Talk:Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis

Order of Merit

Field Marshall Alexander of Tunis cannot have received the Order of Merit from King George VI in 1959 as the latter died in 1952. He either got it on that date from Queen Elizabeth II or from George VI on some other date. Can anyone advise? --F Sykes 20:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Are we even sure he was in the OM? My sources don't list him as such... Proteus (Talk) 00:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It would appear so as his name is mentionned on http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page493.asp which I suppose is as authorised as can be. --F Sykes 08:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II on 23rd April 1960. See List_of_Members_of_the_Order_of_Merit and http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1747.asp --F Sykes 12:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Suggested Improvements

The box at top right may be removed, the information is either replaced by the boxes at the end of the article, or is in the main article. "In 1937 he was promoted to Major-General and joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)." - the BEF didn't exist until 1939, so what date? What rank, & what was his command? The fact that Alexander was the last British soldier to leave Dunkirk merits inclusion I think. Monty hadn't been knighted in August 1942, so the reference should be to 'General Bernard Montgomery'. Auckinleck hadn't been knighted in August 1942, so the reference should be to 'General Claude Auchinleck'. GrahamBould 14:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

The only other thing I would say is that suggestions to improve the template can be made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military person infobox. This one used to have a nice picture of Alexander, but it was deleted as an unsourced image. If you wanted to find an uncopyrighted version that would be great..... Leithp 14:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Tried moving the picture from the lower infox to the upper, without success. It looks silly where it is, not apparent to the casual viewer, & as he is in uniform, it should be in the military box anyway. GrahamBould 14:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Role in Baltic Landwehr

I'm puzzled by the claim that Alexander 'led the Baltic Landwehr'. I've looked at relevant German websites and they don't mention him, except occasionally to refer the reader to this Wikipedia article. This makes me wonder if he was simply a middle- or senior-ranking officer in the Baltic Landwher. 'Lead' implies that he was C-in-C or Chief of Staff. Moreover, it would have been very remarkable if a largely German force had placed such trust in a Briton so soon after the end of WWI. It looks as if there's been some misunderstanding about his role in the Baltic Landwehr. Norvo 03:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

John Keegan's anthology of biographies of British generals, "Churchill's Generals", refers to Alexander as "Commander Baltic Landeswehr" (p128) and there are details on pp 107 & 108. Alexander's title was "'Relief Adviser' but took command of the Baltic Landeswehr, consisting of German and Baltic soldiers, with a German Chief of Staff, Baron Rahden." The author, Brian Holden Reid, cites "Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander". I haven't checked Reid's reference, but it seems sound. Hope this helps. Folks at 137 10:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

There's some stuff on the Baltic period in the Nigel Nicolson biog (which I don't have to hand sadly) - it also mentions him briefly taking command of a brigade in March 1918, presumably in the retreat after "Michael".

Infamous Harold: murdered of cossacks

The Cossack General Domanov was in the group of Cossack officers who were brutally betrayed by the British authorities. Gerenral Domanov was the one who received a letter for the British Field Marshal Harold Alexander. On the May 27, 1945 at 5 PM the British Major B.P. Davis arrived to the hotel "Gold Fish" where General Domanov was residing at that time. The Major delivered a special order to the General from Field Marshal Alexander. This order stated that all cossacks must arrive to the city of Spital (Austria) to participate in a conference "Present political and military situation and the POW cossacks". General Domanov passed the British order to all Cossack officers. Following this betrayal order, 14 Cossack generals, 2359 officers, 65 military clerks, 14 doctors, 7 feldshers and 2 priests arrived to the designated location. They were all placed into a prison camp. British took away from the cossacks pocket knives, lighters, whistles, etc. The prison camp was surrounded by the British army with 6 tanks. On the 28th of May 1945 it was announced that there will be no conference. It was announced that all cossacks will be given away to the Soviet authorities. General Krasnof wrote several petitions to the King of England, League of Nations, International Red Cross but hey all remained unanswered. Few officers who didn't want to be given to the Soviets, took away their lifes. On the 29th the Soviets came and the British forced Cossacks into the lorries. While forcing Cossacks into the lorries, the British soldiers and officers were brutally beating them. By 5 PM of the 29th of May 1945 all remaining alive 2426 Cossacks were given by British to the SMERSH (Russian acronym for "Death to the spies") group of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front. This is a free-style and may be not of a very good quality abbreviated translation from: http://www.cossacks.info/war/repatriation/chapter_lenivov21.html

IIRC, the repatriation of Soviet citizens had been previously agreed between the Western governments and the Soviets and so any Soviet troops or citizens present in areas occupied by the Western powers were obliged to be handed over to the Soviet authorities. At the time the murderous nature of these authorities was not fully appreciated in the West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.55.51 (talk) 08:16, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

No mention of children

No indication if his marriage produced children. I'll do some research of my own.

Done and included. Folks at 137 10:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Commonwealth Office in 1943?

GrahamBould 22:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Alleged Monty quote

Re: this sentence and unreferenced quote attributed to Montgomery:

Montgomery, who was both a long-time friend and subordinate of Alexander in Sicily and Italy, said of him, "Alexander....is not a strong commander...the higher art of war is quite beyond him." He advised his US counterparts, Mark Clark and George S. Patton, to ignore any orders from Alexander with which they did not agree.

A Google search on the phrase: "higher art of war is quite beyond him" results in only one hit - to this page. Doing the same through Google Book Search results in no hits. Isn’t it strange that, if true, such a historically significant event has not been mentioned in any of numerous published sources that have been fully indexed by Google Book Search or that is has never been discussed anywhere else on the internet?

Considering the inflammatory nature of this quote, unless it can be properly referenced and its accuracy verified, shouldn’t it be struck from the article? Psywar (talk) 19:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's particularly inflammatory, as Monty said similar things about almost everybody apart from Alan Brooke (the only man in the world to whom he looked up AFAIK). IIRC Monty was Alexander's instructor at some stage in the interwar period, and was not impressed by his brains - that said Alexander clearly wasn't an idiot, given the high responsibilities he held, even if he had the sense to delegate a lot of the work to Harding, his chief of staff (who wrote Alexander's elegant despatches quoted so lovingly by Churchill in his "Second World War").

"I would like to make the point now, categorically, how lucky I was to have 'Alex' as my C-in-C. I could not have served under a better Chief; we were utterly different but I liked him and respected him as a man."

