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Revision as of 18:41, 12 March 2007
Welcome to the Military history WikiProject on the English Wikipedia! We are a group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history. If you would like to join us, please feel free to add your name to the list of project members!
- Goals
-
- To provide guidelines and recommendations for articles that describe all aspects of military history.
- To improve Wikipedia's coverage of military history by creating, expanding, and maintaining such articles.
- To serve as the central point of discussion for issues related to military history in Wikipedia.
- Scope
- The project generally considers any article related to historical or modern-day warfare or military affairs to be within its scope. (The American usage of "military" is applicable here; in other words, the project concerns itself with any armed forces rather than only with land armies.)
- Our primary work is concentrated in a number of broad areas:
- Military operations, battles, campaigns, and wars.
- Military personnel, including both leaders and common soldiers, as well as other people involved in military affairs.
- Military units and formations, ranging from small units to entire national militaries.
- Military equipment and technology, weapons, armour, and vehicles.
- Military facilities and structures, such as fortifications, military bases, test sites, and military memorials.
- Military historiography, publications, and historians.
- Types and periods of warfare, the military histories of particular nations and groups, and general military science and doctrine.
- Structure
- Internally, the project has developed several structural features to help in managing our extensive work:
- Coordinators, who are responsible for maintaining the administrative aspects of the project.
- Departments, which host work on several specialized tasks, including article quality assessment, detailed article and content review, and project-wide collaboration.
- Task forces, which are more informal groups for collaboration on specific topics within military history.
Announcements and open tasks
Guidelines
The guidelines presented in this section are intended to be guidelines only; while they are well-suited for the vast majority of military history articles, there exist a number of peculiar cases where, for lack of a better solution, alternate approaches have been taken. These exceptions are often the result of protracted negotiation; if something seems unusual or out-of-place, it may be worthwhile to ask before attempting to change it, as there might be reasons for the oddity that are not immediately obvious!
Naming conventions
Military conflicts
An article should generally be placed at the most common name used to refer to the event (e.g. Battle of Gettysburg, Siege of Leningrad, Attack on Pearl Harbor, or Doolittle Raid). If there is no common name, the name should be a descriptive geographic term such as "Battle of X" or "Siege of Y" (where X and Y are the locations of the operations). Non-neutral terms such as "attack", "slaughter", "massacre", or "raid" should be used with care; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) for more details.
If disambiguation is needed, the year may be added in parentheses (e.g. Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC)). Multiple battles at the same place in the same year should be called "First", "Second", and so forth (e.g. First Battle of Zurich and Second Battle of Zurich); alternately, the month of the battle may be used as a disambiguation (e.g. Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942)).
Operational codenames
Operational codenames generally make poor titles, as the codename gives no indication of when or where the battle took place and only represents one side's planning (potentially causing the article to focus on that side's point of view to the detriment of the other). It is better to use an appropriate geographical name for the article, creating a redirect from the operational name. This can be ignored for the most well-known operations (e.g. Operation Barbarossa), but note that even Operation Overlord redirects to Battle of Normandy.
Military units and formations
An article about a military unit or formation should be placed at "Name of unit (optional disambiguator)". The name should generally be the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit belongs, or, for units that do not have an official name, the most common name used in historical literature.
A unit name originally in a language other than English should be adapted by translating common terms (such as designations of unit size and type) and transliterating the remainder of the name. The choice of which components of the name are to be translated (and how) should follow the conventions employed by reputable historical works on the topic; some collected recommendations for specific terms are maintained by the relevant national task forces. The original name should be provided in the first sentence of the article, following the translated name; for example, "The 3rd Mountain Division (3. Gebirgs-Division) was...".
Where present, the optional disambiguator should be the common name of the country whose armed forces the unit belongs to (e.g. 4th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)), or, if such usage is still ambiguous (or where the unit does not serve a country), the name of the service branch to which the unit belongs (e.g. 1st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)). The disambiguator is not necessary in cases where the name of the country is already present in the name of the unit (e.g. The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada), or where the name is clearly unique (e.g. Preobrazhensky regiment).
In cases where a unit's name can reasonably be expected to be used by multiple armed forces—particularly in the case of numerical unit designations—the units should generally be pre-emptively disambiguated when the article is created, without waiting for the appearance of a second article on an identically-named unit. If this is done, the un-disambiguated version of the unit name should be created as a disambiguation page (or a redirect to the disambiguated version).
When a unit has had multiple names over the course of its existence, the title should generally be the last name used by the unit; however, exceptions can be made in cases where the unit is clearly more commonly known by one of the previous names.
Topic-specific conventions
Several task forces maintain more detailed naming conventions for particular topics:
Additional conventions
There are a number of miscellaneous naming conventions external to the project which are applicable to the articles in its scope. The most relevant ones are as follows:
Some older conventions that have been deprecated, or were proposed but never adopted, are retained for historical interest:
- Military units (in development until December 2006)
- Military vehicles (proposed in August 2006)
- Missiles and unguided rockets (proposed in May 2006)
- Rockets (proposed in July 2006)
Category names
A number of naming conventions exist specifically for category names; most of these are used to ensure consistent naming among all the sub-categories of a particular category.
- "X by country"
- In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by country" take names of the form "X of [the] Y", where Y is the most common name of the country in question. For example:
- Category:Military by country → "Military of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military of Russia)
- Category:Military equipment by country → "Military equipment of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military equipment of France)
- Category:Military history by country → "Military history of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military history of the United States)
- Category:Military units and formations by country → "Military units and formations of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of the United Kingdom)
- The subsidiary "by branch" categories for topics such as military units or personnel follow the same convention, with the full branch name replacing the country name (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of the United States Army).
