Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of Field Marshals of the British Army

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closed, no consensus to promote -- Ian Rose (talk) 13:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of Field Marshals of the British Army[edit]

Nominator(s): HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts?


In a break from the generals' biographies you're more used to seeing me write, I bring you this. A list of every officer to hold (earned or otherwise) the highest and most prestigious rank in the British Army. That they've all held this rank is about the only thing these 138 men, whose careers span some 300 years and who have fought in almost every engagement the British Army has been involved in from the Nine Years' War to the Gulf War, have in common. Thus, this list provides a fascinating snapshot of the history of the British Army and I think it's good enough for A-class. I'm hoping to take it to FLC, so feedback geared in that direction would be appreciated. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know they now like lists to be sortable Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He's the second to last of the professional soldiers, I think. How well-earned the promotion was, I don't know, but he wasn't just anointed field marshal like some. I keep hearing the word "sortable", but I've yet to hear what it means and how I make the table "sortable". Perhaps you could explain it in terms that a simple copy-editor would understand? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
French should be listed as 19th Royal Hussars as that was the Regt he commanded, only commissioned in the 8th. Same with some others they should be listed by their own Regiments which is the ones they were the commanding officer of.
Also not sure about all the British Indian Army entries as they were two separate armies
Its hard to explain how to make list sortable, but if you check List of Commando raids on the Atlantic wall you can see how its done. With a lot of trial and error I might add. Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've very deliberately stuck to the regiment into which they were commissioned, because some of the, particularly from the early 19th century to the end of WWI moved around between regiments, militia units and sometimes branches so often it became difficult to keep track.
Heathcote includes the Indian Army officers, and he's the expert, so I'm inclined to follow his lead. I think Indian Army FMs were on the British half-pay list or something.
I see what you mean. I'll see what I can do. Fun, fun fun! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sortability is now mostly there, thanks entirely to USer:Courcelles. Just a few wrinkles to iron out. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commment Is all the data in the main table sourced to 'Heathcote, Table 1, pp.320–326.' and the data in the secondary table sourced to three different pages of this book? At present the sourcing is inadequate and not what's expected for an A class list (every entry should have a specific reference). I'm a bit surprised to see the Australian officer Thomas Blamey on the list - he was always an Australian Army officer and was promoted to field marshal by the Australian Government. I've never seen any suggestion that this was a promotion to a rank in the British Army, though I don't really pay much attention to those kind of details. Nick-D (talk) 11:17, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All the data in both tables is from the same pages. Heathcote does it chronologically, but I extracted the FMs who were appointed rather than promoted to the rank. I can put an inline citation next to every list entry, but the content of the citation would be the same, so that would just be silly.

Sir Thomas was given the rank honorarily in the British Army, the same way as Ferdinand Foch (also a foreign [French] officer), but Blamey also holds the rank of FM in the Australian Army. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:47, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

HJ is correct. Blamey always appears in the British Army lists. In return, we awarded the rank to Prince Phillip. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:15, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks for that Hawkeye Nick-D (talk) 08:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 19:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments for now. It is looking good but there are a few issues for me at the moment, mainly with the sorting in the tables. Woody (talk) 11:39, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorting issues
  • Date sorting: you should use {{Dts}} (eg. {{dts|1858|03|1}}) for the sorting of the dates or do it manually (eg <span style="display:none">1858-03-01</span>), either way, that column should sort by specific date.
    • It does sort. On a long list like this, using the dts template wastes a lot of your conditions towards the template limit, especially when you have to sort some other columns. For the hidden span sorting, you only need the full date if there were multiple promotions in a year, if there was only one in a particular year, or all were promoted on the same day, the full date in the sort key won't actually change the output. Courcelles 16:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I know about the condition limits, that's why I always use the manual versions in my lists. In terms of it not making a difference to this article, fair enough, it was something that annoyed the inner pedant in me when in editing mode I suppose. As the reader doesn't see anything different, fair enough. Woody (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why do Stanier and Strathnairn not have dates of promotion?
  • The Regiment column isn't sorting properly, ie in numerical order. The way I get round it in the VC lists is to use <span style="display:none">006</span>[[6th Gurkha Rifles]] It is important to have the leading zeroes.
  • The naming column doesn't sort as it should do either, use {{sortname}} (eg. {{sortname|Alan|Brooke|Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke}})
    • Sorting issues are known. I'll get them fixed. Courcelles 16:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Other issues
  • "...the abolition of the rank of the five-star ranks." I would use "the abolition of the five-star ranks." the rank of ... ranks is redundant.
    • Agreed and done.
  • With the "Four field marshals..." paragraph, personally I'm not a fan of having all the citations at the end of the paragraph, I prefer to have them at the end of the sentence to which they relate.
I've struck the comments that have been fixed or explained away as per the timestamp. (And I know how annoying and tedious sorting issues can be to fix so take your time. ;) Woody (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Any progress on the sorting issues? I can take a pop at them later today when I've got some time if you like? Woody (talk) 12:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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