Most of Montgomery's criticism of others (unlike some other people's) is professional criticism of them as regards doing the job they were being paid to do, which was to win a war. At a time in the war distinctly lacking in success such criticism, where it helped fend-off defeats, and turn them into victories, was entirely justifiable if it was true. As far a Montgomery was concerned, both he, and the other men within the respective armies, were being paid to win offensive battles, and subsequently, the war. Prior to El Alamein, this had not been happening. Montgomery in his criticism, in fairness also pointed out the military limitations with-which the people he critiques were facing, especially when they were effectively given impossible jobs - such as Lord Gort had been given in 1940.

Montgomery subjected himself to high standards of professionalism - which is why he didn't marry until he was 40 - and he expected those same standards to apply to all the other career soldiers he came across. He sometimes found that some could not achieve these high standards. That was not necessarily their fault, but it sometimes meant that they were of no use to him when it came to winning battles. In some cases, they were simply tired and worn out from previous campaigns, and needed a rest. If so, he states so. In other cases it was because they were in the wrong jobs, and so he moved them to ones they were better suited to. He also got rid of people who were likely to argue with him for no constructive purpose; he didn't mind arguments that resulted in an improvement in a plan, or were ultimately constructive to winning the battle, but he had come across people who - in his view - just wasted time by questioning everything, and adding nothing to achieving the desired result. Many of these were pre-war officers who had yet to grasp the realities of the then-present war, and that things had changed since the German introduction of Blitzkrieg.

I should also perhaps point out that Montgomery had been with the BEF in France in 1940, and he had exited France via Dunkirk, so he had seen what defeat looked like, and by 1942 he had had plenty of time to ponder the causes of that, and all the subsequent up to 1942, defeats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.55.111 (talk) 12:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

"He advised his US counterparts, Mark Clark and George S. Patton, to ignore any orders from Alexander with which they did not agree." - if true, this would be classed in the British Army as an extreme form of insubordination and would likely end up in a court-martial. This is not in Montgomery's character at all, and in the contemporary German army of the time it is the sort of behaviour that would get the person responsible for making the statement shot.

A less than generous person might think the alleged statement was an attempt at justifying Clark's insubordination to Alexander after Anzio when the former disobeyed Alex's orders to cut-off the retreating Germans and instead went off to liberate Rome, thus allowing a large German force to escape, a force that Alexander had explicitly ordered Clark to intercept. All this occurred while Montgomery was in England preparing for Operation Overlord, at a time when news of an ally's disobeying of orders was least likely to be well received, nor appreciated, Montgomery having enough to occupy his mind in the last few days before D-Day without having the additional worry at the last minute over whether his Allied subordinates would obey his orders during the forthcoming invasion of Europe or not.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.55.51 (talk) 08:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Dunkirk

During the retreat to Dunkirk, Alexander's 1st Division was under 1 Corps but was transferred to II Corps on 18 May. Om 21 May the division received its only significant attack...On 28 May 1st was re-attached to I Corps and moved into the Dunkirk perimeter...On 31 May Alexander replaced Barker as commander II Corps i.e. after he arrived at Dunkirk. This all comes from Churchill's Lions: A Biographical Guide to Key British Generals of World War II. Alexander may well have been the last general officer off the beach at Dunkirk but was certainly not "instrumental in leading the retreat to Dunkirk". Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 00:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that Barker was so ineffectual that Alexander had effectively been in command of the corps before then. To be honest your current wording looks okay. Leithp 08:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. My point was to do with being instrumental in the withdrawal to Dunkirk. This was not the case since up to four days before his division's arrival at Dunkirk he was reporting to II Corps commanded successively by Brooke and Montgomery, both of whom arrived back from France with reputations enhanced. Barker was indeed ineffectual, but this meant that Alexander had to act very much on his own initiative in handling his division. He would not have had much influence on the other divisions in the corps - that's not the way the army works! There is no doubt, however, that once he became corps commander Alexander executed his task to "hold the perimeter alongside the French and to sagfeguard the evacuation of the rearguard" extremely well and Alexander's "...unflapability made a huge contribution to the success of Operation Dynamo, the rescue of the BEF." i.e. his impact was during the evacuation from Dunkirk not the withdrawal to Dunkirk. Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 09:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Honours after his name

The two PCs in the list of honours after Alexander's name are in different places in the infobox and the main article. There must be rules about this sort of thing, but I don't know what they are. Could someone please 'do the honours'. Cheers. GrahamBould (talk) 06:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anybody know why he is earl of Tunis, I mean after all Tunis is not part of Britain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.163.198 (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Because of his part in the Tunisian campaign. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 18:29, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Article reformat

Rettetast seems to have reformatted the article by removing any and all date links in the article, as well as, repositioning the [Image:AlexanderMacLeanJovanovic.jpg] image. The result is that the text is not positioned correctly and has a large gap in between paragraphs. Applied undo to article version prior to Rettetast’s edit. -- Gaston200 (talk) 12:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I dit not reposition any image. I only removed unneccesary links according to WP:MOSNUM. I don't see any difference in the placement of any image. Can the problem beyour browser. Remember that readers use different browsers and screen resolution and that the layout changes to fit the screen. Therefore it will display differently. Rettetast (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the problem is the image since it is forced down by the infobox in IE. It looks the same way in both my edit and in the undone edit. Just move the image down. Rettetast (talk) 12:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Middle East Command

7 August 1942 – 18 February 1943: Commander-in-Chief Middle East

I have changed the date he was appointed and provided a source, do you have a source for the date he left this post as we could use it over on the Middle East Command page.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

References

I see there have been a couple of attempts to tidy up the references section (one by me) which have been reverted. I'd like to discuss this and establish a consensus. In WWII articles under the Military History banner it is becoming increasingly common for complex articles with a lot of citations to split the listing of books refered to, citations and footnotes. The logic is that the casual reader is generally not interested in a specific citation but may well be interested in identifying the books used as sources - this is made difficult if the book details are buried in a block of 50 or more citations. A successful format has been developed where the book details are listed under the References heading and the <ref> notes put under the Notes heading split into two groups: Footnotes ({{Reflist|group=nb}} etc. for added commentary) and Citations ({{Reflist|2}} etc for specific page refs. Generally simple <ref></ref> citation format is used - the non-professional reader gets confused by Harvard refs and they don't work well in a complex and multi-reffed article. There are many articles conforming to this style and examples can be found here and here. At the moment the Alexander article references are neither one thing nor the other. Details of Mead are buried in the citations, Playfair details are stuck at the bottom of the citations. At present the article is not particularly well referenced (except for the large number of London Gazette citations) in the sense that although there are quite a lot of citations, they come from a narrow range of sources. In due course more books should be added to the citations which will highlight this formatting issue further. I therefore propose we use the formats exampled in the links above. Any comments? Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 10:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree and support the above comments. With the group of editors i have been working with in numerous areas this system is becoming the way things are done. There are further examples that show the system being used is accepted: Operation Brevity, Operation Epsom, Operation Cobra. All these articles have reached Featured Article status and use this system.