- Categories classifying military conflicts and operations by country take names of the form "X involving [the] Y" instead:
- Category:Battles by country → "Battles involving [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Battles involving France)
- Category:Military campaigns by country → "Military campaigns involving [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military campaigns involving the United States)
- Category:Military operations by country → "Military operations involving [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military operations involving Germany)
- Category:Sieges by country → "Sieges involving [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Sieges involving France)
- Category:Wars by country → "Wars involving [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Wars involving the Ottoman Empire)
- "X by era"
- In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by era" take names of the form "X of the Y era", where Y is the name of the era of warfare in question. For example:
- Category:Battles by era → "Y battles" (e.g. Category:Battles of the Medieval era)
- Category:Military units and formations by era → "Y military units and formations" (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of the Ancient era)
- "X by war"
- In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by war" take names of the form "X of [the] Y", where Y is the most common name of the war in question. For example:
- Category:Battles by war → "Battles of [the] Y" or "Battles and operations of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War)
- Category:Military campaigns by war → "Campaigns of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Campaigns of the American Civil War)
- Category:Military personnel by war → "Military personnel of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military personnel of World War I)
- Category:Military units and formations by war → "Military units and formations of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of the American Civil War)
- Category:People by war → "People of [the] Y" (e.g. Category:People of the Hundred Years' War)
- "X by size"
- This category tree is used primarily for military units and formations; sub-categories take the name "Y", where Y is the size in question (e.g. Category:Military units and formations by size → Category:Regiments, Category:Corps, etc.).
- "X by type"
- In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by type" take names of the form "Y X", where Y describes the type in question. For example:
- Category:Battles by type → "Y battles" (e.g. Category:Naval battles)
- Category:Military units and formations by type → "Y units and formations" (e.g. Category:Airborne units and formations)
- Note that this form of category tree tends to exhibit more varied naming than the others. For example, Category:Battles by type also includes the non-standard Category:Sieges (since "Siege battles" would be a cumbersome name).
- Intersection categories
- The names of intersection categories generally follow the same conventions as above, with any components used being clustered in the following order:
- Type
- Size
- Country or branch
- Era or war (changed from "of [the] X" to "in [the] X" when a country or branch is also indicated)
- This produces, for example, "Naval battles of the Early Modern era" (type and era) and "Airborne regiments of the United States Army in World War II" (type, size, branch, and war).
Notability
Biographies
The following types of military figures are always notable:
- Recipients of a country's highest military decoration.
- People who commanded a substantial body of troops (such as an army or fleet, or a significant portion of one) in combat.
- Holders of top-level command positions (e.g. Chief of the General Staff).
- People who are the primary topic of one or more published secondary works.
If a military figure does not meet any of the above, but has non-trivial mention in one or more published secondary works (family history and genealogies excluded), they are probably notable.
Any person that that is only mentioned in genealogical records or family histories, or is traceable only through primary documents, is probably not notable.
Article structure
The guidelines in this section are intended to serve as a starting point for writing a good article; they are not meant to enforce a single structure on all articles, nor to limit the topics an article will discuss.
War
The opening paragraph (or lead section) should concisely convey:
- The name of the war (including alternate names).
- When did it happen?
- Who fought in it?
- Why did it happen?
- What was the outcome?
- What was its significance, if any?
The article can be structured along these lines:
- The historical background to the conflict, including preceding conflicts, the political situation, military preparedness, and technology.
- The causes of the conflict.
- The trigger, if notable. For example, the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria triggered a sequence of events that led to World War I. Take care to distinguish a trigger or pretext from the underlying causes that allowed the event to trigger a war.
- A summary of the conflict. When a war is large, it can often be divided into phases, geographic regions ("theaters"), or naval and land campaigns. Don't describe individual battles in detail; refer to a separate article on the battle and just explain the result of the battle and its consequences for the war.
- How the war came to an end. What treaties were signed, and what were their conditions?
- What were the consequences of the war? Who did it affect? What happened next? Did the war lead to peace or to further wars? Were countries conquered or liberated? Were there significant advances in tactics or technology?
Battle
The opening paragraph (or lead section in a longer article) should concisely convey:
- The name of the battle (including alternate names).
- When did it happen?
- Where did it happen?
- Which war or campaign does it belong to?
- Who were the combatants?
- What was its outcome or significance?
The article can be structured along these lines:
- The background. Why did it take place? Which campaign did it belong to? What happened previously?
- The prelude. What forces were involved? How did they arrive at the battleground? Was there a plan?
- A description of the battle. What tactics were used?
- The aftermath. Who won, if anyone? What were the casualties? Was there a pursuit or followup? What happened next? How did the battle affect the course of the war?
Summaries in other articles
Because of the key role the discussion of individual battles plays in military historiography, it is often useful to summarize information about a particular battle in an article of broader scope (such as one discussing a war or military leader). In such cases, the bulk of the material should be in the article on the battle itself; the summary in the external article should be trimmed to one or two paragraphs that concisely present the following:
- Why did the battle take place? Who was attacking and who was defending? Why was it worth fighting the battle instead of avoiding it; what was at stake?
- What was the troop strength of each side and approximate composition of the forces?
- Who won, and how decisive a victory was it? Were there any important personages that were captured, wounded, or killed? What was the impact of the battle on the overall campaign?
- Were there any notable strategies or tactics that make this more than just one of many battles? Were there any brilliant moves or notable errors that contributed to the outcome of the battle?
Unit or formation
The opening paragraph (or lead section) should concisely convey:
- The formal name of the unit, its abbreviation, and its nickname(s).
- What is the unit's country or allegiance?
