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Brigade -v- Battalion

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Popularity doesn't really come into, I'm afraid. It's a question of strict accuracy and military hierachy. Battalions are typically 500-1,000 men strong: four or six of these form a brigade.

The unit was originally formed in Albacete (Spain) on Oct 1936 as part of IX Brigada Movil ("Mobile Brigade"). The allocation of men was along language lines to make communication easier. The brigade had three battalions (formed on 14 Oct): 1st Bn Franco-Belgian; 2nd Bn Austro-German; 3rd Bn Italo-Spanish; and, on 17 Oct 1936, the 4th Bn Polish-Balkan. On 22 Oct, the IX Brigada Movil was renamed the XI "Hans Beimler" International Brigade, with General "Kléber" (Manfred Stern) commanding. The battalions were renamed as follows:

  • 1st Bn Franco-Belge became 1st Bn Commune de Paris
  • 2nd Bn Austro-German became 2nd Bn Edgar André
  • 3rd Bn Italo-Espanol became 3rd Bn Giuseppe Garibaldi.
  • 4th Bn Polish-Balkan became 4th Bn Jaroslaw Dabrowsky

The Garibaldi battalion wasn't ready so - after some mucking about with the Thalmann battalion, which was moved in and then out - the 4th Bn Jaroslaw Dabrowsky took its place as the 3rd Bn and marched off to defend Madrid. Although the Dabrowsky was later moved to the XII, 150th and XII Brigades it remained a battalion. Later, as its numbers were reduced by casualties, it absorbed various other reduced battalions but it remained at battalion strength. (The same thing happened with the Lincoln Battalion, which Americans nowadays insist erroneously on calling a brigade and is a battle to come :-) But, the Dabrowsky was never designed a Brigade in Spain by the people who mattered, the Spanish Republican Army, the Comintern, André Marty etc. None of this is to decry the unit who were one of the first formed; who were repeatedly at the heart of the action; who repeatedly suffered tremendous casualties with typical Polish courage and élan; and must have been great lads to go out for a beer with. I'll happily write this all up for you with references (the Spanish Civil war is a thing of mine I'm afraid). Roger 19:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am happy to find we have an expert on that. Please expand and correct this article as much as you can, I will see about translating more stuff from pl wiki and Polish sources. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it a DYK-level in the next few days...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting a bit complicated and I'm not sure that the best way to deal with it is in one article. I have my doubts that it can be completed in a few days too. There are (at least) three separate themes here: (1) the 4th "Dabrowski" Battalion, (2) the 150 "Dabrowski" International Brigade and (3) Poles in the Spanish Civil War generally (up to 5,000 but fighting with many different units). The third part needs an umbrella article, with lots of careful cross-referencing into existing pieces. I'll lay the basics of all this down this morning. Roger 04:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was it a part of Polish military history (see stub) or rather Spanish or Soviet? It wasn't one of "Brigades of Poland".
  • Typical Polish courage (see above) is a national stereotype, not welcome in Wikipedia. In fact many considered themselves internationalistic or Jewish.
  • I hope that censored Communist sources will be quoted carefully.
  • How many Polish soldiers were purged?
  • What about CCCP on the picture?

Xx236 10:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Typical Polish courage" (I used it here jocularly). I'm aware of high Jewish percentage: see my numerous other Spanish Civil war contribs.
Agreed. It has little to do with Polish military history. (I thought I'd added Spanish stubs yesterday.) Further the Polish involvement was extensive and fragmented, this unit was just part of it. Better dealt with in a "Poles in the Spanish Civil war" article, putting everything into its context in the bigger picture, which is on my "to do" list.

Roger 10:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from Dabrowski Battalion