A bit off topic but for my university work we have been clearly told to keep our inline citations (i.e. Bob, p. x) separate from our reference / bibliography lists.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 12:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I see no issue with splitting the "References" section into two subsections: one for inline cites and one for general sources. However, I maintain that the "Notes" section should be separate from the "References" section, per, as I mentioned in my edit summary, WP:REFNOTE. Plus, it is not uncommon for there to be an inline citation in a note, which would be difficult to do should the notes and inline refs be in the same section. --Miesianiacal (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest looking at Wikipedia:Citing sources#General reference (the relevant style guide), which provides a visual example of the foonotes in a reference list in a seperate section than the list of books.

Further more from WP:RENOTE you will note that it states "Consider maintaining a separate bibliography/references section that gives full publication details for frequently cited sources"--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The relevant points at WP:REFNOTE are these:

• "It is often desirable for an article to list sources separately from explanatory notes."
• "A separate section containing references is usually given the title 'References', while the explanatory notes section retains the 'Notes' title."
• "Explanatory notes can be shown separately from references or citations — giving a neater appearing alternative compared to having mixed 'Notes and references' or 'Notes and citations' sections."
• "Explanatory notes are subject to the same verification criteria as main article text, and may need references of their own."

I've just made an attempt to reorganise the referencing system in the article to accomodate both the guidelines at WP:REFNOTE and the concerns expressed above, notwithstanding a few tweaks, of course. I hope it's an acceptable solution. --Miesianiacal (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we are splitting hairs now - the method used last night by me, a method that is accepted and is contained in several FAC and what i presume was the method Kirrages previously attempted to implement - is supported by WP:Citing sources and WP:REFNOTE.

Citations should be displayed above the source list per the manual of style articles and as noted by the above wiki articles the source list and footnotes should be seperated. (On an again off topic note going off my uni studies it makes no sence to display the sources you have used before presenting the reader with the list of inline citations).

Why is this such a big deal?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

PS: "Plus, it is not uncommon for there to be an inline citation in a note, which would be difficult to do should the notes and inline refs be in the same section" - not really, the notes being above just link down to the citation list, again i advise you to have a nose around the articles that we have linked to.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:45, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree; the format you implemented did not conform to WP:REFNOTE at all. I did have a look at the articles you pointed to, but I don't believe the way they list references and notes trumps a WP style guide. I see no particular reason why this article should stray from the guidelines by having a (relatively) unique referencing system. The order in which the sources and inline citations are presented can easily be flipped, if I got it wrong. --Miesianiacal (talk) 14:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The style guides clearly show the "notes" section is for inline citations and the "referance" section for the list of sources. Splitting the inline citations into proper notes and shortend footnotes does not trump anything i have read or linked to. I also keep referring you to the citing sources guide that appears to support what we have done, said article is also called the relevant style guide on the REFNOTE article.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The example as provided on the citing sources article:

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Footnotes

---

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). The Sun, Academic Press.

If anything the article should at first conform to this standard.

As noted further up the article it shows that the section name can flip between Notes or Footnotes - the former being more common as far as i can tell.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 15:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

If you disagree with the simplifed model that we have been using - merging the footnotes and notes section together - the style articles state the following is the way to do it:Augustus--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 15:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that WP:CS#How to present citations says inline cititation may go in a "Notes" section. However, I also read that they can equally go in a "References" section, which is, according to the page, the simplest and most common method used. It is the latter which the article presently employs. The catch with this page, compared to the other examples you showed, is that it has a section for explanatory notes, which it seems to me must be headed as "Notes". It would then be convoluted, if not improper, to put inline citations and explanatory notes in the same "Notes" section.

It appears to me that the solution to this matter lies in this possibility from WP:CS#How to present citations: "Putting linked comments in a 'Notes' section, followed by linked short citations in a 'Footnotes' section, followed by a list of full citations in a 'References' section." That should work perfectly fine, and seems to be 2/3 of what you illustrate above. --Miesianiacal (talk) 15:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, turn your back a moment and....! Yes it is simple but really only appropriate for simple articles which have but a few refs. This is a complex article with lots. What I proposed was the use of a tried and tested format which has been widely used elsewhere in complex articles of high quality. What we don't need is a discussion of what conforms to WP:XXX or not. Remember, those guides were also written by people like us to reflect the community's consensus. Enigma has argued that my proposal fits WP:XXXX and I'm sure it does. But I don't really care: the format has clearly been accepted as a standard because of its widespread use in Featured Articles so if it doesn't conform then WP:XXXX should be amended! I rarely get involved in *@!@*? format debates because it's so dull and life is short. However, the existing appearance is pretty clunky so let's just get it changed and move on. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 16:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Also. Since there's been some trading of WP:XXXX in this discussion, the only ones that makes sense in this context are WP:IAR and WP:IAR?. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 16:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this discussion just looks worse than it actually is; probably due to my tendency to use more words than necessary! So, I'll try and keep my points brief: It's clear we're all striving for consistency, though we each seem to have our own brand - mine through every subsequent article on governors general of Canada, and yours through a series of military histoy pages. I'm not sure what to do at this point, other than try to reach some compromise. IAR has always seemed to me to be a synonym for chaos, so I'd rather we didn't fall back on is as a guideline for what we're trying to hash out here. --Miesianiacal (talk) 19:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC) PS - that said, I do prefer your {{harvnb}} template to the {{Harvard citation}} one I was using. --Miesianiacal (talk) 19:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

If you think IAR is a synonym for chaos you haven't read any of the IAR articles. IAR is what created Wikipedia and underwrites its development: see what Jimbo says here "IAR is policy, always has been". Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 19:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The citation template you were using is intended for in-line citations in the text (i.e. not using <ref></ref>) - hence the brackets round the text. It's all explained at Template:Harvard citation. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 19:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Mmm.. I see what you're saying; I'd previously based my impressions of IAR on my observations of its use throughout my years of talk page participation. Regardless, does the three section option - Notes (explanatory notes), Footnotes (in-line refs), References (full citations) - not seem the best option here? It certainly seems to me that it would satisfy everyone's concerns. --Miesianiacal (talk) 13:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC) Never mind; what's there now seems fine. --Miesianiacal (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

break

I saw a request for opinions at WT:CITE.

IMO, what we have now is not good. The ==Notes== section is fine. The ==Citations== section, however, contains some short citations and some full citations, which is odd. If the point of separating short and full citations is to help the reader who wants to know more or less what sources were used to create the article, then we're failing to meet the goal. The reader should not have to read through both ==Citations== and ==References== to find that information.

The two solutions are:

• Put all short refs in one section and all full refs in another, even if that means having a long list of full refs, many of which only get used once. The <ref> group system will help you out there. (I suggest, BTW, making the default group be for full refs.)
• Run them all into one section and let the reader skip the items that don't interest him/her.

If there are more short refs than full refs, I'd pick the first option. If there are more full refs than short refs, I'd pick the second. The current mixed-up approach really doesn't work for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not quite right. All the long refs are either magazine / web or newspaper refs. It's difficult to shorten these, especially the London Gazette ones because to get the correct link to the LG website you have to use {{Template:London Gazette}} which automatically produces a long reference. To me, the fact that there are not many short refs underlines that the article is under-referenced from book sources. I have to say I find it strange to separate things based on their size. At present we have a. Explanatory footnotes, b. Specific citations for fact verification and c. A list of sources (books) which people can read for more detail and to which some of the individual citations point. That makes sense to me. Even if the differing sizes of the citations can look a bit untidy I would suggest that the structure is more important than appearance. Perhaps we could prevail on a coding king to tweak the LG template to produce something shorter?! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 20:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Awkward sentance?

As all previous governors general of Canada had been members of the peerage, and as a reward for his leadership in North Africa and Italy, Alexander was created by King George VI on 1 March 1946 as the Viscount Alexander of Tunis and Errigal in the county of Donegal.

To me that reads somewhat awkward should it be something like:

As all previous governors general of Canada had been members of the peerage, and as a reward for his leadership during World War Two, on 1 March 1946 King George VI made Alexander the Viscount Alexander of Tunis and Errigal in the county of Donegal.

or something to that effect?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 12:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

His peerage wasn't anything to do with him becoming GG. All the British WWII field marshals were elevated after the war for their war service: Alanbrooke, Monty and Alexander became Viscounts and Wilson became a Baron etc. (similar titles for RAF and Navy equivalents). So I would be tempted to just remove the mention of previous GGs being peers. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 13:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

So, you're saying that Alexander would have been elevated to the peerage on the exact date that he was - merely 20 days before his appointment as GG - even if he hadn't been appointed GG? Seems awfully coincidental, if that is indeed the case. --Miesianiacal (talk) 13:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What does the souce information say?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That particular edition announces as of 1 January the elevation to Viscountcies of Alanbrooke, Alexander, Montgomery and Portal; to Baronies Fraser, Tedder, Tovey and Wilson. The wording is "The KING has been graciously pleased to signify His Majesty's intention of conferring Peerages of the United Kingdom _on the following military war leaders:" No coincidence I think! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 13:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

As a footnote, if you look at the Gazette citation for Alex being awarded the GCMG, it is clear that that was connected to being appointed GG. Freyberg was in the same GCMG list and was being appointed GG of New Zealand. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 15:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Grand master post-noms

Kirrages, you stated in your edit summary that the position of grand master of the Order of St. Michael and St. George carries no alternate post-nominal letters. However, the London Gazette shows two previous grand masters, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexander Cambridge, Earl of Athlone - as holding the post-nominals of GMMG ([1][2]). Was the practice altered before Alexander was appointed to the position? --Miesianiacal (talk) 13:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

HMM. Interesting. I can't say I know for sure but if you search the Gazette for the Duke of Kent's entries since becoming Grand Master, they have GCMG — For instance here here and here. If you do the same for Alexander after his appointment in 1960 you get the same result: GCMG. So I can only assume the practice changed. Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 15:46, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Aide de Camp

There's a little to and fro-ing going on about whether Alexander was an AdC(P). He wasn't. This is usually given to someone much more senior or in the Royal family. If you look at the final paragraph in the Personal Aide-de-Camp article you will see

There are several other categories of senior aides-de-camp; most are serving military, naval, and air officers, usually of colonel or brigadier rank or equivalent.

This is what he was (being a colonel, temp brigadier) and why he relinquished his position on promotion to major-general. You will note that in the London Gazette during the period of his aideship he has the post nomials ADC not ADC(P) for example here and here. You will see there is a distinction between the Personal AdC, the Air ADC (equivalent to AdC General in the army) and ordinary AdCs (Air Commodores and Group Captains, equivalent to brigadiers and colonels) at this link. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 10:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That was my fault; I thought all aids-de-camp to the monarch were personal aides-de-camp. I've put the link back pretty much the way you had it before. --Miesianiacal (talk) 13:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

One thing to note is that the monarch doesn't just have aides-de-camp from the UK's army; individuals from the forces of the other countries over which the sovereign reigns can be appointed as aide-de-camp or equerry to the monarch. I put the "British" qualifier in to disambiguate from which group Alexander came; though, I suppose it's self-evident enough to not need it. --Miesianiacal (talk) 15:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. Btw, have you found any examples of ADCs who were not in the Regular British armed forces? Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 16:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I've seen them posted from the Canadian Forces to act as A-de-C when the Queen is in Canada, or acting on behalf of Canada abroad (eg. in France). I don't know if they've ever been notable enough to have their names published prominently, though. --Miesianiacal (talk) 16:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Portals and stuff at bottom of the artcle

Re the above - shouldnt all these be in the 'See also' section as none of them are links to external websites.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Earl's coronet image

What was the reason for changing this? As far as I can see the replaced one is a) used in practically every other earl's page b) Is in the preferred svg file format (uses less storage space) rather than the reviled png and c) Has a straightforward "own creation" GNU Free Documentation License (the new image has a restricted copyright requiring permission from the copyright holder for usage - has this been done?). Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 16:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Because it's been released for free use and looks better than the other version...? It also comes from a complete set of coronet images, as opposed to the series from which the previous image came from, which has an odd baronial coronet. Thus, through the series of Canadian GG articles, John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, for example, would have a differently represented coronet than all the others. If it's really a huge deal, it can be changed back, though. I merely wanted graphic consistency across the various articles. --Miesianiacal (talk) 16:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Post-nominals

At present Alexander's second and third post-nominals are PC PC - which shows in blue two the same: PC PC. Looking up the wikipedia page for "Queen's Privy Council for Canada" I found this abbreviated to QPC, so, with I hope understandable logic, I changed the second PC to QPC. Can someone please explain why these two should be PC PC and not PC QPC ? Two the same does not make sense to me, which is why I investigated and changed. P0mbal (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The post-nominal letters used by a member of the King's Privy Council for Canada were (and still are) PC; adding a Q would limit the use of the post-nominals to only the reign of a queen. QPC is just an acronym for use in the Queen's Privy Council article. --Miesianiacal (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

My edits and their partial reversion

Whilst I wouldn't claim my edit was perfect, it reads really weirdly to me to say when he stepped down as GG of Canada before saying when he took up the post. Please read WP:R2D when it comes to redirects, there is no point piping a link when the redirect takes you to exactly the same place. Names of Honours should be capped-up, and it's all one honour, so it makes sense to me to link the whole name, rather than just the name of the order. I had made sure that we had consistenet capitalisation of Governor General, now we're back to a rather random seeming mixture of cases. David Underdown (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking over the article again, I think the main problem in the lead is that we have too much detail in the very opening paragraph. It might be better to just say some like "after the Second World War he was appointed Governor General of Canada, serving until 1952". Perhaps ought to mention his British Government position after that too, he would be notably solely for holding that portfolio too. Then move the detail about precisely when he was appointed, and by whom to the relvant place in the chronology presented after that. David Underdown (talk) 16:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Silly me, I don't know how I missed this thread.

Anyway, it is my understanding that redirects, though acceptable, should still be avoided; it always seems to me to be a messy way to move between pages.

As for capitalisations, they should only happen when the reference is to a proper noun - ie. "the Governor General" or "Governor General Harold Alexander" - and not when the reference is general - ie. "a governor general" or "as governor general". Similarly for the orders; it seems wrong to write "a Knight Grand Cross".

I know the lead is not completely chronological, but it seemed to read comprehensibly enough. I suppose it can be re-ordered and/or condensed, but it is my tendency to avoid short, staccato sentences. --Miesianiacal (talk) 19:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC) I should add, I originally wrote the lead to the length it is in order to meet the broad criteria for article leads, feeling that a page of this length needed an opening of three paragraphs. Perhaps I was too generous. --Miesianiacal (talk) 19:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The length of the lead is OK, though the bit of styles at the end is perhaps superfluous (in any case aren't Privy Counsellors also entitled to the style Right Hon?), the ordering just seemed peculiar, and didn't read at all well to me. The version now there is much improved. There still isn't consistency with how Governor General is capitalised, there are a couple of times where "Governor General of Canada" doesn't have caps which as the title of a specific office surely should be capitalised (likewise King of Canada and Commander-in-Chief of Canadian Forces which you down-capped, particularly as elsewhere we have General Officer Commanding-in-Chief). Another user has now also capitalised the honuors, so that point is perhaps now moot? It's certianly how it's done in evy other article I've come across, though I know at least one user insists that the name of the honour should not be proceeded by "a", you are simply appointed "Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath" (or whatever). The only oe left down-capped is Mentioned in Despatches, which is more arguably, current practice in the London Gazette does seem to be to treat it as a proper noun, but there has been less consistency in this over time, so I won't quible too much about it. David Underdown (talk) 08:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll be a little less lax with captialising, and, though I don't particularly understand why, I will now capitalise any honours. However, I maintain that something like "governor generalship" should not be capped, nor should "king of Canada" - neither are titles (it wasn't until Elizabeth II that there was a distinct title "Queen of Canada"). "Mentioned in Despatches" does seem to be a tricky one; it reads like an action rather than an object, so my inclination is to not capitalise. But, if the Gazette caps it, then shouldn't we? --Miesianiacal (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Canadian Moncahy

I havent made any changes incase this is intential; in the lead it states "the king of Canada", should this not be King - with a capital K?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure; George VI was the monarch of Canada, separately from his position as monarch of any other countries, but there was, at that time, no title "King of Canada". --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough :)--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The Alexaber Memoirs 1950-1945 edited by John North

I was surprised to see no reference of this book, which Harold Alexander published in 1962 (Cassell & Componay Ltd). I found it in a charity shop recently. Should someone who knows more than me add it in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tjinkerson (talk • contribs) 20:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problems

Due to a misunderstanding of Canadian copyright laws, material was incorporated into this article from [3]. Since the terms of that website are not available under license consistent with Wikipedia's Terms of Use, I have removed or revised material that I found that remained derivative of that source. The article has been heavily edited, but some content remained too close. If there are passages I've missed, please revise or remove those as well. Contributors are welcome to reuse the facts from that source, but please make sure that the text is completely rewritten and restructured. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it was nearly as bad as you made it sound. Some of what you removed wasn't even in that source at all (i.e. kilometers travelled while viceroy); there was only one particular sentence that came close to mimicking the source directly, but simply recomposing would have been better than deleting it all-together, no? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Styles

Demophon recently made some changes to the chronology of Alexander's titles. This caused a few problems: 1) It added post-nominal letters, which are not titles and repeated what is listed just below; 2) it obliterated his titles as Governor General of Canada; 3) it made the list inconsistent with those on all other Governors General of Canada. I've tried to meld some of his edit into the list and, at the same time, trimmed out the military positions Alexander held during WWII, as I don't think those were actual titles. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with the exclusion of the military appointments but someone's formal style is how they are described in official documents, and this includes post-nomials. So take the formal gazetting of Alexander's Earldom. It says "The QUEEN has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm, bearing date the llth instant, to confer the dignity of an Earldom of the United Kingdom upon Field-Marshal the Right Honourable Harold Rupert Leofric George, Viscount Alexander of Tunis, K.G., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., C.S.I., D.S.O., M.C." So actually we should also be including the DSO and MC as well. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 00:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This isn't an official document, though; here, honours and styles are separated into different sections in order to clearly impart information to the reader without repetition. Regard any bio article for a member of the Royal Family, or, more closely related, those of the other Canadian Governors General. The way its listed here and now creates inconsistency with no discernable benefit. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

"Right Honorable" and "The Honorable"

These are different animals altogether, not two species in a genus. "The Right Honorable Lord Alexander" indicates that he is (was) a member of the Privy Council. Most current British cabinet ministers get this title, and formerly governors-general of Canada and Australia and some Commonwealth prime ministers were also Privy Council members.

"The Honorable," on the other hand, is a hereditary courtesy rank (not strictly a title). It is granted to children of peers who do not have a real courtesy title to use. (Courtesy titles are accorded to the heir of a peer who has a secondary title in reserve to extend to his eldest son during his own lifetime.) When a person known as "the Honorable" is granted or succeeds to a title, I believe it is universally customary that he or she (usually he, of course) drops "The Honorable." Hence, after 1942 when the general was knighted but before he was ennobled as Viscount Alexander, he should be known simply as Sir Harold Alexander (without The Honorable), with, of course, his military rank before his name and the letters of his orders and decorations after it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luke Line (talk • contribs)

Not to suer of the usage of Honorable, but I beleive Right Hon is actually used by all peers, regardless of whether they are privy counsellors, for commoners, Right Hon is only used by privy counsellors. David Underdown (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Not sure about dropping The Honorable when getting knighted. I thought it was only when one accedes to the peerage that it's dropped. Haven't found documentation on this though. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 11:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Recent changes

Sorry, while there were one or two good changes, the completely non-standard use of "small" around ref tags, and over-rigorous lower-casing menat that this needs discussion before going ahead. Every other article treats specific honours such as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath as proper nouns - the whole thing is the honour, not just the order part, and there were inconsistencies between having Governor General of Canada in the lead and governor general of Canada elsewehre (though I tend to agree that when just referring to the governor general or similar it should be downcased), Minister of Defence is again normally treated as a proper noun (with the possible exception of in The Guardian), likewise for Supreme Allied Commander, it's a post, not a rank. David Underdown (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I've corrected myself on most of the honours/posts captialisation errors, I believe. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Possibly - but there's still the use of the horrible "small" tag all over the place, which makes editing a most confusing experience - and you've moved refs away from what they actually refer to, when they are only relevent to one clause of a sentence. Does any featured article format with "small"? David Underdown (talk) 19:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The larger inline ref tags push the lines of text apart so that there is uneven line spacing across the page; the <small> formatting is added code, yes, but it seems hardly different to the <ref> code.

If I moved inline tags, it was because of punctuation corrections; ref tags should generally follow punctuation: "If the material is particularly contentious, the citation may be added within a sentence, but adding it to the end of the sentence or paragraph is usually sufficient." WP:CS#Inline citations --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I may have misread the difs with so many changes, you may not have moved cites. However, Featured Articles are supposed to represent our best work - and yet no-one feels it necessary to apply this fix to them. The point is the ref tags themselves are already considered by some to clutter the editing experience - some of the usability chagnes underway are lookinga t ways to improve this (and it's one of the reasons the functionality for grouping ref definitions at the end was added), the small tags just add further clutter, yes they make line spacing more consistent, but they also make the footnote numbers harder to read in addition to worsening the editing experience. It would be better to find a fix that could be applied across the whole of Wikipedia, rather than tinkering with individual articles, which would mean if a global fix is made, those articles would then be affected in unpredictable ways, and would still contain the uneccesary code. This also makes article maintenance harder, as people are not used to using small tags in addition to reference tags. Anyway, I've said my piece, I'm going to wait and see what others think now. David Underdown (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's rather an esoteric subject - talking about the <small> coding. But I agree with David Underdown: if this is a good thing to do it should be done everywhere and should be officially designated part of the Wikipedia style and a simpler code / template employed to create the effect without clutter (Something for discussion elsewhere I guess). In the meantime I vote no (please) for <small> because it makes my eyes bleed when in the edit space! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 14:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I wish there was some other way to remedy the issue of inline tags causing irregular line spacing (which makes my eyes bleed!), but, in I don't know how many years and about a dozen tries over that time at various locations (Village Pump; Wikipedia talk:Footnotes; Wikipedia talk:Citation templates; talk pages, both for aticles and personal), nobody has ever even found where exactly to make such a change to the <ref> template code, let alone where to get a consensus to make any alteration. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Virtuti Militari

Can someone help? The article and the London Gazette record that Alexander received the Polish Virtuti Militari 5th class. Most graded awards (eg Order of Suvorov) have 1st as the highest and the next as 2nd and so on. This would mean he received the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari. This seems surprising given the role he had, particularly in Italy with a significant Polish contingent. Italian wiki records he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross, ie class 1. Which is right? Has someone at the Gazette confused the sequence? I have seen other examples with the Virtuti Militari gradings. Folks at 137 (talk) 15:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Privy council post-nominals

For a long time, the article disambiguated between Alexander's post-nominals as an appointee to the British Privy Council and his post-nominals as an appointee to the Canadian Privy Council by rendering the former as PC(UK) and the latter as PC(Can). The UK version was altered by an anonymous editor to read PC, with the given explanation for the edit being "pc(uk) is not used". Though it was explained that the "UK" and "Can" qualifiers were there as disambiguators, the anon reverted again, leaving the British post-nominals as PC and the Canadian post nominals as PC(Can), justifying that move with the explanation "(can) for canada and without qualification for the uk". That is, of course, completely random and biased; since the opposite - "UK" for the British and without qualifier for the Canadian - is entirely possible, the anon has simply chosen the British post-nominals as the "norm" and the Canadian ones as the oddity requiring clarification, which is counter to WP:NPOV. Both should continue to be treated the same; either both have a disambiguating qualifier, or neither do. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:53, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The postnominal for a Privy Counsellor is "PC", not "PC (UK)" or "PC (Can)". So that is what should be used in the article. The fact he was a member of both the Canadian and British Privy Councils should not mean he has the postnominal twice, any more than his being both a British Privy Councillor and a peer would make him "The Right Honourable the Right Honourable". Opera hat (talk) 23:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

If we don't want the (Can) and (UK) qu alifiers (since they're neologisms), that's fine.