- What service was the unit part of (e.g. Air Force, Army, Navy)?
- When was it formed?
- If the unit no longer exists, when was it disbanded or deactivated?
- In what notable battles, operations, or wars did the unit participate?
The article can be structured along these lines:
- The unit's history. Why was it formed? Who formed it? Where and how has the unit served in peacetime and war? Who has commanded it?
- If the unit still exists, where is it now? What higher-level formation is the unit assigned to, if any? What is its current role?
- The unit's traditions. What mascots does it have? What anniversaries does it celebrate?
- What gallantry awards (such as the Medal of Honor, Param Vir Chakra, or Victoria Cross) have been awarded to members of the unit? What unit awards (such as battle honours or presidential citations) has the unit received?
Content and style
Sources
Policy requires that articles reference only reliable sources; however, this is a minimal condition, rather than a final goal. With the exception of certain recent topics that have not yet become the subject of extensive secondary analysis, and for which a lower standard may be temporarily permitted, articles on military history should aim to be based primarily on published secondary works by reputable historians. The use of high-quality primary sources is also appropriate, but care should be taken to use them correctly, without straying into original research. Editors are encouraged to extensively survey the available literature—and, in particular, any available historiographic commentary—regarding an article's topic in order to identify every source considered to be authoritative or significant; these sources should, if possible, be directly consulted when writing the article.
Citations
The nature of historical material requires that articles be thoroughly—even exhaustively—cited. At a minimum, the following all require direct citation:
- Direct quotations of outside material
- Paraphase or other borrowing of ideas from an outside source
- Controversial or disputed statements
- Subjective or qualitative judgements
- Numerical quantities or statistics
In general, any statement for which a citation has been explicitly requested by another editor should be provided with one as well.
Beyond this, editors are encouraged to cite any statement that is obscure or difficult to find in the available sources, as well as any significant statement in general. There is no numerical requirement for a particular density of citations or for some predetermined number of citations in an article; editors are expected to use their best judgement as to how much citation is appropriate. When in doubt, cite; additional citations are harmless at worst, and may prove invaluable in the long term.
- Citation style
In general, articles may use one of two citation styles:
- Footnotes
- Footnotes are generally the more appropriate option when the level of citation is very dense, or where the citations include additional commentary. A number of different formatting styles are available; so long as an article is internally consistent, the choice of which to use is left to the discretion of the major editors. For example, discursive notes may either be combined with citations (as here and here), or separated (as here).
- A single footnote may be used to provide citations for any amount of material; while they typically apply to one or a few sentences, they may also cover entire paragraphs or sections of text. In cases where the connection between the citations and the material cited is not obvious, it is helpful to describe it explicitly (e.g. "For the details of the operation, see Smith, First Book, 143–188, and Jones, Another Book, chapters 2–7; for the international reaction, see Thomas, Yet Another Book, 122–191").
- Harvard-style references
- Harvard-style references are useful where a limited number of simple citations is needed; they typically should not be used if the article has a significant number of other items in parentheses, or if citations must be accompanied by commentary.
The final choice of which style to follow is left to the discretion of an article's editors.
- Requesting citations
Editors should attempt to take a reasonable approach when requesting citations. Unless the accuracy of a statement is in significant doubt, it is generally better to start with a request for citations on the article's talk page, rather than by inserting {{fact}} tags—particularly large numbers of such tags—into the article. Over-tagging should be avoided; if a large portion of the article is uncited, adding an {{unreferenced}} or {{citation style}} tag to an entire section is usually more helpful than simply placing {{fact}} tags on every sentence.
Popular culture
"In popular culture" sections should be avoided unless the subject has had a well-cited and notable impact on popular culture. If present, the section should be a prose discussion of the subject's cultural significance, cited from reliable sources. In particular, the following should be avoided:
- Compendiums of every trivial appearance of the subject in pop culture (trivia)
- Unsupported speculation about cultural significance or fictional likenesses (original research)
This tends to be a problem in articles on military hardware (i.e. weapons, vehicles, etc.); for example, the Mauser K98 and the M1 Garand may appear in any World War II film, and their many appearances don't warrant an exhaustive list. On the other hand, a discussion of the Webley representing a stereotypical British revolver, or a conceptual artist's public response to the symbolism of the East European tank monument, are certainly notable.
Infobox templates
There are a variety of infobox templates and auxiliary boxes available for use in military history articles. To allow stacking primary infoboxes with supplemental boxes, all of the templates use a common infobox style.
A few general guidelines apply to all of the infoboxes:
- Most of the fields in each infobox can be omitted if desired; the choice of which ones are appropriate for a particular article is left to the discretion of the article's editors.
- Multiple values given in a single field should be separated by both commas and, where appropriate, line breaks; merely spacing them onto separate lines can confuse screen reader software, and is ambiguous when long terms wrap onto multiple lines in their own right.
- In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended.
Primary infoboxes
A primary infobox is intended to provide a summary table for some topic. It should generally be placed at the top of an article, before the lead section; this will cause it to be displayed in the top right corner.
- Firearm cartridge infobox
- Used for cartridges and artillery shells.
- Military award infobox
- Used for military awards, decorations, and medals.
- Military cemetery infobox
- Used for military cemeteries.
- Military conflict infobox
- Used for all military conflicts and operations, such as battles, campaigns, and wars.
- Military memorial infobox
- Used for military monuments and memorials.
- Military person infobox
- Used for military personnel.
- Military structure infobox
- Used for military structures and facilities, including fortifications and military bases.
- Military test site infobox
- Used for military test sites.
- Military unit infobox
- Used for military units and formations.
