Talk:Richard Haking/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: HandsomeFella (talk · contribs) 20:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs) 22:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Picking this one up. Review to follow. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

• "Haking was probably born in Halifax, West Yorkshire" Do we have a full name and date of birth?

• Mention his three sisters?

• The meme that "morale and leadership were the most important factor in winning a battle... that the attacker would have the advantage over the defender, even if numerically inferior" has been thoroughly debunked. Are you sure that Corrigan is not being quoted out of context?

• The GSO1 was not the chief of staff but the head of the operations branch. Administration and logistics was under the AA&QMG, who was also answerable to the GOC

• Haig nominated Morland, Horne, Gough and Haking for command of a corps; there was no mention of an army command

• "Lloyd agrees with Prior & Wilson" You haven't said who they are. Do you have their book? It isn't in the references.

• Ousting of Sir John French: MOS:PARA deplores one-sentence paragraphs

• BEF is not defined in the body

• There is some inconsistency regarding the hyphenation of ranks

• Do not abbreviate the ranks!!!

• Did Bourne write the chapter on Haking in Beckett and Corvi? If so, can he be credited?

• Give Munro, Barrow, Butler, Harrington, Howard, Walker etc names in full on first use

• General Walker -> Major-General Harold Walker. Should also mention that he commanded the 1st Australian Division

• "for which insubordination he would most likely have been relieved had he been commanding British troops" I flatly do not believe this; Walker was a British Army officer. What exactly does the source say?

• "the 5th Australian Division under J. W. McCay" -> "the 5th Australian Division under Major-General J. W. McCay"

• You mention the 5th Division, the least experienced of the Australian divisions, having only recently been formed and arrived in France, but not the 61st Division. The reader might infer that the references to inexperienced troops referred to the former only, which was not the case.

• Note e requires a footnote (use Bean)

• You talk about the density of the artillery, but do not say how many guns there was

• "18th and 14th Australian brigades" That is an error; it was the 8th Brigade.

• "Paul Cobb puts the blame with McCay and his staff for not processing Haking's orders quickly enough." You already refuted that.

• "10pm" space before pm (MOS:TIME)
• "Haking was not a believer in "defence in depth", but Andy Simpson argues that this was not necessarily a bad thing." That's not what he says.

• Link Edwardian era, Brigadier-general (United Kingdom), cult of the offensive, QF 18-pounder gun, trench raiding, Fromelles, Lille, Ypres, Messines, Vimy Ridge, 8th Brigade (Australia), 14th Brigade (Australia), 15th Brigade (Australia), 58th Battalion (Australia), Royal Flying Corps, Cyril Wagstaff

Given that GA is supposed to be a low bar, the above is submitted for consideration.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)