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Doubled article This article should be merged into Dąbrowszczacy, article with much more info. Dabrowski Battalion link should be redirect, just like Dąbrowski Battalion.Piotr Mikołajski 09:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree strongly. The Dąbrowszczacy article is confusing because it talks about the activities of the Poles as if they were in one single Polish unit (which they weren't) and is meaningless to English-speakers. To expand:
  • The name Dąbrowszczacy is a Polish word to describe any unit with a strong Polish component serving in Spain. The units though were separate Spanish Army units of international composition and the proportion of Poles in them variously enormously.
  • Thus, the XIII International Brigade (the Dabrowski Brigade) contained at various times: two Spanish battalions (the Juan Marco and Otumba), two mixed Balkan battalions (Dimitrov and Tschapaiew), two French-Belgian battalions (Henri Vuillemin and Louise Michel), one British/American and mixed battalion (Veinte), one Hungarian battalion (Mathis Rakosi), one Polish battalion (Adam Mickiewicz) and one Polish/Soviet battalion (José Palafox).
  • Dąbrowszczacy was never used officially. The units had official Spanish names which overwhelmingly are translated into English (ie el battalón Dabrowski becomes the Dabrowski Battalion).
  • Dąbrowszczacy is not used in the major English language literature. Wikipedia is an English language environment.
  • For a non-Polish speaker, Dąbrowszczacy is difficult to remember and difficult to type. The potential for failed searches is enormous.
  • I think Dąbrowszczacy has a place here but only in the context of an umbrella term for Polish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Any greater use is seriously misleading.
I've copied this over to Dąbrowszczacy.
Roger 11:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Piotr M. that this should be merged until the article is long enough to warrant a split.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  12:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with merging four slightly overlapping pieces into one article. In the short-term, it's an excellent solution. My concern is what it is called. "Dąbrowszczacy" expresses a POV. It is also, by any standard, a slightly eccentric choice for an English-language article about multi-national units operating in Spain. In contrast, a main article called "Dabrowski Battalion and Brigades" (with no "ą") fits well into the existing suite of Spanish Civil War articles and, more to the point, is self-explanatory.Roger 13:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We can consider renaming, if Dąbrowski Battalion (or Brigade) is more popular, but per custom we use diactrics.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suggested Dabrowski Battalion and Brigades (plural) by the way because there were two or three different brigades named after him and thus it neatly wraps up all the components. Forgive me for asking (I'm very new at this) but why would it be customary to include the diacritic in the article name? No matter what the general's birthname was the ordinary everyday name of the units was "Dabrowski". By "correcting" this with a diacritic, isn't there another POV creeping in, prescribing rather than describing? Again, that seems better referred to in the article text, perhaps with an explanation of how it's pronounced. (Here's a better photo of him, by the way, [1]: I found it while I was trying to find his grave in "Père Lachaise".)
Roger 14:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dąbrowski Battalions and Brigades seems sensible title for a merged articles. As for diactrics, they are commonly used. This is indeed an interesting case; however to Poles the battalion was known under the diactric. They certainly wrote it with the diactric. As to how this was spelled in contemporary Spanish documents... we would need some pictures; I'd assume most modern publications omit diactric for technical reasons - but Wikipedia has long time ago moved beyond those technical limitations. I see analogies to Kazimierz Pułaski (not Casimir Pulaski) here.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
i see there's no diacritic on the battalion banner (the image in the article). A search of Spanish language sites reveals they mostly call it "Brigada Dombrowski" (136 hits), "Brigada Dąbrowski" gets 33. Why not just side-step the issue and call it "Dombrowski Battalion and Brigades"? Gen. Dąbrowski called himself Dombrowski offially in France anyway, I see Roger 22:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Because the banner uses "a", not "om", for example? Perhaps we could use more comments on this - I'd suggest requesting comments at WP:PWNB and its Spanish equivalent, maybe also at WP:MILHIST.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO explanation is quite easy. If you want to spell Dąbrowski like we spell it in Polish, you are spelling phonetically "Dombrowski". In fact many less educated Poles make such errors and writes "om" instead of "ą" in many Polish words. Banner was made locally and I'm sure that foreign diacritics can be very difficult to understand and properly reproduce (for example I don't speak French and I don't see difference between "e" and "é", but I'm sure that French speaking people see big difference). Version without diacritics is much easier and that's we see "Dabrowski" there. If we join both we can be sure that unit was called "Dąbrowski", with Polish diacritics. Piotr Mikołajski 07:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Dąbrowski" (the general) changed his name to "Dombrowski" in France. The chief of the International Brigades (André Marty) was French. The bulk of the recruits were (il-educated) miners; it fought with the Spanish Army ; the Command structure was international; the Comintern high command was Spanish, French, Italian, Soviet. on a practical note, I doubt if they had "ą"-keys on their typewriters. I agree that it is grammatically correct in Polish to spell it "Dąbrowski" but that's not the point. The question here is what should an English article about a Spanish Army unit be called. Roger 10:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A good answer begins with checking how is it called by 1) English 2) Polish and 3) Spanish sources. Polish use 'ą', I can vouch for that :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We're going round in circles :) We already know what the units are universally called in English and in Spanish; what they are called in English language archives; what they are called in the main English language literature; and what they called themselves on their banner: Dabrowski and Dombrowski. I have no preference over which is used. (The Wikipedia Naming Convention is "give priority to what the majority of English speakers worldwide would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature". Typing "ą" is not second nature for this English speaker. Roger 10:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's what the redirects are for. This is why we use them. Sure, English speaker will not type in Lech Wałęsa, Kraków or Gdańsk, but nobody is considering moving those articles to less correct versions.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree with you if the Dabrowski Battalion was a Polish Army unit. It wasn't. Incidentally, the following are given English articles titles over preference to the original: The Iron Guard (Rom: Garda de Fier); Free French Forces (Fre: Forces Françaises Libres); French Foreign Legion (Fre: Legion Étrangère); Spanish Legion (Sp: Legión Española); Aragon (Sp: Aragòn); Catalonia (Sp: Cataluña). In Wiki:PL I see that London redirects to "Londyn" and Edinbugh to "Edynburg". Roger 19:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

=New structure proposal

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This subject is of ferocious complexity and our primary aim should be to simplify it. It seems to me that there are two main threads here. The first is the Polish-interest aspect; the second the Spanish Civil War aspect. Although they have some things in common, it's confusing to run the two together. How about therefore:

Roger 10:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to merge Dąbrowszczacy to J.D. article. I feel we are splitting what can be one article into several small ones, which are not well interlinked. I strongly recommend asking at WP:MILHIST for comments.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will ask.
In the meantime, Dąbrowszczacy and Polish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War cover near identical ground. How do you feel about merging the content? And if so, which should be the main article and which the redirect? 20:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea. I'd tentativly support the longer descriptive English version, as there we could describe the few Polish formations who were not D. and the few volunteers (commanders) who served in other units. Dąbrowszczacy may become a disambig, perhaps? Note that when a unit simply changed name, one article is enough; it's mergers/splits that are problematic.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. Dąbrowszczacy is a lovely name and now that I've learned how to type it, I'd be sad to see it go :)
Shall I handle the merger and you handle the disambig? Incidentally something that does need doing is finding articles for the People section (both here and in PL). Roger 21:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you can handel the mergers, please go right ahead. Make sure all the relevant articles link to each other (in text, if not possible, then see also). If you have any article requests, give me red links here on in my talk page and I'll add them to my 'to translate' list (see my userpage, red section on the left); there is also put requests on Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/pl or WP:PWNB. The more sources to translate you can provide about that person, the quicker it will get done :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  04:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't one of "Brigades of Poland".

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I mean the Category.Xx236 07:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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