Talk:George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army

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Good articleGeorge S. Patton's speech to the Third Army has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 21, 2013Good article nomineeListed

Fair use rationale for Image:Patton DVD.jpg[edit]

Image:Patton DVD.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

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This review is transcluded from Talk:George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk · contribs) 03:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC) I am in the process of reviewing this nomination. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
    See below
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    See below
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    See below
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    A good article overall but I am placing on hold for some things that I think should be addressed.

Here are the items I see:

  • I don't see anything at File:Patton.jpg that indicates it was taken by the U.S. Army. It's on the cover of a book of photos he took himself; is he supposed to have taken this one with a self-timer?
  • File:Patton speech.jpg is hard to judge because the link is nonfunctional ... I guess we have to take the original editor adding it on good faith. It would be nice to know when it was from ... In any case the formatting of the description file should be fixed up.
  • Also, that image should probably be moved to the right side of the page, so that he's facing into the page instead of out.
    • Fixed all three of these by replacing both images with one; File:GeorgeSPatton.jpg. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per MOS:QUOTE#Linking, links within quotes should be avoided, so in the next to last paragraph I think it should be reworded to something like
    Author Terry Brighton called the speech "the greatest motivational speech of the war and perhaps of all time," saying that it exceeded , "in its morale boosting effect if not as literature," the rallying words Shakespeare gave King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt.
  • The Category:1944 in the United States inclusion seems inappropriate, since all of these speeches were written and given in England, not the U.S. Why not go with Category:1944 in England?
  • Where exactly in England were the speeches given? The article doesn't seem to say anywhere.
    • No sources specify. I believe the locations were deliberately secret to prevent Germans from getting wind of Patton's whereabouts. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • They were kept secret at the time, but I would have thought someone would have researched this since. No great matter. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • I can't find any sources specifically mentioning any locations, only that they were in the United Kingdom. I don't know where the Third Army was garrisoned in England, and putting those locations in the article without sources explicitly stating they were also the locations of the speeches would be SYNTH, I think. —Ed!(talk) 03:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last paragraph of "Background" has too much detail on the phantom army deception. The speeches would have presumably been given even if he had been in command of a different army.
    • Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Better, but requires reader to click through to Operation Fortitude to fully understand. How about making the link text "an elaborate phantom army deception scheme", or something like that. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Instead, I think the "Impact" section would benefit from a brief mention of Patton and the Third Army's role after Normandy, and an indication that he did in fact largely carry out what he said in the speeches (always attack, keep moving etc, to the extent of running his army out of fuel).
    • Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The addition is perhaps misplaced - it interrupts the 'most liked, some didn't' flow of the narrative. And it doesn't tie the accomplishments to the tactics emphasized in the speech. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... which earned Scott an Academy Award nomination ..." should be changed to "... which earned Scott the Academy Award for Best Actor ..." (Scott declined the award, but that's not pertinent to this article.)
    • Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • You still have "nomination". He won the award itself. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Removed the word. I think that's everything. —Ed!(talk) 15:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article uses "profanity" or its forms eleven times, which is too repetitious. I think some of these should be replaced by "vulgarity" or especially "obscenity", because to some, "profanity" is associated with "hell" and "damn" and Patton was going far beyond those.
  • The "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country ..." quote gets buried in the article, even though it's more famous than anything in the boxed speech itself. When I first read the article, after a bit I skipped down to the box and read the whole speech, all the time expecting to see that quote. I think it would be a good idea to give a box to it as well, instead of putting inline in the text.
  • Along these lines, the mention of the speech in the movie could say that it began with the "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country ..." line.

Let me know if you have any comments or disagreements on these points. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    • Done. Thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 00:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some further items:

