Talk:Battle of Verdun

General statements and questions

The horrifying aspect about this battle is that the Germans never intended to overrun Verdun. Their primary goal was to win through a war of attrition. The German calculus was that they had one number of men coming to military age each year and France had a smaller. Eventually, the theory went, after both sides fought for long enough, France would be the first to run out of fighting men.

At Verdun there is now a memorial to the battle. Aside from the graves there, the bones of soldiers who could not be identified were removed from the battlefield and put in a massive Ostuary. Visitors can walk around the outside and see these bones piled inside through low windows.

I don't have a lot of details, how many soldiers' bones are there? How many graves? What were those numbers in the German calculus?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.75.4.159 (talk • contribs) 19:58 3 September 2003 (UTC)

Casualty figures and other problems

The article had considerable confusion about the size of the battle and the casualty figures (probably due to the usual way in which total casualties — killed, wounded, prisoner, missing — get reinterpreted as killed only). In particular there was a claim in the opening that the battle caused a million deaths. This seems rather unlikely given the official French figures of 162,308 killed or missing. There was also a claim that it was the bloodiest battle in history, which also seems very unlikely: [1] makes it the twelfth bloodiest in the 20th century. I changed the numbers and claims accordingly.

there was about a quarter million killed in all and a half million wounded.

It would be nice to be able to estimate the maximum numbers of troops on each side in the battle. Gdr 13:31, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

Recent edits Comment

@Reaper1945: Do you have the page number for that data? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 00:07, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

It's on page 226 of Philpott's book, with him stating that "The Germans had inflicted by French reckoning 377,000 casualties on their army, of which 162,000 were killed. The Germans themselves suffered 337,000 casualties. Other imprecise estimates put the total casualties both sides suffered around Verdun over four years as high as 1,250,000." Reaper1945 (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, just found it in the Casualties section. Hope it wasn't me that wrote the higher figure. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Recent edits

@Reaper1945: You're basing your edit on a 26-year old source. What has been written since? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Flags

The flags before the commanders names do serve a useful purpose as they make it easier to navigate through the commanders list as the anonymous editor already stated. There are no specific reasons why we aren't allowed to use the flags anyway and they only make the lists easier to read so please stop removing them. There is no reason to do so. The fact that I have to discuss such a minor thing in the talk page is ridiculous.MylowattsIAm (talk) 14:37, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I find them to be unnecessary duplication and in fact annoying. The column headers already have flags. Sticking one beside each commander's name is pointless and makes the lists harder to navigate. Intothatdarkness 15:17, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how it could possibly be annoying to have some kind of marker that indicates where one commanders name starts and another ends. Otherwise it looks like a long sausage of text, not a list that's supposed to list several items, in this case peoples names. The IP user already proposed an alternative but that obviously got revert bombarded as well. MylowattsIAm (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I didn't mind the bullets, but the flags are annoying blobs of color that are totally unnecessary in a column layout when the header already has national flags. What makes the commanders' names tricky is that due to the column spacing some of them carry over to two lines. Still...if you're using the links or paying attention it's not a big deal in my view. Intothatdarkness 17:17, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I am glad someone did not mind the bullets but they were continously removed all the time so no matter what solution someone proposes, it gets rejected all the time. The flags are a standard across Wikipedia so I fail to see why we could not use them to mark where one name starts and another ends because as you said, the commanders' names are tricky because due to the column spacing some of them can carry over to two lines and thats why we need the markers. Do you support the inclusion of bullets to mark them then? MylowattsIAm (talk) 20:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Bullets - possibly, if there's no spacing solution and others feel it helps. Flags - No. Intothatdarkness 20:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

How can a list from the left margin be difficult to read? No flags or bullets. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 21:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

i agree with putting the flags in.. Where the flags would be different they are very useful. Compare the Battles of Waterloo or ,Monte Casino. where there were commanders from different countries on one side and Blenheim where there were multiple countries on both sides. Passchendaele.is one where there ought to be flags but there are are not and it does not look as good.. I have looked at a number of Battle pages picked at random and nearly all of them have flags for the Generals and Admirals except for Passchendaele and battles of the English and American civil wars e.g. Naseby and Gettysburg. For two country battles they do not serve the same purpose but they are still there. eg Midway and The Nile (1798). The Battle of Quebec (1759) is an example of a two country battle where there is a different flag for one commander on the British side (although I think the naval flag itself is wrong.- I think it should be the White Ensign not the Red) Spinney Hill (talk) 00:14, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