- National military infobox
- Used for an overview of a country's military manpower and expenditures.
- War faction infobox
- Used for factions participating in a war.
- Weapon infobox
- Used for all weapons, including firearms, explosives, and armoured vehicles.
Auxiliary infoboxes
An auxiliary infobox is a supplementary template intended to be used in conjunction with one of the primary infoboxes; it is usually placed directly below the primary infobox, but other layouts are possile. It is common for multiple auxiliary infoboxes to be used on a single article.
- Campaignboxes
- Large set of auxiliary templates used in combination with an infobox to provide navigation across a series of battles or wars.
- Command structure box
- Used to indicate a military unit's parent and subordinate units at a particular date.
- Service record box
- Used to summarize a military unit's, person's, or ship's service record.
Categories
Overview
The category scheme originates in two root categories—Category:War and Category:Military—and can be thought of as two tree structures that intersect at several points. A guide to the top-level sub-categories of these two root categories is presented below; for brevity, a number of categories that are rarely used or lie outside the scope of this project have been omitted.
- Category:War
- Root category for matters related to wars and warfare (military or otherwise).
- Category:Aftermath of war
- Category:Anti-war
- Root category for anti-war movements and resistance to war; see the Anti-war WikiProject for more information.
- Category:Causes of war
- Category:Depictions of war
- Root category for depictions of war in art and literature.
- Category:Laws of war
- Root category for topics related to the laws of war.
- Category:War crimes
- Root category for topics related to war crimes.
- Category:Military and war museums
- Root category for museums dealing with any aspect of warfare or military affairs.
- Category:Military conflicts
- Root category for specific military conflicts, such as wars and battles; see the section on conflicts and operations below for more information.
- Category:People associated with war
- Root category for people (both military and non-military) with some connection to warfare; see the section on people below for more information.
- Category:Warfare by era
- Classifies warfare into broad chronological eras.
- Category:Warfare by type
- Classifies warfare by type (primarily by geographic or technological factors).
- Category:Military
- Root category for military matters (wartime or otherwise).
- Category:Military by country
- Classifies militaries by the organizing country.
- Category:Military art
- Root category for all types of artwork depicting the military.
- Category:Military decorations
- Root category for all topics related to military awards and decorations.
- Category:Military diplomacy
- Root category for military-related aspects of diplomacy, such as alliances and treaties.
- Category:Military alliances
- Root category for specific military alliances.
- Category:Military equipment
- Root category for military equipment, including weapons and vehicles.
- Category:Military history
- Root category for various classification schemes for topics in military history, as well as general historiographic topics.
- Category:Military history by country
- Classifies historical military topics by the countries involved.
- Category:Military and war museums (see description under Category:War above)
- Category:Military historiography
- Root category for topics related to the study of military history, such as historians and their works.
- Category:Military publications
- Root category for military publications.
- Category:Military writers
- Root category for military writers.
- Category:Warfare by era (see description under Category:War above)
- Category:Military industry
- Root category for topics related to matters involving industry and the military.
- Category:Military law
- Root category for topics related to legal matters involving the military.
- Category:Laws of war (see description under Category:War above)
- Category:Military justice
- Category:Military life
- Root category for topics related to life in the military.
- Category:Military lists
- Root category for military-related lists.
- Category:Military locations
- Root category for military locations, including structures and facilities.
- Category:Military operations
- Root category for all combat and non-combat military operations; see the section on conflicts and operations below for more information.
- Category:Military organization
- Root category for military organization, including units and other groups; see the section on military organization below for more information.
- Category:Military personnel
- Root category for military personnel; see the section on military personnel below for more information.
- Category:Military science
- Root category for topics related to military science, theory, and doctrine; see the military science task force for more information.
- Category:Military veterans' affairs
- Root category for articles related to the general topic of military veterans and veterans' organizations.
General principles
Naming
- For naming conventions related to categories, see the section on naming conventions above.
Most specific categories
In general, articles and categories should be placed in the most specific applicable categories, and should not be placed directly in a "parent" category if they are already present in one of its sub-categories. In other words, if an article is placed in Category:Wars involving the United States, there is no need to place it in Category:Military history of the United States as well.
Note, however, that this applies only to direct placement into a "parent" category; it is normal for a category to have multiple indirect paths up to some other category higher in the tree. For example, Category:Naval battles of the Spanish-American War is both a sub-category of Category:Battles of the Spanish-American War (which is a sub-category of Category:Battles involving Spain) and a sub-category of Category:Naval battles involving Spain (which is also a sub-category Category:Battles involving Spain); thus, there are two distinct paths from Category:Naval battles of the Spanish-American War up to Category:Battles involving Spain. This is especially common when dealing with intersection categories.
Nested categories
One important aspect of the "most specific" principle is that if every article in a category belongs to another category, it is sufficient to nest the categories directly, rather than double-categorizing each individual article. For example, Battle of Bosworth Field does not need to be added to Category:Battles involving England directly because Category:Battles of the Wars of the Roses is already a sub-category of it. Similarly, the articles in Category:Military units and formations of the United States Marine Corps do not need to be added to Category:Military units and formations of the United States directly.
In some cases, entire category trees will nest as above. For example, all "by war" categories should be sub-categories of the applicable "by era" category, and that a redundant "by era" label should not be applied to articles where a "by war" one is given (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of the Crusades should be a sub-category of Category:Military units and formations of the Medieval era, so an article already in the first need not be added to the second).
Note that this strategy should be applied only when every article in one category belongs in the other. For example, it is inappropriate to make Category:Battles of the Napoleonic Wars a sub-category of Category:Battles involving the United Kingdom, because there are many battles in the first category in which the United Kingdom was not a participant; thus, Battle of Waterloo must include both categories separately.
