Robert Nivelle was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | ||||||||||
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What about his nickname "Blood soaker" for spilling his men's blood? See the German article.
This review is transcluded from Talk:Robert Nivelle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review. Hi there, I have reviewed this article against the Wikipedia:good article criteria and I am not prepared to pass the article for GA yet. I have listed below the principle problems which prevent this article from achieving GA status. The article now has seven days to address these issues, and should the contributors disagree with my comments then please indicate below why you disagree and suggest a solution, compromise or explanation. Further time will be granted if a concerted effort is being made to address the problems, and as long as somebody is genuinely trying to deal with the issues raised then I will not fail the article. I am aware that my standards are quite high, but I feel that an article deserves as thorough a review as possible when applying for GA and that a tough review process here is an important stepping stone to future FAC attempts. Please do not take offence at anything I have said, nothing is meant personally and maliciously and if anyone feels aggrieved then please notify me at once and I will attempt to clarify the comments in question. Finally, should anyone disagree with my review or eventual decision then please take the article to WP:GAR to allow a wider selection of editors to comment on the issues discussed here. Well done on the work so far.-- Jackyd101 ( talk) 08:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I look forward to your response. EasyPeasy21 ( talk) 10:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I understand your point now. By extension, this article will gain more sources if more of Nivelle's life is described. I will work on trying to broaden the scope of the article. Hopefully, within 7 days, the article will be up to GA standard. Thanks for all your help. EasyPeasy21 ( talk) 12:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
This article isn't very well written. It seems as though it was translated from French into English.
During my time in 1960s France I was told by several old soldiers who'd served in WW1 that even before Nivelle took over a major command he was known as "Butcher Nivelle". AT Kunene ( talk) 15:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
How can his rank be given as a three star general when he served as commander in chief of the French Army? Surely he must have been promoted to serve in such a position?
Technically, General de Division is the highest French rank. General de Corps d'Armee (4 stars) and General d'Armee (5 stars) are technically titles rather than ranks and I'm not sure whether they existed or had separate insignia in WW1. It's not as silly as it sounds - during the American Civil War Northern corps were commanded by brigadiers and armies by major-generals, perhaps to avoid having a surplus of men with inflated ranks (and pension expectations) after the war. Joffre was the first Marshal to be appointed under the Third Republic, when he was sacked at the end of 1916. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
On the Foch biog there is a picture of Foch wearing 3 stars on his sleeve in 1917-18, either as Army Chief of Staff or as Generalissimo in March-August 1918. So that suggests the 4- and 5-star insignia were not then used. I still don't know if the titles technically existed, but French generals are always just known as "General" anyway, both in French and English - "General de Gaulle" not "General de Brigade de Gaulle". Paulturtle ( talk) 01:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There is also a very famous photo, taken during the Battle of the Somme, of Joffre, Haig, President Poincare, King George V and Foch (then commanding French Army Group North), posing for the cameras after some conference or other. Joffre, CinC at the time, is clearly wearing three stars, although the cuff buttons create a bit of confusion. Some books (e.g. Clayton) claim that 4 and 5-star insignia were used at the time, but this does not appear to be correct. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Correct, but I think they were sort-of used unofficially in the latter years of World War One. After reading about this and peering at photos for donkeys' years I think the insignia on the plain informal kepi might have been a series of horizontal bars - zero for a corps commander (a division commander would have been a brigadier, of course), one for an army commander, two for an army group commander - under the three stars (don't know what they did on the more formal kepi with leaves all over it). The cover photo of Charles Williams' biog of Petain supports this, as does a photo I've seen of Eugene Debeney. Nivelle was also given "the seniority of an Army Group Commander", whatever that means, when posted to North Africa (which never at any time reported to the CinC Western Front). We can't post my suppositions and inferences from photos on wikipedia, though. It's hard to get a comprehensive answer as the French Army tends to be woefully undercovered in Anglophone books. Paulturtle ( talk) 18:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Robert Nivelle was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | ||||||||||
|
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
What about his nickname "Blood soaker" for spilling his men's blood? See the German article.
