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Is it a misnomer to call this the "Italian War"? Seems like the Italian theatre of a wider war. It's an old reference, but the old edition of the Cambridge Modern History says of the war, "the alliance ... promised results, though not in Italy. The main objective this time was the Netherlands." [1]. Really just another installment in the grudge match between the Habsburgs and Valois France. --Iacobus01:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The name comes from "Italian Wars". While the term is, admittedly, a bit of a misnomer in the sense that the latter wars focused less and less on Italy itself, it is, as far as I know, the most common historical term for this series of conflicts. Kirill Lokshin01:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a note on the French effectives for the crucial campaign of 1544, they are important not only in themselves, but because they are a highwater mark for the size of the French army in the whole century. It was a short lived strain on French resources, as Francis I himself stated thatat best, his subjects could support 50.000 troops--Ignacio Arrizabalaga (talk) 20:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting point. I've taken the liberty of cleaning up the footnote formatting a bit to bring it in line with the other ones in the article. Kirill20:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice to have more markers for places. One has to peer at the map to discover that Vitry is Vitry-le-François: the link only goes to a Vitry disambiguation page; it is somewehat the same with Villefranche, whose link goes to a confusing disambiguation page, though with some difficulty I think I identified it on the right of the illustration at the top of the page: a phrase of explanation would have saved me the search time and eye strain.
Fixed Villefranche. Vitry is not, in fact, Vitry-le-François (which was the city as rebuilt by Francis after the war); I'll see if I can find the original name, but I'm fairly certain we don't have an article on the old one anyways. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be Vitry-en-Perche, or en-Perchois. If it's vanished or been built over, I suppose that's why it doesn't have an article.qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
who faced a rebellion in the Low Countries. Why? What was the situation?
This is perhaps a personal minimalism in my writing style, but I don't think that trying to discuss—even in an over-simplified manner—the complex relationship between Charles and his Burgundian subjects is really within the scope of this article. The matter is tangential to the war itself, in any case. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The war arose from the Truce of Nice at the end of the Italian War of 1535–38. But peace arises from a truce, not a war: we need a hint as to why the truce did not hold. (Clearly, it lasted four years before the next war started.)
The important aspect is the terms that were omitted—the settlement of territorial claims; I could mention the French retention of Turin, but I'm not sure it would really mean much to the reader without the context of the rest of that war. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Treaty of Madrid". The reader needs to know the background here: the fact that Francis had been imprisoned by Charles and railroaded into this treaty may explain his unwillingness to ratify it. A mention of that background might help a reader grasp the personal history between the two men.
I don't know; is it really helpful to go into more detail regarding the entire history between the two? I can certainly add some details about the circumstances, but the meat of the matter—the entire chain of conflicting territorial claims between the two—would require quite a bit of text to cover in any comprehensible manner. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not the entire history, just the fact that he signed it when imprisoned by Charles. I believe that is helpful; and it is interesting.qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, fair enough. I'll see how I can work this and all the other terms-of-previous-treaties items into the article. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At least now the reader can set that against Francis's alliance with Suleiman and the billeting of Turkish troops in Toulon. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Francis himself was meanwhile dealing with a revolt in La Rochelle. Further to what I said about this above, it might be worth a sentence or two of context: for example, the revolt may have been planned for when Francis and his enforcers would be distracted by the war; it was about increased taxes that related to his need for money for the war; it took place in a spot with a long history of English involvement and therefore was vulnerable to an English intervention.
Added an explanation of the cause of the revolt; but its eruption just as the war began was mostly incidental (except in the overall sense that Francis's constant wars necessitated tax reform, which seems too far-reaching of a point to explore in great detail here). Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe it was incidental. I believe it took place when it looked like Francis would be busy. And that for strategic reasons, he could not afford to ignore it. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Enghien: worth mentioning that he was a Bourbon and a prince of the blood, with a brief mention of the significance of that? His title in the article disguises him slightly.
I'm not sure that it's worth mentioning, considering his status as such played no role in the war beyond the typical presence of the high nobility in command posts. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The princes of the blood were a key factor in sixteenth-century royal politics. Why else would this young man be given the command if he was not a Bourbon? The Bourbons stood ready to take over if the Valois failed; they had to be accommodated, and, in particular, they had to be accommodated in the south of France. When the Valois dynasty ended, François de Bourbon's brother was the Catholics' choice of king (Charles X), and his nephew, Henry, became the first Bourbon king. I notice that in the Battle of Ceresole article, you do call him François de Bourbon—at least at first. You name Antoine de Bourbon this way, so consistency also comes into it. Still, it is up to you. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Eventually (as all French campaigning in northern Italy); but, as far as I know, the immediate goal was simply to break the stalemate. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
St Dizier: what is the significance of this town? It says that Charles was prevented from crossing the Marne at Jalons, but a look at the map shows that he would have been on the west of the Marne at St Dizier. The map appears to show that he was following the Marne (to meet up with Henry before moving on Paris?). The article seems to chide Francis for not doing much to stop Charles, but strategically was he doing the right thing by staying back? (Looks it to me, but this is original thought, I admit.) The comment that the French response was "nearly non-existent" seems to clash with the fact that the French prevented Charles crossing the Marne at Jalons.
