Talk:Batavian Republic

Fleshing out

Though the article is adequate as a stub, I think it would benefit from fleshing out, and providing notes and references (as requested). I intend to give a little more detail about the several Constitutions of the new Republic, the three coups d'etat, and the dismal story of the Schimmelpenninck regime. The relationship with the French republic and empire and its vicissitudes may also bear a little more description. This will take a while, so please bear with me.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC) This is taking more time than I expected :-) I try to put as many pertinent wikilinks in this article as possible and it makes for slow going. Let me therefore set out my "program" for those maybe anxiously following my progress. I intend to complete the following subsections of the "Stages of the history of the Republic" section:

• "revolutionary" States-General
• Struggle for a constitution
• The Uitvoerend Bewind
• Russo-British invasion of 1799
• The Staatsbewind
• The Peace of Amiens and aftermath
• The Schimmelpenninck regime

And then an Aftermath section and a Note about the historiography of the Batavian Republic. Until this program is complete the article will look a bit ragged, so please bear with me a bit longer.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I have now finished the rewrite, though there are always details to take care of.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:02, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Worries about writing style

I think the improvements are very good. But, I notice a colloquial style which does not fully fit the serious nature of Wikipedia. Could you please try to use a more scientific style of writing for future improvements. One of the problems with the very narrative style used is that it introduces problems with neutral point of view. For example consider this opening line: "The final days of the Dutch Republic were quite eventful. After the disastrous Fourth Anglo-Dutch War the Patriot party staged a revolt against the authoritarian regime of stadtholder William V that was struck down by an intervention of William's brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia in June 1787.".
IMHO this has several subjective elements that do not fit WP:NPOV. "Quite eventful" - sais who. "Disastrous Fourth A-D war" - disastrous value judgement. "Authoritarian regime" - a very derogatory phrase, either give a source, or use a less controversial phase. I hope this helps. Arnoutf (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose one could always write more "scientifically"; it is an ever-receding fata morgana :-) However I stand by my qualifications "disastrous" for the 1780-1784 war, and "authoritarian regime" for William V. I have added citations from the sources I already used, but I could easily find many other historians who share my opinion on these points.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Batavian Republic box

I think the box is nice in itself, but I think Amsterdam only became the capital under the Kingdom of Holland in 1808 (there was a flap about this anniversary not being properly celebrated this year). In as far as there was a capital this should be The Hague, I think (de facto, as under the old Republic). I don't think there was an official language, but next to Dutch at least Frisian should be mentioned as a de facto spoken language (and maybe other regional languages).--Ereunetes (talk) 22:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

There was an official language. Just like the fact that Batavia was an independant country, and therefore not a piece of France. Sometimes, de facto is the same as official. More often, such is not the case. Would you know that England has once been a Republic? That is, if we relate only to official facts. Nudge nudge. We know what that means. --82.134.28.194 (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Batavian Republic/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I will be happy to review this article for GAC. H1nkles (talk) 17:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

GA Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   Prose is average, could be better.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Lead is especially lacking and should be upgraded.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   I added to some assertions that should be cited. There are several paragraphs that need citations.

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Watch POV statements

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   check clean up tags on photos.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Lead

• An article of this length should have a full three paragraph lead. See WP:LEAD for the requirements. This will have to be expanded before I can pass the article. H1nkles (talk) 17:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead has been expanded, as requested. No wikilinks and citations have been included, as these would duplicate links and citations elsewhere in the article.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:24, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Background

• wikilink Flanders Campaign since you refer to it in your further information section.

This "further" tag was gratuitously included; now deleted.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I put it back, with the required wikilink, because I think that it has merit after all.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

• Watch NPOV in this section, example - "Due to the disastrous[1] Fourth Anglo-Dutch War...." disastrous for for whom? "...the Patriots joined in, hoping to liberate their country from its authoritarian yoke." You're writing from the perspective of the Patriots, it should be more neutral in tone. H1nkles (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

"disatrously for the Dutch"; there already was a justifying citation for this claim, as for the qualification "authoritarian" If anybody took the viewpoint of the Patriots, it was Schama, whose narrative is followed. The Patriots may have had a point. Thomas Jefferson, a contemporary, shared this point of view of the Orangist regime.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Stages in the history of the new republic

• I added a to the following sentence, "The fact that the Dutch revolution was not as bloody as the French one had been at times, is (besides the fact that the Terror had already passed by the time of the French invasion) mainly due to the moderation of the Dutch revolutionaries." This needs to be cited.