The privy councils are two separate bodies. The Canadian and British versions have different places in the order of post-nominals. There should therefore be two PCs, each in their proper place in precedence, as there would be for someone who was a member of both the Order of Merit (OM) and the Order of Manitoba (OM). --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The British one, at least, is in the wrong place. According to Debrett's, "as membership of the Privy Council is an appointment rather than an honour conferred, the letters PC follow all honours and decorations awarded by the Crown". PC should therefore be at the end, after CD - i.e. where the Canadian PC is now. Opera hat (talk) 03:17, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

In The Order of Canada: Its Origins, History, and Development (pp.193-194), Christopher McCreery says: "All British orders and decorations carry with them post-nominal letters. Since the time of Confederation, use of these post-nominals has become firmly fixed in the Canadain honours landscape, to some degree even more so than in Britain. A prime example of this is that members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada use the post-nominal initials PC, whereas their British counterparts usually do not... In terms of precedence, it was decided that holders of the Victoria Cross and George Cross would continue to take precedence over all others. Members of the Privy Council would rank next, just as they do in other parts of the Commonwealth..." That gives us the placement of the Canadian PC, but implies something different to what Debrett's says about the British PC.

The Gazette on the Queen's coronation day (after Alexander had been appointed to both privy councils) shows no PC anywhere amongst Alexander's post-nominals. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily regard a book on the Canadian honours system as the best authority on the order of British postnominal letters. However, as you say, the Gazette (or, at least, those 'fifties issues I did a search on) does not use the postnominal "PC" at all, whether for the UK or Canada. Perhaps the best step would be to remove it (them) altogether, until an editor can show through reliable published sources that the postnominal "PC" was actually used for Alexander of Tunis during his lifetime. Opera hat (talk) 23:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

As stated in the latest edit summary (not mentioned in your post): "While the [1867] Canadian Privy Council is specifically 'for Canada', the [ancient] Privy Council is not 'for the United Kingdom'."

I think you will find that Privy Counsellors (as opposed to Canadian Privy Counsellors) are entitled to the style Rt. Hon. As members of the House of Lords already use this style, the post-nominal letters PC are used to distinguish peers who are Privy Counsellors (such as the late Earl Alexander of Tunis) from those that are not.

You come across as having an agenda and, if you don't mind me saying so, a bit of an inferiority complex. You might equally argue that it is unfair on the UK to specify only Canada, but this is not a matter of "balance" or "prejudice" and to argue on those grounds here is a fallacy. It is sufficient to distinguish the later and more specific Council, to distinguish both is superfluous and over-fussy. Alexander was, in any case, British not Canadian.

I also noticed that the article referred to the "king of Canada" when there has never been such a thing. In 1946, the Canadian head of state was the King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas. In 1953, this was amended to "Queen of the United Kingdom..." (which has precedence and) when representing the UK and "Queen of the United Kingdom and Canada ... " in Canadian affairs alone.

In terms of the 3RR warning you placed on my talk page: You reverted my edits at (1) 17:30, (2) 17:54 (with the note "previous edit summary") and (3) 18:19; I reverted you at (1) 17:33, (2) 17:57 and (3) 18:38 (after your third revert), so you are also a bit of a hypocrite if you think this is a "pointy edit".

Finally, may I suggest that it's not healthy to obsess too much about these silly little things and that you get out a bit more. 2.27.90.175 (talk) 19:17, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Putting aside the personal attacks and misrepresentation of reverts: Appointment to the Canadian privy council gives the appointee the right to use the post-nominal letters PC. Appointment to the British privy council gives the appointee the right to use the post-nominal letters PC. I originally thought it would be beneficial to readers to distinguish between Alexander's Canadian PC and his British PC. However, I have come to see that the method of disambiguation could mislead uninitiated readers into believing the post nominals are actually PC(UK) and PC(Can), when they're not. Having one pair of post-nominal letters rendered as PC and the other as PC(Can) is doubly bad, since it not only continues to potentially mislead but is also inexplicably inconsistent.

As per Canada's head of state in 1946, see the Statute of Westminster 1931. The act of parliament setting out the sovereing's title does not, and did not, override the constitution, of which the SoW is a part. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The Privy Council has no national qualifier, the Privy Council for Canada does. As for "misrepresentation of reverts", the diffs are there for everyone to see. 2.27.90.175 (talk) 13:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Leave the PC in his list of post-nominals, do not wikilink it if there is no agreement where it should point. His appointments to the the respective Privy Councils are listed under the Honours section. Unless there is a reliable source for the precedence of using PC(Can) then it should not be used. We try not to just make things up as we go along, right?. I have unlinked it until consensus established where, if anywhere, the wikilink should point. Cheers. EricSerge (talk) 15:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice job to 2.27.81.7 whom I would surmise is 2.27.90.175, in finding a reference from the National Archives (United Kingdom) [4] showing the use of PC (Can). It makes sense to differentiate it from the contemporary Imperial Privy Council and now we are doing so in what seems to be a correct and accurate manner. I relinked the PC (Can) and added the ref down in the Honours. It may be a bit hamfisted in placement so I welcome better placement. It got the job done of adding verifyibility to the use of the post-nominal. Cheers. EricSerge (talk) 14:23, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not certain how accurate PC(Can) is. The link provided above doesn't say whether that's an appropriate rendition of the post-nominals or not or, if they are, how or when they're to be used. A Google search brings up some results for PC(Can) as post-nominals; howver, not many, a few of which are Wikipedia mirror sites, and the rest not meeting WP:RS. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:36, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

William Lyon Mackenzie King

Don't want to get into a row here but there is no need to give anybody's full name in this article except that of the subject of the article (Alexander). Winston Churchill is mentioned in a huge number of articles but never as Winston Spencer Churchill - he is generally recognized as Winston Churchill or Churchill. If you really want to know his full name just follow the link! Similarly, King, as I understand it, never used William or Lyon as his given name only Mackenzie. He signed himself as W.L. Mackenzie King in much the same way as Churchill signed himself as Winston S. Churchill. Currently he is referred to in this article as 1. William L. Mackenzie King (makes it sound like he has a double-barrelled surname!) 2. Mackenzie King 3. William Lyon Mackenzie King. Might I suggest that he be consistently referred to as Mackenzie King (the name he commonly used and was known by) throughout with wikilink in header para and first mention in body text for the curious.? Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 16:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