There are only two sides here. Flags for each commander look both messy and is overkill. They also take up space. And Keith-264, the commander list is on the right margin, not the left (at least in the layout I use). On a larger monitor it's fine, but on a laptop it does look cramped (and I refuse to use any kind of mobile device to look at this stuff, but I suspect it's worse there). Intothatdarkness 00:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

No flags, that is clearly established by WP:INFOBOXFLAG and WP:MILMOS#FLAGS. Mztourist (talk) 02:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Nowhere in there is it established that no flags should be used. It literally says it's not recommended nor is it forbidden which means it's completely neutral towards using flags and lets the editor decide. Seems like you just read the first part where it says "not recommended" and decided that it immediately means there should be no flags used. MylowattsIAm (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I have read those two guidelines and I wouldn't be that dogmatic. Spinney Hill (talk) 08:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Wrong, MOS says flags should not be used unless they convey useful information not covered in the text. Here the flags are merely decorative and should not be used. Mztourist (talk) 08:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

It seems that pretty much everyone is opposed to flags in this specific article. Pretty ridiculous but whatever. It seems that me and another user are in support of using atleast the the bullets. Would you Support it, @Spinney Hill? Then we would have atleast some consensus on how to mark the names. MylowattsIAm (talk) 12:46, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that flags have obviously been used almost universally in this kind of article with some support from the guidelines. I'm afraid bullet points are neither here nor there but I usually use w/p on a PC using the old layout so I don't know much about you problem. Spinney Hill (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Im not sure what you mean. You dont necessarily need to know much about the problem in this context, flags are generally used in articles like these but it seems that there are more of us who support the use of bullets and since you support using at least some kind of markers for the names as far as I understand, then would you support the use of those bullets here in this article? MylowattsIAm (talk) 15:49, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

It can easily he hard to read, especially on mobile. Some commanders names literally start in one line and end on a second line like happens to the name of Fernand de Langle de Cary where the surname Cary ends up on the line below. Just because you don't see a problem doesn't mean others don't as well. We need markers to indicate where one name starts and another ends. MylowattsIAm (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] Interesting, I didn't know that the names could be right aligned; what does that? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Simply open this article from your phone and look at the list. Does it look comfortable to you to read through and immediately notice where one name starts and another ends? It looks like a long sausage of text. MylowattsIAm (talk) 08:32, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a phone, I use a laptop, hence my surprise. Could the remedy lie in altering your settings? This hasn't come up before. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:45, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I have just checked on my (Android) phone and have no difficulty distinguishing the different names. They are not a "long sausage of text." Mztourist (talk) 08:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

They are a long sausage of text and do not even look like a list. Some commanders names literally start in one line and end on a second line like happens to the name of Fernand de Langle de Cary where the surname Cary ends up on the line below and that is no good. It could easily be avoided if we used markers and made it look like a proper list. Two other editors here on the talk page have already said they disagree with you dogmatic, as one described them, views that we should in no way use any markers. The use of bullets already was supported by one user. MylowattsIAm (talk) 10:18, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

All the commanders' names are linked, if you click on any of them that takes you to their respective pages, so no confusion at all. You are creating a WP:MOLEHILL here just because you want to keep purely decorative flags. Mztourist (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I never said I "want to keep purely decorative flags". Firstly, they are not purely decorative, I already explained what they are for and secondly I am up for other options as well in how we could indicate the items on a list such as usage of bullets. MylowattsIAm (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps but all this settings thing that one could have to do is much harder and could easily be avoided if we could just mark where one name starts and another ends. MylowattsIAm (talk) 10:14, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

There's bound to be a help board on wiki for things like this. Changing Wiki because of one mobile phone seems back-to-front. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

It is not just one mobile phone, that is exactly how it would look for anyone who opens the page from a mobile phone. Its not like my phone is special and the only phone in the world where it would look like that. Thats not how mobile phones work. MylowattsIAm (talk) 11:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I remain opposed to flags in this case, phones or no phones. With only two sides, flags serve no purpose other than decoration. And to clarify, I said I might not be opposed to bullets if there was a broader consensus to use them. Intothatdarkness 12:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

"it would look for anyone who opens the page from a mobile phone" how do you know? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 13:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I cant tell if this is a serious question or if youre trolling. MylowattsIAm (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)