Talk:Siege of Dundee/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk · contribs) 17:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I'll take a look at this one. Feel free to challenge or correct me where necessary.

Prelim

• No edit wars
• Earwig reports no copyvio
• Looting is a duplicated link

Intentionally so.

• Images look good. A shame there doesn't seem to be a depiction of the siege itself?

Yep. I can't find a thing. (Not even a vaguely suitable generic one from the period.)

Lede and infobox

• The lede says it starts on 23 August while the infobox says 30 August

Fixed. (The bombardment started on the 30th.)

• "confronted the Dundee in Scotland" ?

Fixed.

• "The town's governor, Robert Lumsden..." you've already introduced him as the governor

Rewritten

• It seems like casualties and strength sections in the infobox wouldn't be impossible?

The only one I feel would be sourced would be Scottish casualties, and as this would be a range of 100-1,000 I am not sure how useful it would be for a reader.

• Is calling the victory a decisive one necessary?

Good grief no! (I am rubbish at checking what other people put in infoboxes. Thanks for flagging this up.) Fixed.

Background

• "the conditions attached to this declaration" - I know you don't want to go into lots of detail here, but it would be useful if you could stipulate whether the conditions were religious, political, etc

I think that this is sufficiently far from the topic of the article that I have deleted "conditions attached to this".

• Cromwell should be wikilinked when first mentioned in main text

Done.

• Link Parliament of Scotland

Done.

English invasion of Scotland

• "On 31 August Cromwell withdrew; to Dunbar." this is a really awkward sentence. The semi colon seems unnecessary and having a reference in the middle of only a seven-word sentence makes it strange to read

True, sorted.

• "The battle was undecided when Cromwell" I realise what this means here but it would probably work better to say "the battle was decided..."

That would mean the end of the sentence more or less repeating the start. I have changed it to "The battle was in the balance until Cromwell ..." Does that work?

Reads nicely now.

• "Cromwell himself fell ill." Considering we're really still in a background section here, this type of information seems superfluous

Removed.

• I'll note that while this is all good history, why do people reading an article on the siege of Dundee need to know that Robert Overton crossed the Firth in 50 special boats? Much of the text so far seems to gives undue importance to events that led up to, but did not directly impact, the siege itself (which is yet to be mentioned!)

I guess that I got carried away! Over 150 words trimmed and last three paragraphs of that section condensed into one.

Prelude

• "Charles and Leslie could not resist the lure of a march into England" sounds very different to the lede's "in desperation the Scots, commanded by David Leslie and King Charles II, invaded England"

True. Different sources put a different spin on it. The latter seems to be be the weak consensus, so the former amended.

• "Monck marched on Stirling and the town surrendered." do you have a date for this?

Irritatingly, no. Everyone agrees when the castle surrendered. One sources states when Monck arrived at Stirling, but none explicitly state when the town surrendered. I have added a little additional information which allows a reader to draw their own conclusion.

Siege and assault

• Introduce Montrose by his full name

Done.

• "its sizable garrison" how large?

>500; added.

• Link Covenanters

Done.

• "a regiment of English cavalry force" wording needs adjusting

Fixed.

• "On 30 August St Andrews also surrendered." to whom exactly?

To the English I assume from context. No source explicitly states this. (If you mean to a force commanded by whom, no source I have consulted gives this.)

• "the English stormed the west and east ports" what kind of attack is this? Did they make breaches, escalade, etc?

An excellent question which the sources don't answer. Referring to the walls, one source states that Monck's artillery "blasted them down", another that "the walls had been breeched" (by artillery). Which does seem to contradict the storming the gates bit. (Although *OR alert* often the first target of attackers were the gates to let reinforcements in more rapidly than clambering over piles of rubble.)

• "west and east ports" until looking at the image I had assumed you meant ports!

More as in sally port. Clarified, I think.

• "strict military discipline was enforced" clarify whether you mean this in terms of military punishment or just getting the soldiers back under control

I don't understand your query about punishment - could you expand. I meant that that the troops were brought back under, and kept under, strict control.

I've come across many examples of the phrase "enforced/enforcing military discipline" being used to stipulate that military discipline, or disciplinary action, was enacted upon soldiers. To avoid confusion I think it's better in this case for you to directly say that they were brought back under control, reined in, etc.

Really? Amazing. I can't even imagine how that would work. Rephrased. Better?

Aftermath

• "still governor of Scotland" you have never before said that he held this position

Apologies, it must have dropped out from a previous copy edit.

• The majority of this section isn't the aftermath of the siege, as much as the aftermath of Cromwell's wider campaign that didn't really involve Dundee at all. This article repeatedly gives me the feeling that I'm reading an article on the Scottish campaign as a whole rather than on one particular siege. I really think more could be done here to clarify what parts of the aftermath were actually connected to the siege at all, and how.

That's not unusual with military conflict articles. Re Dundee, it was peacefully garrisoned until at least the Restoration and the economy collapsed. The rest is, as you note, more general aftermath. I would be happy to trim that down as much as you fell appropriate. Would you like me to have a stab at, say, halving the word count?

Having had another read of this section I think that it only starts to get a bit off course in the final paragraph. If you could trim that a little I think that'd be enough.

How's that?

References

• Sources and referencing look good.

That's all I have for now, will await your replies. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild Pinging in case you haven't seen this yet. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 12:52, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

@ Pickersgill-Cunliffe: Oops, I am unsure how I managed to overlook this. Apologies. Thanks for the review and I hope to start responding to them tomorrow (22.11) and will try to work through all of them speedily. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild A couple more points to go with the individual queries above:

• The Major general (United Kingdom) link needs to be moved to the first occurrence (Holborne - unless you differentiate between the English and Scottish ranks?)

Done

• How many sieges has Dundee undergone? If it's just one you don't need to stipulate the year in the infobox heading

Let's not get into notability here. I have removed it, and if any of the others ever become articles they can be disambiged then.

• Link Aberdeen in the lede

Done.

• "his son, also Charles" unless I've missed a previous link, Charles II of England needs linking here

Quite right. Done.

• "After six months of manoeuvring an English force of 1,600 men under Colonel Robert Overton on 17 July." you've left something out here!

Fixed.

• Burntisland needs linking

Done

• "populence" do you mean populace?

I do. Corrected.

• "Nevertheless, the town's walled status and its garrison of at least 500 men meant many Scots deposited money and valuables there, to keep them safe from the English. Many Scots fleeing from the English had taken refuge in Dundee, many of these had fled from as far as Edinburgh." nothing wrong with the content here but you've got three "many"s in quick succession

Hmm. Good point. Rewritten. Down to one.

• You vary in using "Governor" and "governor"

True, but checking the four usages I believe that they all adhere to MOS:JOBTITLE.

• Lumsden could have a  † next to his name in the infobox

Added.

Will await your response. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:41, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild do you have an ETA for when you'll be able to get on this? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:09, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Pickersgill-Cunliffe, apologies for both the state of this article and how long it has taken me to respond. Neither of those are norms for for me and I am a loss to explain what went wrong. Anyway, many thanks for your scrutiny and for staying with it. All of your points and follow-up points are now addressed. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:24, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild no problem! This is a great article with an impressive amount of detail and I am happy to pass it as satisfying the good article criteria. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 15:13, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Pickersgill-Cunliffe, thank you. I really appreciate your patience and you attention to detail. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2021 (UTC)