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There is no point replacing the Westen Front and Scandinavia with empty articles. If someone writes one then they can be replaced with better articels but at the moment Western Front (WWII) and Operation Weserübung are the best available. The Allied campaign in Norway is also a candidate.
The North West Europe Campaign if it refers to anything was the British Canadian push of 44-45. But the Americans fought on a wide front not a narrow one. For example those troops who landed on French med coast (US Seventh Army) in operation Operation Dragoon fought on the Western Front not the "North West European Front". Also the US front stretched from Belgium to Switzerland so if WWI had a Western Front so did WWII. Philip Baird Shearer 20:58, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Done Philip Baird Shearer 00:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Wouldn't Malta count as part of the Battle of the Mediterranean? Oberiko 13:40, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What happend in West Africa?
The Battle of Dakar/Operation Menace, September 1940. Vichy France won, so maybe that's why not many English speakers know about it. There was also the success of the Free French at Gabon, a smaller operation in November. Grant65 (Talk) 15:51, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
Yes I see what you mean. Philip Baird Shearer 16:52, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I suppose long term the article Battle of Madagascar needs to be moved under East Africa, just as Malta needs to placed into a Battel of the Mediterranean article.
But it might fit better into South-East Asian Theatre of World War II, becuase the primary reason for the attack was, that after the Japanese Indian Ocean raid 1942 the British Indian Ocean fleet retreated from Cylon to to Kilindini near Mombasa in Kenya, and Madagascar could have become a forward submarine base for the Japanese to attack that fleet. This is mentioned in the article on that theatre
Such are the complexities of trying to map a global war onto a liniar formated article. :-) What are your thoughts on this Oberiko?
The Horn/East Africa is also east of the Med. I disagree with you over this because the land based Mediterranean theatre did not realy exist until the American entered the war. Before that the land theatre is better described as the Middle East because it was focused on that area, particularly as the major British command was the Middle East command based in Cairo.
It does not really matter if the Madagascar attack was organised from London because it was definatly not reachable from a tube station, so it makes sense to place it in a local geographic theatre as it effected those theatres. I would name an article on the Naval engagements in the Med the Battle of the Mediterranean and include in that the seige of Malta. That article would stand alone from the MET or MT(O). I'm not to hot on an "Indian Ocean theatre" because I am not sure that there is enough independent naval action to justify it, when compared to the Med, Atlantic and Pacific. Philip Baird Shearer 16:31, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Regardless of what one or other military command was called, as a sometime student of Middle East history, I can tell you that the term "Middle East" wasn't all that common until the 1950s. And military commands are sometimes called very idiosyncratic names anyway. Cairo and Egypt were and are in both North Africa geographically and the Mediteranean region geographically. We are not obliged to stick to military conceptualisation/terminology, unless we are dealing with proper names. Which is why I think "Africa and The Mediterranean" is an apt name. I have already started an African Theatres of World War II page for clarification.
I have to agree with Philip about the idea of "Indian Ocean theatre/s": there really wasn't enough action to justify it (and are we then going to have to create a South Atlantic theatre for the Battle of the River Plate?) Grant65 (Talk) 05:58, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
There is another reason for having an larger "Africa & the Mediterranean" category. The forces involved were fairly constant: mostly Commonwealth (with a heavy representation from UK and Africa) and Free French v. Italian, German and Vichy French. Which makes it easier if one is (e.g.) South African or French, and looking for details of battles which S.Africans and French forces fought, rather than hunting through several battles in an "Other" category. Grant65 (Talk) 00:21, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
It is because the actors and the stage changed that I think that Africa (other than North Africa) should not be included in a Mediterranean (land) Theatre. Philip Baird Shearer 00:43, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ah! I think you and I are talking at cross purposes. I am talking about the structure of theatre articles, you are talking about the category in the template. But given that I think that the East Africa should come under "ME Theatre" and Noth Africa should be under "ME Theatre" and "MTO", I tend to agree with Oberiko and the little known, small, "West African" operation should be under Other. Or it should be included in one of the Naval articles; persumably the Mediterranean Naval one as I guess the operations were either run from Gib or used Naval forces based at Gib. Philip Baird Shearer
I thought the point of Wikipedia categories was to direct casual visitors or people who know little about a subject to general articles, such as those on whole campaigns, not direct them to articles which are purely about idiosyncratically-named military commands. By the way, Madagascar lasted six months and involved several divisions; unknown it may be, but there was nothing "small" about it.Grant65 (Talk) 14:52, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not proposing that they are linked by a theatre, which is why the article I've started is called "African theatres..." (plural). The forces in Madagascar were not "from SE Asia", unless you count the two Japanese subs alleged to have been present; as far as I'm aware there were no Free French or S.African forces in SEAsia. The British 5th Div may have been on its way to India, but as I've said before, Wavell was opposed to the operation and India is barely any closer to Madagascar than London. Grant65 (Talk) 01:00, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
I have created a Mediterranean Theatre of World War II article and diverted the "Mediterranean" heading there, as the Mediterranean Theater of Operations article is limited in its scope, i.e. it concentrates on US and British operations, post-1942 and doesn't give the broader geographical picture. (The MTO article is linked into the new article near the top.) There is some overlap with "Africa" and "Middle East", but that makes it easier for people to find particular campaign articles if they are not sure which geographical heading they come under. Grant65 (Talk) 12:21, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
The reason why the Med. and Africa should come before the Middle East in the heading is that the naval campaign was the first in any of those areas, followed by the East African land campaign. Grant65 (Talk) 02:39, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
We have to use common sense rather than relying on names that the military used for convenience. Just because the British MEC was in charge at that point, it doesn't mean that East Africa thereby becomes part of the area that most people call the Middle East (i.e. the area east of Suez). Because of the vagaries of the campaigns, most of these commands covered areas which the name did not suggest, e.g. South West Pacific Area didn't really cover much of the Pacific at all and South East Asia Command was really focussed on South Asia. We need to distinguish between geographical theatres/campaigns and the names of Allied/national military commands. Grant65 (Talk) 02:53, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
The (Allied) commands (and their names) have nothing to do with geography as most people know it, and I think the names of the theatres/campaigns should match commonsense geographical areas. Why should they conform to rather eccentric military terminology, as used by one of the sides involved? Second, the Middle East article does not mention the Mediterrannean naval campaign, which as we know, happened first. Neither should it be, since I have never seen/heard anyone refer to a "Middle East naval campaign". Grant65 (Talk) 23:47, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
I separated the mediterranean, africa and middle east section into two sections. Helps to clarify the geographic location and make more people aware that battles were fought in Iraq, Iran and Syria. Get more people interested. What's wrong with that?
From the history of the template:
Please explain how it is part of World War II as neither of the belligerents were engaged in the general configuration called World War II and the Western Allies seriously considered supporting Finland against the Soviets. Philip Baird Shearer 19:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
In Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement (which is part of WW2 isn't it?) Germany and USSR agrees that USSR can conquer Finland. Germany had already attacked Poland. Give me a valid reason why it isn't part of WWII. "and the Western Allies seriously considered supporting Finland against the Soviets." Sure a valid reason why it isn't WW2? Just because it was early war and USSR was still "axis"?--82.128.134.202 06:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
According to the article, the conflict ended on September 16th, 1939; two weeks after World War II started. Oberiko 23:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
A proposal has been made here to restructure this template into the standard campaignbox format; any comments or suggestions would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 15:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |