Talk:9 January 1917 German Crown Council meeting

A fact from 9 January 1917 German Crown Council meeting appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 January 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that on 9 January 1917, German Emperor Wilhelm II agreed to implement unrestricted submarine warfare?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/9 January 1917 German Crown Council meeting.

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This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

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	Maritime warfare task force
	European military history task force
	German military history task force
	World War I task force

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TSventon (talk) 12:21, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that on 9 January 1917 German Emperor Wilhelm II agreed to implement unrestricted submarine warfare? Source: "The decision to cut the thin thread that held the sword was made on 9 January 1917 at a crown council held at the emperor's residence in Pless , Silesia . The date of 1 February was set as the date for opening the campaign. All shipping, enemy and neutral, including passenger ships, would be liable to attack without warning" from: Breemer, Jan S. (2010). Defeating the U-boat: Inventing Antisubmarine Warfare. Government Printing Office. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-1-884733-77-2.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Oliver Hailey
- Comment: Would be good to run on the anniversary

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 12:54, 12 December 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Dumelow: Good article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 15:04, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

no, it's unclassified, not a GA yet :) – dudhhr^talk _contribs (he/they) 16:18, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dumelow and Onegreatjoke:, I think it is time for the nomination to be promoted to prep, however I don't think the hook fact is expressed clearly in the body of the article. Dumelow, Could you reword it? The key sentence seems to be "Wilhelm declared that he was persuaded by the arguments in favour of unrestricted submarine warfare."^[1] The source refers to the Kaiser "declaring that ‘Unrestricted U-Boat warfare was therefore decided’.", which makes it clear that the Kaiser was declaring the council's decision, rather than his own opinion. TSventon (talk) 10:57, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good point TSventon, I've added "and that the policy would be adopted" to the article text. The council was only advisory and the decision lay entirely with Wilhelm - Dumelow (talk) 11:20, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Beckett, Ian F. W. (15 November 2012). The Making of the First World War. Yale University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-300-16366-7.

German Crown Council

@Dumelow:, do your sources explain what the German Crown Council was? There is an article at fr:Conseil de la couronne (Empire allemand) and it is mentioned at de:Bismarcksche Reichsverfassung#Kronrat. TSventon (talk) 13:42, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TSventon, sorry, not really beyond that it was an advisory council convened by the Kaiser (it is presumably of similar nature to the others listed at Crown Council). The German Crown Council comes up a few times in WWI histories I've read. There's discussion of some towards the end of the war in Herwig, Holger H. (1983). "Tunes of Glory at the Twilight Stage: The Bad Homburg Crown Council and the Evolution of German Statecraft, 1917/1918". German Studies Review. 6 (3): 475–494. doi:10.2307/1429756. ISSN 0149-7952. and there's widespread coverage in contemporary newspapers of a July 1917 Crown Council that defined Germany's war aims - Dumelow (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you @Dumelow:, I think it would be useful to add a couple of sentences similar to the content of the fr article on the German Crown Council to the article, but only if sources could be found. TSventon (talk) 09:54, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks TSventon. I've done a but more digging and found some sources to add as background, also added some more details of the meeting from a new source - Dumelow (talk) 12:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you @Dumelow:, that was helpful. TSventon (talk) 10:02, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear statement.

The article states "The policy increased the quantity of shipping sunk by U-boats to 500,000 tons in February 1916, 600,000 tons in March and 870,000 tons in April." There was no unrestricted submarine warfare in 1916. There was only the intensified one. Germany restarted the policy only in January 1917. Did the writer mean 1917? אוהד בר-און (talk) 12:46, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou אוהד בר-און, I've checked the source and it was meant to be 1917. Now changed - Dumelow (talk) 07:18, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[beckett-1] Beckett, Ian F. W. (15 November 2012). The Making of the First World War. Yale University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-300-16366-7.

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