Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Reginald Pinney

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.

Reginald Pinney[edit]

Nominator(s): Shimgray | talk |

One of an occasional series of articles on British generals of the First World War, and my first A-class nomination. Pinney was not a particularly prominent figure, though he seems to have been the unnamed subject of one of Sassoon's satiric poems. He was well-regarded by his contemporaries, though sometimes unpopular with his men - among other things, he was devoutly religious, and forbade any issue of rum in the trenches. On the whole, a fairly representative example of his kind.

Created in September 2010; GA a week later (reviewed by Jim Sweeney), and not much since. I've given it a tidying-up and a quick copyedit in preparation for A-class. Shimgray | talk | 19:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • CommentsSupport
    • Good to see some work on British generals of the Great War, and first drop is ... Reggie Pinney??? Anyway, some comments:
    • Image Review: One pic, copyright expired.
    • Could we have a consistent spelling of "major general"?
    • Add battles and wars to the Infobox
    • Was the scholarship fund in memory of Pinney or his son?
      • There are a variety of others at B-class, this is just the only one where I'm confident it has sufficient coverage to make A! I suppose an average career makes that easier...
      • Infobox and charity done; I'll have a look to figure out what the correct way to render MG for the period is and standardise on one form. Shimgray | talk | 16:50, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Standardised on hyphen. Shimgray | talk | 17:07, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Major-General with a hyphen was the form at the time, but more recently the British Army (and British English) have dropped the hyphen. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • I'm not sure whether we normally use "current" or "contemporary" style, but I mainly picked it as this is the one used by the ODNB, which is the only major secondary source there. Shimgray | talk | 19:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments/suggestions: only some very minor stylistic suggestions from me
    • in the Early career section, "attending the Staff College, Camberley in 1889-90". Probably should be an endash in the date range;
    • the spacing around emdashes is incorrect. Per WP:DASH, emdashes should be unspaced. Endashes can be spaced, however;
    • "23rd Brigade met heavy resistance when". Might sound better as: "The 23rd Brigade met heavy resistance when...";
    • not sure about the capitalisation here: "that the Corps artillery was about to fire". "Corps" is probably an improper noun here, so it is probably best presented in lower case;
    • sometimes you use "the Xth Unit" but sometimes you drop the "the". I have a feeling that modern usage supports "the Xth Unit", but it probably should be consistent;
      • Done, all except the reference to J RHA at the end; "the J Battery" feels quite awkward. Shimgray | talk | 22:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "with high casualties and little achieved". Perhaps reword to: "with heavy casualties and little having been achieved..."
      • I've tried "having taken high casualties and achieved little". Shimgray | talk | 19:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • not sure about the full stop here: "him as the GSO.2 in 33rd Division". Is this correct presentation?
      • Fixed. Contemporary practice was "G.S.O.2"; our article on staff officer uses GSO2, as does Hamilton. Not sure where I picked up the dot from... Shimgray | talk | 22:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • in the Divisional command section, Montgomery is probably overlinked;
    • this sounds a little awkward to me: "It was arranged that he would exchange with Pinney in 35th Division". Perhaps try: "It was arranged that he would exchange commands with Pinney..."
      • On the other hand, this gives us three sentences in a row with some variant of "command" in, which to my eye is a bit clunkier. Shimgray | talk | 22:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • this could possibly be smoother: "was written by Siegfried Sassoon, then an officer in one of the 33rd's battalions; he was the subject of The General, one of Sassoon's better-known satirical poems". My suggestion is: "was written by Siegfried Sassoon, then an officer in one of the 33rd's battalions, who described Pinney in the satirical poem The General as a "cheery old card"..."
      • Rewritten (in a slightly different form). Shimgray | talk | 19:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • the hyphen here probably should be an emdash for consistency with your style: "was masterminded by Pinney[30] - one observer noted...";
    • "where Pinney was hospitalised and temporarily relinquished". Do we know why he was in hospital?
      • No clear indication. Foot: "Pinney was injured"; Dunn (p. 382, 1-14th Sept): "The GOC went to hospital." On the other hand, Dunn normally notes when a senior officer is wounded (presumably it was good gossip) and it may be significant he doesn't in this case. Shimgray | talk | 22:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Pinney died on 18 February 1943, survived by his wife and five children". Perhaps change to: "Pinney died on 18 February 1943, survived by his wife and five of his children" to link in more clearly with the next sentence;