  • Most transcriptions of the speech include "Be seated." as an opening paragraph unto itself. The movie also opened that way. I think we should as well, because it's a military expression and its presence puts the reader in the proper contextual frame right away.
  • Something should be added somewhere about the tone and pitch of Patton's voice, lest the reader think the speech really sounded like George C. Scott.
    • Added. —Ed!(talk) 15:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • What you added is good, but I was thinking of something about vocal pitch and timbre - Scott's was low and gruff, while Patton's voice wasn't. Also, I would move that whole paragraph down to the last section where the film is introduced, rather than having a forward reference to it. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Done and done. —Ed!(talk) 03:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • I subsequently realized that my suggestion was partly misguided - the description of Patton's approach belongs at the beginning of the "Impact" section, and the description of how Scott differed belongs integrated into the film description. I've made that change myself. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • That is fine. Is there anything else? —Ed!(talk) 15:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think "Though he was unaware of the actual date for the beginning of Operation Overlord, ..." should be moved from where it is to after " ... on 5 June 1944, the day before D-Day". That speech is sometimes called the "Eve of D-Day speech", when it fact it was coincidental. You are trying to get this across, but I think it will be more clear to the reader if it is moved.
  • Now back to File:Patton speech.jpg. I found the Patton Museum source archived here. (It's offline now because the museum is doing a big physical reorg, and presumably a web reorg to go along with it.) The page doesn't give any further information about the photo, but by using it on this "Speech to the Third U.S. Army" page the museum staff is implying that it's from one of those speeches. In that case, it's likely from a U.S. Army photographer, given that Patton's Third Army life was hidden from the press. So I think we should put the photo back in the article - the article really needs a photo of Patton speaking, and not just some generic Patton image (from the wrong season of weather, no less). But I would be inclined to use the full image, rather than cropping it. This full one gives a better portrayal of what the stage looked like and that others were on it as well.
    Now I see when this photo is from. It's a different angle of the photo on page 139 of the book Historic Photos of General George Patton by Russ Rodgers. Per the caption, this was a speech Patton gave to the U.S. Army 2nd Division in Armagh, Northern Ireland, on 1 April 1944. At the time this was attached to XV Corps and the First Army. The photo there is credited to "Patton Museum P8-18". The caption says this is possible the speech. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking of which, the museum text on that page contains some additional information about the speeches, in particular that they began in February 1944 and that they have audience transcriptions from as early as March 1944. That sort of contradicts our article, which places the first ones in late May. How authoritative should we view the museum text? Wasted Time R (talk) 03:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • All of the book sources note the speeches were a run-up to D-Day, and delivered from May to June 1944. The site seems to note that he did give speeches earlier than that, but that the speech wasn't delivered until after the Knutsford incident had blown over, about 17 May; this would be about consistent with the book sources. —Ed!(talk) 15:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, but I think the article should make clear that he was giving speeches throughout the first half of 1944. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A few additional stylistic issues:

  • "Historians have acclaimed the speech alternatively as Patton's greatest speaking as well as one of the greatest motivational speeches of all time." - is "alternatively" really necessary? and can this be rephrased so that "speech"/"speaking" doesn't occur three times in the sentence?
  • in general, "speech" is used over and over - consider replacing a few of these occurrences with "oration" or "peroration"
  • "... would later be among his most famous;" - that should be a colon, not semicolon
  • "... constructed a full speech from the memoirs of a number of soldiers who recounted the speech in their memoirs ..." - rephrase to avoid double use of "memoirs"
  • I think the " It also began with Patton's ..." sentence should be moved in front of the "Scott's iteration omitted much ..." sentence. That way the "Still, ..." makes sense. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a few more direct edits to address MoS issues or eliminate redundant naming or wording. There's one significant issue still remaining, which is the range of time over which the speeches took place. There really is a direct contradiction between Brighton's "What has become known as 'the speech' was delivered at least four and possibly six times in late May and early June 1944." and the Museum page's "The Patton Museum has several copies of the speech dating from March to May. ... With minor variations ... each version of the speech is remarkably consistent." Unfortunately Brighton does not give specific footnoted sources in his book, just a general list of sources. I'm tempted to send him an e-mail to find out ... unless you've seen any other sources addressing this particular question? Wasted Time R (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, Blumenson p. 456 says "It was probably around this time, a month or so before the invasion, that he began to give his famous speech to the troops." Axelrod p. 21 echoes this time frame, and says that the speeches were given to every unit of the Third Army. So we have three contradictory time frames. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the Patton museum is a reliable source too. I added in what it said and sourced it. Vague wording will suffice, I think, in that he may have begun the speeches in February, but the four to six of them in May to June are the best remembered. I think that is the best compromise to what all of them are saying. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about this some more and decided that the best thing here is to be explicit in the article that sources differ about when the speeches were and how many were given. I've made changes to this effect. I've also made some other changes to add clarifications about the Third Army's timeline in Normandy, that I thought might be necessary for some readers. See if you're okay with all this. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Did a read-through. I think it's a good treatment of the information we have access too and checks out with the other info I know (I've been doing Patton's bio) so I wouldn't put it any other way. —Ed!(talk) 03:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. I'm passing the article, good work again. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rank[edit]

If somebody has a source to hand, it would be worth pointing out the the version of the speech in the 1970 movie shows Patton as a full (4-star) general, a rank which he did not hold until the very end of the war. For his campaigns in Sicily, Normandy, the Ardennes etc (ie. the period in which he was giving these speeches) he was a 3-star.Paulturtle (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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