Intersection categories
In many cases, articles can be categorized through several parallel classification schemes, associating them with the related countries, wars, eras, and other topics. There are two general ways of applying multiple categories from these classification schemes to a particular article. The simplest, which can be sufficient for unusual combinations or small categories, is to apply each category separately. For example, a medieval French unit could be placed in both Category:Military units and formations of the Medieval era and Category:Military units and formations of France. However, this system is unwieldy as category sizes increase; thus, common combinations of multiple categories can be made explicit by creating an "intersection" sub-category for them; for example, Category:Military units and formations of France in the Medieval era.
The intersection category can potentially combine an arbitrary number of elements from the overall category structure, but categories that combine two or three are more common. For example, Category:Regiments of France in the Napoleonic Wars (military units by size, by country, and by war), Category:Airborne units and formations of the United States Army in World War II (military units by type, by branch, and by war), and Category:Naval battles of the American Civil War (battles by type and by war) are all potential intersection categories. It is recommended that intermediate "holder" categories (e.g. Category:Military units and formations of France by size or Category:Regiments by country) be liberally created in order to keep the overall category system navigable.
Note that the simpler system can still be used in conjunction with intersection categories to avoid the proliferation of extremely small and narrow sub-categories. For example, it may be better to place an article in both Category:Cavalry units and formations and Category:Military units and formations of France in the Medieval era than to create an additional Category:Cavalry units and formations of France in the Medieval era. A similar approach should be taken if there is no reasonable way to name a potential intersection category; for example, rather than creating the grammatically atrocious Category:Prisoner-of-war pilot generals of World War II, it is better to leave separate categories (Category:Pilots of World War II, Category:Generals of World War II, etc.).
Description templates
A number of templates for creating standardized category descriptions have been created:
- {{Battle category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Battles by country
- {{Battle category by conflict}} - for sub-categories of Category:Battles by war
- {{Campaign category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Military campaigns by country
- {{Naval battle category by conflict}} - for sub-categories of Category:Naval battles by war
- {{Naval battle category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Naval battles by country
- {{Operations category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Military operations by country
- {{Siege category by conflict}} - for sub-categories of Category:Sieges by war
- {{Siege category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Sieges by country
- {{War category by participant}} - for sub-categories of Category:Wars by country
Conflicts and operations
The category tree for all military conflicts and operations derives from the top-level Category:Military operations, as follows:
- Category:Military operations
-
- Category:Military operations by country
- Organizes both combat and non-combat operations by the country (or non-state entity) that planned or executed them.
- Category:Military operations by type
- Organizes both combat and non-combat operations by the "type" of warfare involved.
- Category:Military operations by war
- Organizes both combat and non-combat operations by the war during which they were planned or executed.
- Category:Military conflicts
- Root category for all combat operations.
- Category:Battles
- Root category for all battles and combat operations; see the section on battles below for more information.
- Category:Military campaigns
- Root category for all campaigns; see the section on campaigns below for more information.
- Category:Wars
- Root category for all wars; see the section on wars below for more information.
- Category:Non-combat military operations
- Root category for all non-combat operations.
- Category:Canceled military operations
- Root category for both combat and non-combat operations that were planned but never executed.
A particular country will thus have a tree of categories containing every military action in which it participated. At its greatest extent, the tree will take a form similar to this:
- Category:Military of the United States (a sub-category of Category:Military by country)
- Category:Military history of the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Military history by country)
- Category:Military operations involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Military operations by country)
- Category:Wars involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Wars by country)
- Category:Military campaigns involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Military campaigns by country)
- Category:Battles involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Battles by country)
- Category:Non-combat military operations involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Non-combat military operations by country)
- Category:Canceled military operations involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Canceled military operations by country)
- Category:Military operations involving the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Military operations by country)
- Category:Military history of the United States (also a sub-category of Category:Military history by country)
Note that, particularly for countries whose military history does not include the modern era, many of these categories may be omitted. In particular, it is common for the "Battles involving Foo" and "Wars involving Foo" categories to be placed in the corresponding "Military history of Foo" or "Military of Foo" category directly, without a separate "Military operations involving Foo" category between them.
For historical states, categories below the "Military history of ..." level should be kept distinct from those of their successor states. For example, Category:Wars involving England is a sub-category of Category:Military history of the United Kingdom, but not of Category:Wars involving the United Kingdom.
Similarly, a large war will have a tree of categories for every component military action; at its greatest extent, the tree will take the following form:
- Category:American Civil War (categorized as discussed in the section on wars)
- Category:Military operations of the American Civil War (also a sub-category of Category:Military operations by war)
- Category:Theaters of the American Civil War
- Category:Campaigns of the American Civil War (also a sub-category of Category:Military campaigns by war)
- Category:Battles of the American Civil War (also a sub-category of Category:Battles by war)
- Category:Military operations of the American Civil War (also a sub-category of Category:Military operations by war)
The full tree is unnecessary for the vast majority of wars; the most common configuration is to have a simple two-level scheme, like this:
- Category:Wars of the Roses
- Category:Battles of the Wars of the Roses (also a sub-category of Category:Battles by war)
Classifying conflicts
Military conflicts are typically classified as battles, campaigns, or wars for the purposes of categorization. In this context, the terms are generally understood to mean the following:
- A war is a conflict bounded by periods (however brief) during which the combatants are formally at peace with one another; it generally consists of multiple distinct component operations such as battles or campaigns.
- A campaign is a coherent series of smaller operations with a defined overall goal; this goal may, however, change over the course of the campaign.