I've tried to clarify this a bit—Charles couldn't move along the far bank of the river due to the French position—but I'm not sure if that's at all apparent from the text. The sources I've used here (Knecht, in particular) don't really consider passive garrisons to be a "response"; but I've reworded that anyways. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think at this stage in military history, fortified garrisons were very much a response. Especially if they were difficult to take or kept an army on the other side of a river. Look at what Montreuil did to the English; and that was no accident (it had recently been re-fortified). The English garrison proved unshiftable once in Boulogne, despite the size of the French army. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Charles had meanwhile reached an understanding with the princes at the Diet of Speyer, and the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg agreed to join his invasion of France. What was the basis of the understanding, given Charles's religious differences with the rulers of Saxony and Hesse? What did he concede?
As with the rebellions in the Low Countries, I don't really think this article is the best place to go into the details of Charles's religious policies in Germany. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On further looking, September 28—not that it matters much, I suppose. I just wanted to see how it timed with Henry's departure (simultaneous, it seems). The wording here perhaps could be clarified, because Norfolk withdrew on hearing of the Dauphin's approach (I'm not sure "descended on" makes that clear). qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
the Emperor would relinquish his claim to the Duchy of Burgundy and the King of France would do the same for the Kingdom of Naples, as well as renouncing his claims as suzerain of Flanders and Artois. This is the first we've heard of these dimensions to the war. Is Charles's claim to Burgundy the reason why he attacks Francis in that part of France?
See my comment above regarding the details of the territorial claims; I'm not sure how much of this needs to be rehashed in each of the war articles in this series. Kirill04:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But it is not satisfying to find out what the war was partly about once it is over. "Rehashed" isn't the word, in my opinion, since readers may come to the articles individually; I haven't read the earlier ones. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mentioned in the article now, albeit briefly; the link to the Treaty of Madrid is hopefully sufficient for anyone looking for a blow-by-blow description. Kirill20:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not clear on the strategy of the siege of Perpignan. The article talks of an offensive. The lead talks of an attempted invasion of Spain, but this is not followed up in the article anywhere. I assume Francis wanted it back, since it had belonged to France in the past. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably the French were hoping to fight the war on enemy territory rather than their own. The sieges of border fortresses are pretty ubiquitous; I'm not sure whether it was intended to be a strategic goal in its own right beyond that. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What were Francis's aims in Piedmont? One presumes he was moving on Milan. I'm surprised that Milan isn't mentioned in the lead, since it is the mother issue of the Italian wars, after all. (I don't agree with you that the war doesn't need a larger context.) The article doesn't mention Charles's appointment of his son Philip as duke of Milan in 1540, a provocative gesture that did as much as anything to destroy the goodwill that enabled Charles's visit to France. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The League demurred. Why? I presume because of Francis's treatment of French Protestants: the Protestant German princes (by the way, should the readers be told what the Schmalkaldic League was?) were in thrall to their reforming theologians. (Wilhelm of Cleves is a different case, more interested in his private territorial claims: he is not one of the hardcore north-east German Protestant nobility.) qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's part of the reason, and is mentioned in the accompanying footnote; should it be brought out to the main text? The other aspect of this is Francis's poor record when it came to helping his allies (cf. the League of Cognac). Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
by 1542, all of the potential French allies in northern Germany had reached their own understandings with the Emperor. Except that we have just been told that Wilhelm married Jeanne d'Albret. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Francis's words "an injury so great..." etc. cry out to be placed in the main text, in my opinion, since they are vivid and voice one of his stated reasons for going to war. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By this point, relations between Francis and Henry VIII had collapsed. Henry—already angered by the French refusal to pay the various pensions, which were owed to him under the terms of past treaties—was now faced with the potential of French interference in Scotland, where he was entangled in the midst of his "Rough Wooing". If by "by this point", you mean when Francis was dealing with the La Rochelle revolt, this is not so. The "Rough wooing" started at the earliest in late 1543. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll see if I can reword this; I'd intended to say that Henry was pursuing his political goals in Scotland, not that the military action had started. This goes back to your earlier comment about the Scottish affair lacking context, incidentally. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have nothing about the nature of the warfare itself: the fortification of St Dizier by Marini is touched on, but should this be linked to the changes in fortification styles (the Italian trace, and so forth) during this period, which made it harder and harder for field armies to move freely and produce decisive results? In terms of the fighting, we are given clues as to the proportions of artillery to cavalry but not their significance to the evolution of warfare, which was increasingly prone to stalemates. The rising cost of warfare, particularly the expense of sieges, on the one hand, and fortification on the other, was surely a reason for Crépy. qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed; as the "Aftermath" mentions, the whole affair was very expensive. This was mostly a matter of keeping a large army in the field for an extended period of time—which long sieges were obviously doing. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He was not, therefore, in a position to assist the German Protestants, who were now engaged in the Schmalkaldic War against the Emperor; by the time any French aid was to be forthcoming. But did did he ever intend to assist them (they hadn't assisted him in the war). Did not the secret agreement part of Crépy include Francis's commitment to assist Charles against the German Protestants? qp10qp (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Francis was not exactly known for keeping the terms of his agreements with Charles, of course. Knecht writes that "In November [1546], Annebault declared that the imperial alliance needed to be preserved at all costs, regardless of the Protestants. By January 1547, however, the military situation had become so ominous for the Protestants that Francis saw the need to strengthen their hand" (518). Perhaps this should be noted in the article, either directly or in a footnote. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! This is by far the most thorough review one of my articles has received, incidentally; thank you very much for taking the time to go through it. Kirill10:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a simple one: the citation templates do not currently support generating citations in CMS format, which is a standard for historical writing, and much less prone to misleading dates when dealing with non-original editions than the APA style generated by the templates. I have no particular objection to templates in principle; what I do object to is arbitrarily switching to a date-centric citation style. Kirill[talk][pf]12:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no standard of citation for historical writings. But even if there was any, I wouldn't consider it useful to have all kinds of different citation styles in Wikipedia, depending on the articles' topic. Template:Citation provides consistency in citation style, like every encyclopedia should have. --bender235 (talk) 12:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to force everyone to use a particular style in every article, then you need to get WP:CITE and WP:MOS changed to mandate that. I suspect you'll have little success.
In the meantime, CMS-style citations remain entirely permitted in Wikipedia, and it's inappropriate for you to change articles to use a different style merely because you dislike this one. Kirill[talk][pf]12:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is one very strong argument against citation templates, and that's the vast amounts of pointless code that they generate. This makes articles more difficult to edit for newbies and those who aren't comfortable twith huge swaths of syntax. I've been editing for several years and I consider citation template an annoying nuisance that I avoid at all costs. The negative dinkiness that they intoduce into the raw code outweighs the fairly insignificant benefits of standardization.
That newbie-editing argument is baseless, since specific bibliographic information rarely gets edited at all, let alone by a newbie. And that "pointless code" Template:Citation produces actually makes bibliographic information machine-readable. --bender235 (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's only baseless if you ignore that all that referencing is plopped right in the middle of article content. We're usually talking about huge swaths of code that makes reading the raw wiki syntax quite a challenge, particularly when citations are stacked. It can be a considerable, time-wasting hassle to anyone who isn't comfortable with this type of formatting. Just imagine what it does for people who have even a mild form of dyslexia or similar reading difficulties. And to me it's just so much easier to format the citations on my own, especially since I have no use for anything but shorthand notes.
When champions of standardization and machine readability actually start presenting sleek, easy, non-intrusive solutions that don't just fit their own ideas of what constitutes easy, generally accesible editing, I'll be willing to listen. Until then, I will simply never agree with any suggestion of forcing editors to start using this or that template simply to comply with dinky software limitations.
The overriding principle of citation style, and indeed most stylisitic points, on Wikipedia is that if there are multiple formats that are allowed, and the article is internally consistent in its usage, then the format should not be changed unless there is consensus to do so. Accusations of ownership are baseless and irrelevant. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Furthermore, using {{harvnb}} and {{citation}} in the same article, as was apparently the intent here, introduces internal inconsistency; the former, obviously, generates Harvard-style citations, but the output of the latter is not Harvard-style works cited listings.
(Although, looking at it more closely, {{citation}} isn't generating proper APA style either. Which part of the formatting is wrong depends on whether the template was intended to use APA or Harvard style—it's close to both—but, in either case, there are errors in the output.) Kirill[talk][pf]23:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you got something wrong here: {{harvnb}} would be useless if not implemented together with {{citation}} in the same article. {{harvnb}} produces a link to an HTML anchor in the bibliographic section, and that anchor can only be done with {{citation}} (unless you want to implement HTML directly).
Anyway, I think I got your point. You want to use a citation style in this article that is commonly used in scientific literature on the topic. However, as a last consequence, that would lead to dozens of different styles within Wikipedia (given that physicists would use a different style for their articles than economists, and sociologists and so on...). I'm afraid that would only confuse a Wikipedia reader. In the end, I'd like to all Wikipedia use a similar citation style, and I think implementing {{citation}} is the best way to do that. --bender235 (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what the point of using {{harvnb}} and {{citation}} together is, and I have absolutely nothing against the mechanics of linking between citations and bibliographic entries using templates; my concern there is that the two templates actually produce two different citation styles.
As far as your second point goes, I disagree that differing citation styles are bad in and of themselves. Realistically, the average reader—one with no interest in the topic—is quite unlikely to dig through the citations; someone that does that is almost certainly going to be an individual with some interest or background in the subject area. I think it's reasonable to orient our citation styles towards those readers; and, if we do, then it's important to realize that the different citation styles used in the real world have not been developed arbitrarily, but are adapted for forms of citation which are actually common in their respective disciplines. For example, scientific writing generally leans towards date-centric styles (e.g. Harvard, APA) because it's common for people involved in those disciplines to refer to works by the date of publication. Conversely, historical writing tends to lean towards title-centric styles (e.g. CMS, Turabian) because the people involved tend to identify works by the title rather than by the year. Forcing a single citation style across all articles will look superficially "consistent", but will actually inconvenience most serious readers because they'll be faced with a style with which they're not familiar, and which provides them with information of little value to them at the expense of information which they normally use.
I think a more reasonable goal might be to adopt some common scheme of templates, to ensure consistent generation of machine-readable metadata and so forth; but have these templates set up such that the actual rendered text can be in one of several common styles, at the choice of each article's editors. However, we're simply not there yet with the technical infrastructure for something like this. Kirill[talk][pf]00:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fully standardizing ref styles on Wikipedia will never happen simply because not everybody likes the same format. I have used several forms of citation in articles I have worked on, and don't care which format is used, but there are plenty of editors who do care. As I said before, what is important is that a) the article is internally consistent and b) the citations have all necessary bibliographic info. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Kirill on the use of CMS. It is a very common form in historical research. Some groups of historians would also favour Turabian, but any form of chicago is common.SADADS (talk) 20:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I should also add that claims about differing citation styles leading to confusion among readers will always be a straw man argument. Anyone who wants to verify a reference in any of the different citation styles will have no problem doing so as long as they actually attempt to look it up. All styles specify the same basic information: author, publication/year of publication, page number. This is the system around which all library systems around the world adhere to, and it's pretty much all you need to find any given work.
Good featured article; I enjoyed reading it a lot.
One thing I would like to see in the article is more detail about that French expeditionary force to Scotland that landed in May, 1545. Specifically: 1) How strong was it? 2) Who commanded it? 3) Where in Scotland did it go? 4) Did it ever do anything significant? 5) Did it ever get back to France, and if so, how and when?
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any information about this force, other than that it existed. Given that there's no mention of any attacks from Scotland during that period, I suspect the force didn't do anything noteworhy. Kirill[talk][pf]15:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox never suggested such a thing. It stated that they were part of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a fact. Saxony and Brandenburg weren't great powers at the time, on par with Spain or England. The reverted version of the infobox suggests that. Hence, I'll change the format back accordingly. Str1977(talk)12:17, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Str1977: The nested layout in the infobox does suggest that Saxony and Brandenburg were under Charles' control, unfortunately; the two are listed as subsidiary items under the Holy Roman Empire, which is itself listed as a subsidiary item under the empire of Charles V. I've tried to clarify this by adding a second, separate header line for the states of the Holy Roman Empire and listing Saxony and Brandenburg under it rather than under Charles V directly; does that work for you? Kirill[talk]12:32, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't. It would be better simply to get rid of the "Empire of Charles" bit since it was merely a personal union. Your new version implies that the war, among others, pitted the Holy Roman Empire against the Holy Roman Empire. However, Saxony and Brandenburg were in line with their King/Emperor while Jülich-Berg were in rebellion. BTW, as parts of the HRE, Saxony and Brandenburg were very well "under the control" of the Emperor, though not completely. In 1540s, the states of the HRE were far from being independent. Str1977(talk)13:31, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Thenationalist.dk You have made many new alterations into this article. The "Danish Participation" part lacks good sources. Allow me to elaborate; When it comes to Book sources, it is important to also state which pages the information is from. I hope that you understand the importance of this and I hope that you fulfill this request as soon as possible. Oxieltro (talk) 14:10, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually Oxieltro, you could have just left the information and added a {{citation needed}} tag. Since you have posted on Thenationalist.dk's talk page, you should have noticed a paragraph mentioning the Treaty of Speyer complete with citation. --Kansas Bear (talk) 16:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]