This review is transcluded from Talk:Robert Nivelle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review. Hi there, I have reviewed this article against the Wikipedia:good article criteria and I am not prepared to pass the article for GA yet. I have listed below the principle problems which prevent this article from achieving GA status. The article now has seven days to address these issues, and should the contributors disagree with my comments then please indicate below why you disagree and suggest a solution, compromise or explanation. Further time will be granted if a concerted effort is being made to address the problems, and as long as somebody is genuinely trying to deal with the issues raised then I will not fail the article. I am aware that my standards are quite high, but I feel that an article deserves as thorough a review as possible when applying for GA and that a tough review process here is an important stepping stone to future FAC attempts. Please do not take offence at anything I have said, nothing is meant personally and maliciously and if anyone feels aggrieved then please notify me at once and I will attempt to clarify the comments in question. Finally, should anyone disagree with my review or eventual decision then please take the article to WP:GAR to allow a wider selection of editors to comment on the issues discussed here. Well done on the work so far.-- Jackyd101 ( talk) 08:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I look forward to your response. EasyPeasy21 ( talk) 10:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I understand your point now. By extension, this article will gain more sources if more of Nivelle's life is described. I will work on trying to broaden the scope of the article. Hopefully, within 7 days, the article will be up to GA standard. Thanks for all your help. EasyPeasy21 ( talk) 12:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
This article isn't very well written. It seems as though it was translated from French into English.
During my time in 1960s France I was told by several old soldiers who'd served in WW1 that even before Nivelle took over a major command he was known as "Butcher Nivelle". AT Kunene ( talk) 15:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
How can his rank be given as a three star general when he served as commander in chief of the French Army? Surely he must have been promoted to serve in such a position?
Technically, General de Division is the highest French rank. General de Corps d'Armee (4 stars) and General d'Armee (5 stars) are technically titles rather than ranks and I'm not sure whether they existed or had separate insignia in WW1. It's not as silly as it sounds - during the American Civil War Northern corps were commanded by brigadiers and armies by major-generals, perhaps to avoid having a surplus of men with inflated ranks (and pension expectations) after the war. Joffre was the first Marshal to be appointed under the Third Republic, when he was sacked at the end of 1916. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
On the Foch biog there is a picture of Foch wearing 3 stars on his sleeve in 1917-18, either as Army Chief of Staff or as Generalissimo in March-August 1918. So that suggests the 4- and 5-star insignia were not then used. I still don't know if the titles technically existed, but French generals are always just known as "General" anyway, both in French and English - "General de Gaulle" not "General de Brigade de Gaulle". Paulturtle ( talk) 01:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There is also a very famous photo, taken during the Battle of the Somme, of Joffre, Haig, President Poincare, King George V and Foch (then commanding French Army Group North), posing for the cameras after some conference or other. Joffre, CinC at the time, is clearly wearing three stars, although the cuff buttons create a bit of confusion. Some books (e.g. Clayton) claim that 4 and 5-star insignia were used at the time, but this does not appear to be correct. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Correct, but I think they were sort-of used unofficially in the latter years of World War One. After reading about this and peering at photos for donkeys' years I think the insignia on the plain informal kepi might have been a series of horizontal bars - zero for a corps commander (a division commander would have been a brigadier, of course), one for an army commander, two for an army group commander - under the three stars (don't know what they did on the more formal kepi with leaves all over it). The cover photo of Charles Williams' biog of Petain supports this, as does a photo I've seen of Eugene Debeney. Nivelle was also given "the seniority of an Army Group Commander", whatever that means, when posted to North Africa (which never at any time reported to the CinC Western Front). We can't post my suppositions and inferences from photos on wikipedia, though. It's hard to get a comprehensive answer as the French Army tends to be woefully undercovered in Anglophone books. Paulturtle ( talk) 18:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)