- A battle is a single, distinct military engagement generally limited to a narrow geographic scope and typically characterized by the opposing forces encountering one another, engaging in some form of combat, and then separating.
In general, articles should be classified according to what the topic actually is, regardless of the name used. For example, a series of engagements generally regarded by historians as a campaign should be categorized as one even if it's referred to as the "Battle of X".
Some operations and conflicts may need to be classified into more than one of the above levels; however, this should generally be done only when it substantially adds to a reader's understanding of the events. The possible double-classification scenarios are outlined below:
- War and campaign: This can occur when a "sub-war" is fought as part of a larger war (for example, the French and Indian War, as part of the Seven Years' War). A subsidiary conflict is typically a "sub-war" when it includes some participants not involved in the larger conflict; the article can then be categorized as a war involving those participants, but as a campaign involving the participants of the larger conflict.
- Campaign and battle: This can occur in modern warfare, where a long-term engagement has been treated by historians as either a single battle or a sequence of separate battles (for example, the Battle of Kursk).
- War and battle: This should generally be avoided, except in the few cases where a war consisted of a single large battle and only a single article covers the conflict.
No event that can be classified as all three types of conflict has been found.
Wars
War articles are usually placed in three sets of categories:
- By date: a war article should always be placed in a category by century (e.g. Category:16th century) for longer wars or by year (e.g. Category:1878) for shorter ones.
- By participants: a war article should generally be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Wars by country corresponding to the parties involved in the war. For example, a war between France and Austria should be placed in both Category:Wars involving France and Category:Wars involving Austria.
- By type: a war article may optionally be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Wars by type, such as Category:Civil wars or Category:Guerrilla wars.
Some larger wars have dedicated categories (e.g. Category:Hundred Years' War). In this case, it is sufficient to categorize the war category as above; the war article (Hundred Years' War, in this example) need only be placed in the associated war category.
Campaigns
Articles about military campaigns are usually placed in three sets of categories:
- By date: a campaign article should always be placed in a category by year (e.g. Category:1878) corresponding to the period during which it took place. Longer campaigns spanning several years may be placed in multiple year categories, or in the corresponding decade or century categories in extreme cases.
- By war: a campaign article may optionally be placed in a sub-category of Category:Military campaigns by war; this should generally be done only for wars that have a substantial number of campaign articles.
- By participants: a campaign article should generally be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Military campaigns by country corresponding to the parties involved in the campaign.
Battles
Articles about battles are usually placed in four sets of categories:
- By date: a battle article should always be placed in a category by year (e.g. Category:1878) corresponding to the date on which the battle was fought. Longer battles spanning several years may be placed in multiple year categories, or in the corresponding decade or century categories in extreme cases.
- By era: battles can be placed in one of the sub-categories of Category:Battles by era to indicate which of the broad eras of military history they belong to. For example, battles involving the Roman Empire would be placed under Category:Battles of the Ancient era.
- By war: as an extension of the "by era" categorization, a battle article may optionally be placed in a sub-category of Category:Battles by war. For instance, the Battle of Agincourt is placed in Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War.
- By participants: a battle article should generally be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Battles by country corresponding to the parties involved in the battle. For example, a battle between France and Austria should be placed in both Category:Battles involving France and Category:Battles involving Austria. Note that these categories are often moved out onto a "by war" category; see the section on categorizing entire sub-categories, above, for more details.
- By type: a battle article may optionally be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Battles by type, such as Category:Sieges or Category:Naval battles. These are often combined with relevant "by country" or "by war" categories to create intersection sub-categories.
- "Battles in ..."
One frequently asked question about this category scheme is why battles are categorized by participants, rather than by location; why are there no "Battles in ..." categories, in other words? The answer is that, unlike categorizing by participants, which is relatively intuitive and extremely useful, categorizing by location produces a scheme that is unintuitive and difficult to work with, at best, and completely meaningless and impossible to maintain, at worst.
There are two basic options when categorizing battles by country: using the modern countries, or using the historical countries that existed at the time of the battle. The first option—using modern countries—results in a category scheme that makes meaningless connections based on changes in geography centuries after the events discussed in the articles in question. The Siege of Königsberg in 1262, for example, would be classified as a siege in Russia, despite Russia not being involved in any way at the time. Similarly, the campaigns of individuals such as Alexander the Great would be scattered among dozens of countries in a fairly arbitrary manner. This is, at best, a less intuitive approach than categorizing by participants.
Categorizing by the historical location is even more problematic. The chief difficulty is that, unlike the participants in a battle (which are almost always uncontroversial), the ownership of the land where a battle was fought is often a matter of significant historical controversy—having, at times, been the cause of the battle itself! In cases where the territory was historically a disputed one, arbitrarily assigning it to one of the countries involved is highly problematic, for obvious reasons. Even in cases where ownership can be determined, however, doing so is quite often neither obvious nor intuitive, and requires an unreasonably detailed knowledge of the various diplomatic events of the surrounding period; this is particularly problematic in medieval and early modern Europe, where cities and territories regularly changed hands. For example, the various sieges of Milan in the early 16th century took place—fairly unpredictably—within the territory of either the Duchy of Milan, France, or Spain, depending on which country had been the last to receive the city in one of the myriad treaties during the period. Unlike categorizing by historical participants, which can be done from almost any description of the battle itself, categorizing by historical location thus requires an exhaustive knowledge of obscure diplomatic concerns, and is at times simply impossible due to underlying territorial disputes.
Military organization
The category tree for all topics related to military organization derives from the top-level Category:Military organization, as follows:
- Category:Military organization
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- Category:Defence ministries
- Root category for military and defense ministries or departments within national governments.