    • in the Notes section the hyphens for page ranges should probably be endashes;
    • in Note 5, "5 February 1884. Retrieved 2010-09-19.." Please take out the double full stop;
    • in the References section, "p.36-7" should probably be "pp.36-37" to make it consistent with the style previously used in the article (per above it should probably also have an endash);
      • Done. (cite book is a complex template...) Shimgray | talk | 18:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • in the References section is there an OCLC number for the Edmonds work?
    • in the References section "Macmillan and co.." should probably just be "Macmillan" based on previous advice I've seen at FAC. Nevertheless, if "co" is kept, the double full stop should be knocked off;
    • in the References section is there an ISBN or OCLC number for the Gould work?
    • in the References section the capitalisation of the titles might need tweaking. For instance The donkeys probably should be The Donkeys. Same same for the Dunn, Gould and Hamilton works;
    • in the military office box at the bottom of the article, the dates "July 1915-September 1916" and "September 1916-February 1919" probably should have spaced endashes instead of hyphens. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All done bar a couple of OCLC lookups and endashes (oh dear), & I'll look into these tomorrow. Shimgray | talk | 22:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...and all completed. I am agnostic about the OCLC numbers; there's several more-or-less comparable records for the same edition of each of these works in WorldCat (it's not perfect at deduplicating older or small-press material) and so assigning one particular number rather than another seems of marginal utility - it's only going to return some of the items, whatever happens. Shimgray | talk | 19:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments This is a good quality article, and I found it an interesting read - great work. I have the following comments:
    • The first mention of '33rd Division' in the lead should be linked
      • Done. I've knocked it down to "a division"; the particular division isn't as important in context, and we can bring out units in the second para. Shimgray | talk | 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Do we know what position(s) Pinney held in the Boer War?
      • No, but I'll look into this. I believe it will have been relatively "normal" regimental service, probably as a senior company commander (if he was a major). Army Lists should at least give us a battalion, and I'll construct something from that. Shimgray | talk | 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Done. The answer is "very little"; he arrived in November 1901, by which point the major fighting was over and it was mostly security/garrison work. A detailed history of the RF might show something, but there's certainly no "named battles" to reference. Shimgray | talk | 22:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "the Territorial Force was embodied to replace them for home defence duties" - 'embodied' sounds a bit odd in this context. I'd suggest something like 'mobilised' instead. You should also explain that the TF was a reservist formation.
      • Done. "Mobilised" is in the previous section - "activated" might work. I've noted the TF were reservists in the previous section, when they're first mentioned. Shimgray | talk | 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "it is not clear if Pinney's brigade was involved in this attack as an organised unit or not" it would be worth consulting a wider range of sources on this. Does the British official history might have anything on this? - I see that you've consulted it.
      • Unfortunately I don't have access to anything other than the 1914 volumes. I'll look into this. Shimgray | talk | 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'd suggest dropping the "it is not clear if Pinney's brigade was involved in this attack as an organised unit" bit then; you could say that 'several battalions of the brigade took part in this attack' or similar. Nick-D (talk) 09:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • The ever-useful LLT does not mention anything about 23rd Brigade being employed, but of course absence of evidence, etc. I'll poke the library and see what comes out. Shimgray | talk | 22:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've gone with "some units of Pinney's brigade", pending digging up further sources to explain what went on. Shimgray | talk | 21:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • What's meant by 'waves' of New Army divisions should be explained. Nick-D (talk) 10:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done. I've dropped the wave comment entirely (since it always confuses me, anyway...) Shimgray | talk | 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support My comments have now been addressed. Nick-D (talk) 07:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments -- I copyedited a little but generally thought the prose was fine, likewise structure, citations, image licensing, and level of detail; well done. Some points:

  • "On the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914" -- best avoid seasonal references; if we mean "August" for the outbreak of war that's what we should say (actually I went and changed this myself).
    • Done. Two instances of "summer" left - one at the end which I can't reword because I don't know a more specific date, and one earlier which should be okay as it's in the fairly specific context of "the summer offensive". Shimgray | talk | 22:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Haven't read "The General" since I was in high school -- thanks for bringing it back to me... ;-) However, MOS-wise I believe poem titles are treated similarly to song titles, i.e. in inverted commas rather than italicised.
  • No other images of the chap around? If not, perhaps the walls of text in Brigadier in France and Divisional Command could be broken up with say one picture each depicting a battle in which he was involved, or other contextual PD imagery.
    • I've had a dig around but can't find any clearly-identifiable pictures of any of the units he commanded. I've added a generic one of a machine-gun crew to the end of the divisional section; decent pictures of Ypres, for the first section, seem quite rare. Shimgray | talk | 21:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm, yes, bit of a surprise there's so little of relevance image-wise. Mind you, I think the Vickers shot, though excellent in itself, may be too generic for this article. The picture of captured British and Portuguese troops in Battle of the Lys might be marginally better, given it's an action that involved the 33rd to some degree, and you mention the Portuguese... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I considered that one, but it's one of the ones that we can tell is definitely not directly related - his division wasn't in the line until a few days after the main group of prisoners had been taken. How would commons:File:British Lewis gun team Battle of Hazebrouck 1918 IWM Q 10902.jpg work, do you think? It's Hazebrouck, and not identifiable as a particular "other" unit. Shimgray | talk | 22:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I guess that'd be the best -- sorry, I didn't want you to sweat the images, it's not a condition for support... ;-) Actually as far as that goes I'm just waiting on your next bit re. citation #9... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the references section you link one or two notable publishers but not all, e.g. Macmillan -- best be consistent either way. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources/Spotcheck -- I checked notes #4, #9, #10, #40, #45. Unless mentioned below, info seemed accurate without evidence of copyvio or close paraphrasing:

  • Re. #9, couldn't see the six divisions sent to France mentioned on page 7, only earlier (page 3 first up).
    • p. 3 doesn't really say it either, only by inference. I'll look at reciting this "background" section, probably from Vol. I of Edmonds. Shimgray | talk | 22:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry about the delay - this should hopefully be okay now. It's surprisingly hard to source the commonly-known details from the official histories! Shimgray | talk | 21:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Tks -- yes, I sometimes find it easier to use more general books for the basic stuff myself... Cheers,
  • Re. #10, generally accurate but I don't think the author explicitly equates the Wessex with the 43rd -- you might need to add the previous citation (#9, i.e. page 7) to make that connection clear.
  • Re. #40 (and others from same source), I'm a little unsure of Baker as an RS, certainly if you take this to FAC -- while the site's information seems well-written, he appears to only recently have made history his profession and claims just one published work. Granted the material cited to him isn't controversial but then I'd have thought it might just as easily be found in more clearly reliable sources -- no? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In theory, it's certainly available from other sources; however, those sources are a bit of a hassle to come by! I'd like to use the unit histories, but they're expensive and difficult to obtain. LLT has been briefly discussed at RSN (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 35#The Long, Long _Trail); "fine for factual information" seems to be the loose consensus, and it's certainly the way I've tended to treat it. Shimgray | talk | 22:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough if it's been discussed -- as I observed, you've used it for uncontroversial info, so I'm happy to go with it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support:

  • Look good to me: interesting and well written. One minor query:
  • "an Expeditionary Force of six divisions" - if we're talking about an expeditionary force (as opposed to the BEF), is it correct to capitalise it? (NB: I'm not sure) Hchc2009 (talk) 20:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is intended to be "the" BEF (just known as the EF at this point), rather than a generic expeditionary force (though of course it's one of those as well.) I could rephrase to "the Expeditionary Force of six divisions", but there's something a little awkward-seeming about that - can't quite put my finger on what, though. Shimgray | talk | 22:00, 7 March 2012 (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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessment/Reginald_Pinney&oldid=1075714197"