualties and yet the British records show 158 casualties and the Italians record " about 200". This is tiny considering the opposing forces were 24,000 vs 4,000. Am I missing something here? Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Note. A simple solution: if you don't agree with my last reversal, let's cancel the reference to casualties in the explanatory first template of the article. OK?-- Brunodam 18:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
The Eastern Epic figures for British casualties are not estimates, they are drawn from British army records. Therefore they are firm numbers with a credible citation. They are consistent with the fact that Churchill complained to Wavell that casualties were so low that it implied an effective defence had not been mounted. They therefore should remain. I leave you to decide about Italian casualties from Italian sources. Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 12:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Listen, Stephen Kirrage, I don't want additional "problems" (even because I have a lot of work and I cannot keep writing in wiki anymore). I am going to reverse for the last time to the "casualties" numbers that you have started to erase, and I am going to ask the intervention of a responsible administrator (because you don't agree with the elimination of the "casualties" in the initial template of the article).
I repeat that the Italian sources about "figures for British and Italian casualties are not estimates, they are drawn from Italian army records. Therefore they are firm numbers with a credible citation". I am using your same words, because both Italian and English sources are serious and believable in the same way. I don't know about Churchill's complaint/rage, but "an effective defence had been mounted" if nearly 3500 casualties happened in the campaign (ca. 500 British & Italians plus 1000 + 2000 Irregulars Somalis). That number is consistent with the casualties in other colonial campaigns, where many casualties were suffered by local "Irregulars". Of course, those numbers are very minimal for an european campaign like in the Battle of Moscow, but Somaliland was a depopulated area in colonial Africa....
Anyway, if you see the photo of the air raid on a British motorized column in the article, you can easily spot eight (or more) destroyed British vehicles: these vehicle were retreating with soldiers inside, who probaby were hurt (or killed). I guess that at least a dozen British were casualties in that attack, at least. Can you imagine that nearly ten percent of the "official" 158 British casualties have happened ONLY in that single air raid??? Something is missing here, as you said!
May be the official numbers of British casualties are a "propaganda" puzzle......Regards.-- Brunodam 19:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Sincerely, I am very sad to read what "Sayyid" wrote here
[2]. I hope he will understand that I (and I believe even Stephen Kirrages and others) have no racist bias toward the Somalian people. I add his book on the "Sources" and reinsert my Italian figures for Somali casualties that were erased by the anonimous 90.206.228.125 Regards.--
Brunodam
04:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
The red lettering in the photographs on this page is superfluous. They basically say what the captions below do and distract from the subject of the photograph. Is it possible to remove these?
I was attempting to "clean up" (not change) some of the sentences and I noticed the mention of the Dunkirk, as in the Battle of Dunkirk. According to whoever wrote this section (or added this bit of info), the Duke of Aosta ordered that the departing British be left alone . . . like Dunkirk. The problem is that the Germans never left the British alone at Dunkirk. The Germans decided to save their armor at Dunkirk, but, from what I have read, the air force continued to attack vigorously. I suggest this be deleted unless a quote from the Duke of Aosta is used. Mkpumphrey 15:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
"He did this in the hope of a possible future peace agreement between Italy and Great Britain (thanks to the mediation of the Vatican)." My issue is with the "thanks to the mediation of the Vatican" part. The Duke of Aosta may have thought that the Vatican would intervene, but that does not mean it ever happened. It is still not appropriate that the Vatican should be "thanked" for something that it would most likely not choose to be involved with. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, the Vatican was never involved in a peace agreement between Italy and the UK after this invasion. There is one big problem with this "thanks" since the Vatican is being thanked for something that probably never happened. Mkpumphrey 15:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Moved narrative items from East African Campaign (World War II) to avoid unnecessary duplication but had to re-edit this page to fit it in and harmonise citation styles. Keith-264 ( talk) 17:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
To me, the current title of the article sound rather odd. "Conquest" sounds rather archaic - would we talk about the "German conquest of France" in 1940? I'd suggest that "Italian invasion of British Somaliland" would be a much more natural title.— Brigade Piron ( talk) 16:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Italian conquest of British Somaliland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:21, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Revised and expanded aspects of the article to give a fuller picture of the events. Keith-264 ( talk) 13:28, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@ Havsjö: "The Somalis supporting the British suffered about 2,000 casualties during the invasion and occupation; about 1,000 Somalis became casualties fighting on the Italian side.[50]" The sources tend to discriminate between Europeans and Africans regulars and irregulars and the sources disagree. Perhaps it would have been better in the casualties section sharper to make the distinction between Ascari (regular army "native" troops) and irregulars, which both sides used. The source refers to 2,000 Somali casualties in British service and another 1,000 in Italian service not Somali soldiers in military service per se. Pls amend your edits accordingly, Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 10:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Our losses altogether amounted to 2,209 men (Italians killed, wounded or missing: 161; native troops, 1,688)*, thus broken down in the three stages of the operation: first stage, 59; second stage, 1,445; third stage, 525 [note 1: officers: 16 killed, wounded 46; NCOs: 6 killed, 11 wounded, 1 missing; Italian enlisted men: 17 killed, 64 wounded; native enlisted men: 426 killed, 1,409 wounded, 33 missing]. Losses sustained by the air force (which lost four aircraft shot down) must be added to these: 13 killed, three wounded, 7 missing. Enemy losses can only be specified with regards to the number of prisoners captured by us: white British troops 26 (including 11 officers); coloured troops 38. General Wavell in his report mentions the following British losses: 8 British officers killed, 4 wounded, 4 missing; 8 British NCOs killed, 18 wounded, 17 missing; 22 Indians or Africans killed, 80 wounded, 99 missing, and notes: "These relatively light losses was owed to the fact that most of the troops that came under attack were in well-fortified positions and that the withdrawal, skilfully carried out with the help of darkness, was not hampered or pressed by the enemy, presumably as a consequence of the heavy losses they had suffered during the day". [The following equipment] remained in our hands: 5 guns, 5 grenade throwers, 30 heavy machine guns, 71 miscellaneous machine guns, 5,396 rifles, a few million cartridges, three tanks, 128 motor vehicles in working order or repairable, 7,500 tons of miscellaneous commodities, 5,000 tons of engineering materiel. Our units reported 9 British aircraft shot down and five destroyed on the ground; General Wavell specified the losses as 7 aircraft shot down, 10 badly damaged and a certain number lightly damaged.
Nearly finished but need to read it through. Keith-264 ( talk) 12:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: move ( closed by non-admin page mover) Kadzi ( talk) 08:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Italian conquest of British Somaliland → Italian invasion of British Somaliland – I raised the WP:POV implications of the word conquest some years ago. Invasion is used widely on Wikipedia and is also more accurate in the case of this particular case. For other articles which use invasion in the context of the Second World War, see: Italian invasion of Egypt, Italian invasion of Albania, Italian invasion of France, Japanese invasion of French Indochina, German invasion of Denmark (1940), etc. I'd add that Japanese invasion of Burma was recently moved from conquest following a WP:RM discussion on the same issue. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 08:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I was going to wikilink this but it says 2nd battalion and the wp page I found says 3rd; on the principle of first do no harm I am going to just note this as a slightly puzzling thing and move on. Possibly a reorganization since ww2? Elinruby ( talk) 11:07, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Playfair has the 2nd Battalion pp. 78, 128. Keith-264 ( talk) 20:07, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
@ Samyatilius: Why did you change British Somaliland (the name at the time) to Somaliland? Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 16:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)