- Category:International military organizations
- Root category for international military organizations and groups.
- Category:Military academies
- Root category for military academies.
- Category:Military branches
- Organizes topics by the associated major modern branch (army, navy, air force, etc.).
- Category:Military ranks
- Root category for all topics related to military ranks.
- Category:Military units and formations
- Root category for all military units, formations, and groups; see the section on units and formations below for more information.
- Category:Orders of battle
- Root category for all orders of battle for particular military conflicts.
- Category:Types of military forces
- Organizes military forces by the "type" of force (usually by function, mobility, or structure).
Units and formations
Articles about military units and formations are typically placed into four sets of categories nested under Category:Military units and formations:
- By country: military units can be placed in a sub-category of Category:Military units and formations by country to indicate the state (or non-state entity, where appropriate) which they served. For example, units of the French military are placed in Category:Military units and formations of France or its sub-categories.
- By branch: as an extension of the "by country" scheme, units of countries that had distinct branches or services in their militaries (e.g. an Army, a Navy, and an Air Force) can be placed in a sub-category of Category:Military units and formations by branch. For example, units that are part of the United States Navy are placed under Category:Military units and formations of the United States Navy, which is itself a sub-category of Category:Navy units and formations.
- By era: units can be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Military units and formations by era to indicate which of the broad eras of military history they belong to. For example, Roman legions would be placed under Category:Military units and formations of the Ancient era.
- By war: as an extension of the "by era" scheme, units associated with particular wars can be placed in one or more sub-categories of Category:Military units and formations by war; for example, units that fought in World War II are placed under Category:Military units and formations of World War II. This type of categorization is intended only for very major conflicts; creating a category tree for every recorded war is obviously unproductive.
- By size: units can be placed in a sub-category of Category:Military units and formations by size, such as Category:Regiments or Category:Divisions, as appropriate.
- By type: units with a special role (such as airborne, artillery, or armored units), structure (such as mercenary or irregular units), or composition (such as expatriate or all-female units) can be placed under the appropriate sub-category of Category:Military units and formations by type; for example, a cavalry unit would be placed under Category:Cavalry units and formations.
A particular article need not be categorized with all of the possible category types; for some topics, certain of the category options are inapplicable or inconvenient labels.
People
The category tree for all topics related to people involved in warfare derives from the top-level Category:People associated with war:
- Category:People associated with war
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- Category:People by war
- Classifies all people (military and non-military) by the war with which they are associated.
- Category:Children in war
- Root category for topics related to children's involvement in warfare.
- Category:Civilians in war
- Root category for topics related to civilian involvement in warfare.
- Category:Military personnel
- Root category for soldiers and other military personnel; see the section on military personnel below.
- Category:Women in war
- Root category for topics related to women's involvement in warfare.
A large war will have a tree of categories for all people involved in it in some way; the tree will typically take the following form:
- Category:People of World War I (a sub-category of Category:People by war)
- Category:Military personnel of World War I (also a sub-category of Category:Military personnel by war)
- Various intersection categories for military personnel involved in World War I; see the section on military personnel below.
- Category:Military personnel of World War I (also a sub-category of Category:Military personnel by war)
Military personnel
Featured article advice
This section provides a brief list of major points that should be addressed before an article is listed as a featured article candidate; some of them are general recommendations, while others are related specifically to common objections candidate articles encounter.
- Know the criteria
- Perhaps the most basic element of writing an article that meets the featured article criteria is knowing what those criteria are. Becoming familiar with the formal list is vital; beyond that, it's often useful to review current featured articles and ongoing candidacies to get a better grasp of how the criteria are typically applied in practice.
- Take advantage of the review process
- Articles nominated for featured status should already be of a superlative quality, as attempts to fix major problems during the featured article nomination itself are usually chaotic and unsuccessful. Thus, the article should be reviewed for potential problems before a nomination is made. A full review process is outlined below; while these steps are not required, they are usually quite helpful:
- Peer review: the peer review can offer exhaustive suggestions for improvement; it can be undertaken at any point, but is most useful once a majority of the article's content is present. This can run for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
- A-Class review: the review for A-Class status is less flexible, and serves primarily to verify that the major criteria for featured article status are met; it runs for four days.
- Featured article nomination: the final step is the formal nomination for featured article status; it can run anywhere from a week to a month.
- Check your citations
- Perhaps the most critical flaw in an article—and among the few that serve to guarantee a failed featured article candidacy—is a lack of proper citations. An article should have copious inline citations, preferably from high-quality scholarly sources such as published historical works; for more information, see the project's sourcing and citation guidelines.
- Ensure the article has been copyedited
- One of the most common objections that articles encounter is that the prose is too dense or poorly written. It is incumbent on editors to ensure that an article has been thoroughly copyedited before being nominated for featured status; while this can be done, to an extent, on one's own articles, asking someone unfamiliar with the text to review it is generally very helpful in catching less obvious stylistic problems.
- Find suitable illustrations
- While lavish illustration is not a requirement (but is nevertheless a good thing, where enough images are available), particular attention must be paid to cartography; in articles about battles or wars, the lack of a suitable map can result in numerous objections to a featured article candidacy. Some resources for obtaining suitable maps can be found here.
- Watch the length
- While editors are encouraged to expand articles, there comes a time when the overall length of an article becomes a potential problem for readers; if you find that an article is becoming too long, consider splitting it up or moving some of the information to other articles. More advice on recommended bounds for article size can be found here; note, however, that the numbers given are usually applied only to the prose of the article, and do not include additional material (such as footnotes or reference lists).