I'll find the reference or delete the sentence.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this sentence is in a general introduction. It is therefore difficult to retrieve it from Schama, unlike other citations, as I more or less followed Schama's narrative. But this is out of sequence. So I deleted the sentence as it isn't worth the trouble. Maybe I can restore the sentence if I find the reference one of these days.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:15, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Your "History of the Low Countries" table breaks up the paragraphs in this section and should be reformatted so that the text does not get broken. See wp:access for more information on this. H1nkles (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

These tables are indeed a pest. Everybody drops these darn things into articles without a by-your-leave. I have moved this one out of the way to a place where it does not seem to do harm, but I would prefer to simply delete it, like all the other tables (e.g. the client-states table at the top of the article, that serves no useful purpose in my view). Is there a policy that we have to accept these vanity inserts?--Ereunetes (talk) 23:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Struggle for a constitution

• Another POV statement, "In this force-field the federalists held the upper hand after the unfortunate sudden demise of Paulus (who might otherwise have acted as a unifier)." "Unfortunate" is a value word and should be avoided.

"Unfortunate" deleted.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Does citation 26 in the last paragraph cover all the facts stated in that paragraph? If not then it should be better cited. H1nkles (talk) 18:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Citation 26 does indeed cover the paragraph and not just the percentage of people voting. I have put the latter information into the main text from the note.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The Uitvoerend Bewind

• "Disaffection" used three times in the paragraph, consider rewording.

Two instances reworded. Actually, the repetition was intended as a rhetorical device.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• "The new regime was soon to discover that changes don't easily come about by legislative fiat. The part of the constitution that worked adequately was the experiment with indirect democracy. During the period in which the constitution was in force the system of primary assemblies that elected delegates who voted for the respective organs of government worked efficiently, and kept the voters engaged for a long time. However, exactly because the republic was a genuine democracy, other goals of the regime were less easy to attain. The elections often put people into office that were very much opposed to the unitary state that was now enshrined in the constitution, and to other innovations that it entailed, or in any case were of a conservative inclination." you need to cite this paragraph. H1nkles (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I am on it. Hope to provide the references shortly.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Found it! Fortunately this one was in sequence.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• The economic turmoil of the republic should be its own section, add the main article tag in the middle of this section to the top of the new section related to the economics.

I take it the actual objection is against the "Main"-tag in the middle of the section. Nevertheless, I have put in a new sub-subsection, though this has its own downside.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• POV statement, "When he put these sensible reform proposals to the Representative Assembly on September 30, 1799, they met with massive resistance." "Sensible" is a value word that should be avoided. H1nkles (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

"Sensible" removed, though I still think the proposals were sensible :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Anglo-Russian expedition

• The first two paragraphs in this section need in-line citations.

Citations provided.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• The photo in this section has a clean-up tag, it needs an author. Please address this.

The photo apparently is no longer there, or I can't find it. Probably another example of people messing up the article with vanity inserts. In any case, problem solved if it isn't there.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• "with a harebrained scheme in which the Hereditary Prince was to become a kind of constitutional monarch in a constitution on the model of the American Constitution." "Harebrained" not a good word to use, unencyclopedic and POV. H1nkles (talk) 19:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

"Unencyclopedic" no less :-) However, if "harebrained" causes offense I'll be happy to remove it.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Intermission

I'm going to stop my review at this point and wait for you to make fixes. There are issues of POV, the Lead, photo clean-up tag, and more citations needed. Once these are addressed I will continue my review. I'll hold the article for one week. H1nkles (talk) 19:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