- Be mindful of resolution settings
- Higher monitor resolution settings can have the adverse effect of leaving large spaces between paragraphs if too many images or tables are present in one area or along one margin of an article. Consider alternating images from left to right to help prevent large spacing between sections, and leaving extra room below tables and images before adding any additional media to that side of the page. Other editors who use higher or lower resolution settings can help you identify any areas of an article that may need reformating to address this.
Showcase
The following is a list of articles within the scope of the project that have been noted for their outstanding quality. Project members are encouraged to peruse these at their leisure, as they serve as excellent examples of different writing and organizational styles that one may wish to emulate.
Please note that the project does not necessarily claim any authorship or credit for creating these. While many were written by members—sometimes with extensive input from the project as a whole—others were created by uninvolved editors, or predate the existence of the project itself, and are listed here merely because they fall within our scope.
Featured articles
Featured articles are considered to be Wikipedia's very best work; they must pass through a review process as featured article candidates before being selected.
A-Class articles
A-Class articles, while not as rigorously reviewed as featured articles, are nevertheless considered to provide a well-written and complete treatment of the topic; they pass through a review process within the project before being selected.
Other content
Types of content other than standard articles—such as images, lists, and portals—can also achieve featured content status.
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Project organization
The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers.
- Lead coordinator
- Coordinators
- Coordinators emeritus
To contact the coordinators, please leave a message on the coordinators' discussion page, or use the {{@MILHIST}} notification template on any other discussion page on Wikipedia.
Members
The full list of project members is located on a separate subpage; please feel free to add your name to it if you would like to join the project!
Departments
- Assessment
- The assessment department focuses on determining and tracking the quality of Wikipedia's military history articles; the resulting statistics are used to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.
- Automation
- The automation department uses various automated and semi-automated tools to perform batch tasks that would be extremely tedious to do manually; all project members are invited to propose new tasks and to comment on the suitability of outstanding requests.
- Collaboration
- The collaboration department seeks to identify articles that would benefit from a significant collaborative effort; every fortnight, a single article is selected as the focus, and the project attempts to improve it. The current collaboration article is None.
- Outreach
- The outreach department acts as a central location for various member outreach work, including project newsletters, recruitment and welcoming banners, and other related initiatives.
- Review
- The review department conducts both informal peer reviews of articles, as well as formal reviews for A-Class status; it also provides a centralized forum for viewing external reviews (such as featured article candidacies) within the project's scope.
Task forces
- Please discuss any proposals for new task forces with the project coordinators or with the project as a whole before creating them.
Task forces are informal groups of editors gathered for collaborative work on a particular topic within the field of military history; all project members are encouraged to participate in any that interest them.
- General topics
- Nations and regions
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- African military history
- Australian military history
- Balkan military history (c. 500–present)
- British military history
- Canadian military history
- Chinese military history
- Dutch military history
- French military history
- German military history
- Indian military history
- Italian military history (c. 500–present)
- Japanese military history
- Korean military history
- New Zealand military history
- Nordic military history
- Polish military history
- Russian and Soviet military history
- Spanish military history
- United States military history
- Periods and conflicts
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- Ancient Near Eastern warfare (c. 4000 BC–c. 700 BC)
- Classical warfare (c. 700 BC–c. 500 AD)
- Medieval warfare (c. 500–c. 1500)
- Early Modern warfare (c. 1500–c. 1792)
- Napoleonic era (c. 1792–1815)
- American Civil War
- World War I
- World War II
Portals
There are a number of portals associated with this project:
- American Civil War
- Cold War
- Italian Wars
- Military history of France
- Military of ancient Rome
- Military of Australia
- Military of Greece
- Military of the United States
- NATO
- United States Air Force
- United States Army
- United States Coast Guard
- United States Marine Corps
- United States Navy
- War
- Weapons of mass destruction
- World War I
- World War II
The various articles used in these portals' "selected article" (and similar) sections are tracked through Category:Military history articles used on portals.
Project award
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The Military history WikiProject Distinguished Service Award (the "WikiChevrons") is the project's official award, to be bestowed on anyone who has made significant contributions to Wikipedia's coverage of military history or to the project itself. It may be awarded by any user, and project members are encouraged to use it to recognize the outstanding work of others.
Project banner
The {{WPMILHIST}} project banner template should be added (not subst:ed) to the talk page of every article within the scope of the project. While the template does not require any additional parameters, it has a number of optional ones that add various extra features to the banner. The full syntax and usage instructions are documented on a separate subpage.
Resources
- More extensive resource lists for particular topics are maintained by the corresponding task forces.
Images, maps, and media
- Please address requests for particular images directly to the Graphic Lab, the Illustration WikiProject, or the Maps WikiProject. To ensure that requests can be considered, it is helpful to provide material such as external images, images from Wikimedia Commons, or clear text descriptions.
- If an image is available online, but cannot be uploaded to Wikipedia, it may be appropriate to use {{externalimages}} to provide a direct link to the image and a (referenced) description of what the image depicts.
- Wikimedia Commons
The category structure used by Wikimedia Commons parallels the one used here to a certain extent, starting from the same top-level categories:
Note, however, that much of the Commons categorization scheme is in an embryonic stage; and that the need for category names to be comprehensible to non-English-speaking users has resulted in some naming conventions that may diverge quite widely from the ones with which Wikipedia editors are familiar.
- Maps
- Please address requests for the creation of new maps or the evaluation of existing ones to the Maps WikiProject.
- Wikimedia Commons Atlas
- Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas
- Atlases of the History Department of the United States Military Academy
- Library of Congress Digital Maps Collection
Translation
- Requests for translation assistance should be made at the corresponding task forces of this project, or at Wikipedia:Translation.