GA fail

At this point I have held the article for over a week with no response to my list of concerns. So I will have to fail the article. Please address these issues and resubmit. Thanks. H1nkles (talk) 22:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem was that you were talking into a void, I am afraid. Though I watch this page, for some reason I didn't get your GA-related requests. I'll humbly put in a request for reconsideration (though I didn't put in the original request) as soon as I have provided the two references that are still lacking.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have found one of the two missing citations and deleted the sentence near the other. So I think I addressed all your above concerns with the article. I have to say that it is amazing how many distractions were slipped in by no-doubt well-meaning, but expertise-challenged fellow wikipedians. I have deleted a number of spurious "main articles" while I was at it, but I may have missed some trash. Anyway, I hope you'll look at it again.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

"Young Turks"

May I suggest that the use of the term "Young Turks" is an anachronism here - the term wasn't coined until the early 1900's. I suggest using a more generic term. Tobeprecise (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

'with its discrimination of'

Discrimination _against_, maybe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.176.105.153 (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit war

I am afraid we are having an edit war on our hands.User:Loginnigol just reverted two of my edits, one in which I provided the citation he previously had asked for himself in the lead; the other in which I modified a phrase to answer his criticism of the phrase "Anglo-Prussian". I don't know what got into this person: I complained on his talk-page, but he is clearly in a great dander. I'll try to revert this latest revert, as it is pure vandalism.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I just removed the Refimprove-template that User:Loginnigol added on 8 April 2013 at 20:08 and which appears part of the harassment I pointed out above. I think the article is adequately supported by references, and the one reference he asked for in the lead has already been supplied. So there is no cause to put the template on the article.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Batavian Republic/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

== Formatting issues == Someone needs to hop in here and clean up the formatting a little, I don't know how. ;) Apolloae 07:55, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 07:55, 13 May 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Dutch Republic not "the intermittent constitutional monarchy/republic"

I have removed the POV-phrase "the intermittent constitutional monarchy/republic" from the "Background" section, because the Dutch Republic was never a constitutional monarchy, not even "intermittently", as stadtholder William V would have been the first to acknowledge. Though stadtholders Wiliam III, IV and V at times achieved powers that were almost dictatorial this never altered the constitutional position of the stadtholder as an appointed functionary, with an "instruction" from the sovereign States of the provinces that appointed them. The fact that the office became "hereditary" in all provinces after 1747 (before that only in Friesland) only meant that the only candidate for the office was the current head of the House of Orange-Nassau (in earlier stages of the Republic's history non-members had been stadtholders). But he still had to be appointed and receive his instruction, as happened in 1766 when William V was appointed. William V always took care to acknowledge the sovereignty of the States General, even during his exile after 1795. Furthermore, the deleted phrase does not add anything useful to the section, even if it were correct.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:53, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Map in the wikibox

Would it be an idea to change the map in the wikibox to a better one? I find that the current map is a little too abstract with some of the borders.

FatMax1492 (talk) 10:16, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

"Army of Holland (France)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Army of Holland (France) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 18#Army of Holland (France) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:07, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

"Armée de Hollande" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Armée de Hollande and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 18#Armée de Hollande until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:09, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

NPOV language problems

To quote WP:NPOV: * Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity. Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Do not editorialize. When editorial bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed. The only bias that should be evident is the bias attributed to the source.

This article is a mess of non-neutral, editorializing language. It looks like some of this goes back to the time of the GA reviews and was noted therein. Frankly, I'm surprised it passed GA and that it hasn't come up since and been de-listed. Just glancing at the intro, phrases like "French overlords" and "slavishly follow French dictates" are obviously and wildly inappropriate. CAVincent (talk) 05:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I tried to at least clean up the lead, but it looks like a significant re-write of the article's language is needed. CAVincent (talk) 05:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Enlighten me: how many good articles did you write yourself? We would all like to profit from your expertise. The revisions you made amount to watering down the text and contain at least one spelling error (the past tense of "lead" is "led" not "lead"). Ereunetes (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I say to-may-to & NPOV, you say to-mah-to & "watering down the text", I guess. I tend to value NPOV over vivid writing in Wikipedia main space. Sorry about the typo. You could have fixed it yourself, of course, this being the encyclopedia that anyone can copyedit. CAVincent (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2023 (UTC)