It should be his full name in the infobox, since that is what is done therein for all the other names of untitled people; there's no reason why Mackenzie King should be uniquely treated in that context. The full name should also be used in its first mention in the article lead and again in the article body; as I said in my edit summary, it shouldn't be assumed that readers will be so familiar with historical Canadian prime ministers as to recognise that 'Mackenzie King' is actually 'William Lyon Mackenzie King' and not some former PM whose first name was 'Mackenzie'. Yes, a reader can follow a link; however, I believe we should write mostly as though the links weren't there. And I'd say the same thing if it were Churchill we're discussing, but it's not (though WLMK might well have been flattered by the comparison). --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little puzzled. Looking at the list of Canadian Prime Ministers King seems to be the only one where all his names are habitually used. Taking a few examples around that time: Louis Stephen St. Laurent is referred to as Louis St. Laurent, John George Diefenbaker is referred to as John Diefenbaker, Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson is referred to as Lester B. Pearson, Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (!!) is referred to as Pierre Trudeau etc etc.. If readers are not so familiar with historical Canadian Prime Ministers then they are more likely to have heard of Mackenzie King than William Lyon Mackenzie King because it was his normal style. Indeed I'm not Canadian so my knowledge of King is small - confined to the references in the history books in my library where he is invariably referred to as Mackenzie King (or Mr. Mackenzie King or on occasion, like in indexes, King, W.L. Mackenzie). So I'd turn your argument the other way: is this William Lyons Mackenzie King the same guy as the Mackenzie King I am vaguely familiar with or some other more grandiose former PM? I can't find where you found the style rule which says the full name should appear on first instance and the common name thereafter (which I find potentially confusing). In WP:UCN (admittedly talking about naming conventions for articles) it says

[Wikipedia] prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources

So Bill Clinton is never referred to in Wikipedia articles as William Jefferson Clinton except in the summary para in his own article (same point as my Winston Churchill one above and indeed, nowhere in Wikipedia is Alexander referred to as Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander except on his own page). I am suggesting (from my limited bibliography) that on this basis "Mackenzie King" is what should be consistently used in this article because I have been led to believe it is the most common ("frequently used") style - and that used by King himself. His full glorious name can still be found by the curious in the Mackenzie King article - which I note contravenes WP:UCN by being named William Lyon Mackenzie King! Yeah, yeah I know....in Wikipedia there are no rules. (PS There is no consistency in the info box on untitled names: Vincent Massey is actually Charles Vincent Massey....PS2 If you were to demonstrate that William Lyon Mackenzie King is the "most frequent" style in "reliable sources" then my argument would collapse) Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 00:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree that WLMK is very frequently referred to as 'Mackenzie King'. That is why I say only the first mention of his name should be his full one; thereafter, it should be 'Mackenzie King'. I don't know that there's any WP policy or guideline that says the first mention of an individual's name should use his or her full name (or, at least, first and last name), but it does seem to be a prudent thing to do when, again, we can't be in any way guaranteed that all readers will immediately know 'Mackenzie King' is the oft used contraction of 'William Lyon Mackenzie King'. It's rather like the practice of spelling out the full name of an organisation before introducing the popularly used acronym for it; almost all Canadians know what the CBC is, but does everyone in Wikipedia's global user group?

As for the infobox, I meant at least the first and last names are used; never one of two middle and a last name. 'William King' is an option, if one wants to be really consistent. Or, change 'Vincent Massey' to 'Charles Vincent Massey', if you wish. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:19, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I can't agree. Using three different forms of a name for the same person in the same article is much more likely to cause confusion. It is normal in Wikipedia to refer to someone in the first instance by his or her most commonly used style (Mackenzie King, Harold Alexander, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton) with a link to the individual's own page (to fill in the more erudite facts and confirm the full names). Subsequent references either continue with the same style (to avoid confusion) or just use the surname (King, Alexander, Churchill, Clinton). Putting the full name in this article is just verbiage and adds no value for the casual reader in the context of an article about Alexander. As far as I can see, for no other person mentioned in this article is the full-name-on-first-mention-and-commonly-used-name-thereafter rule applied, why only for King? I've checked Vincent Massey (a prime minister much less familiar to the non-Canadian reader), Winston Churchill, Alan Brooke, Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley - all of whom first appear in this article as just shown rather than by their full names and subsequent mentions are as I described above (i.e the same or just surname). The only justification therefore for not using a linked Mackenzie King in first mention and Mackenzie King or King subsequently is if you can tell me that in Canada he is generally known as William Lyon Mackenzie King; in which case, for consistency, he should be referred to throughout as William Lyon Mackenzie King or King (I guess something like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who is more often than not referred to by his full name or just Mozart). Either way, William King is abomination: no-one knows him as that! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 17:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Who said three forms of a name? I said two; I'm fine with the infobox as is.

We're also not talking here about WLMK's biography page, both the title of which and the full name in the opening sentence makes clear who's being spoken about in the article's text. WLMK is a secondary character in this article. I don't think I have to reiterate why I think it's valuable to give in this page his full name first and then subsequently a contraction thereof. Whether that contraction is the commonly used 'Mackenzie King' or just 'King' is another matter; though, 'Mackenzie King' does have the added benefit of avoiding confusion with mentions in this article of the King. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:34, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you had changed William L. Mackenzie King to William Lyon Mackenzie King in the infobox. But that's ducking the issue isn't it? In my opinion you certainly do have to establish ("reiterate"?) why it is "valuable" to give his full name first when for every other individual mentioned in this article it has not seemed to have been "valuable" to give their full names first. As I mentioned before, secondary characters in Wikipedia articles are normally referred to by their familiar styles: for instance immediately below WLMK in the infobox is a first mention of Louis St. Laurent. Note that his full name Louis Stephen St. Laurent is not used. In the lead para and section 3 there are references to Vincent Massey. Note that his full name Charles Vincent Massey is not used. And it goes on for every other individual named in the article. Giving the full name for only WLMK in the first instance is not logical and makes no sense. The principle of using familiar style and/or surname is clearly established: to logically justify the use of the full name of WLMK implies the need to establish that his 'normal style' is William Lyon Mackenzie King. The person who started off the WLMK bio page obviously thought this was so (although maybe it was just ignorance of the page naming conventions that the page was not named Mackenzie King per WP:UCN). PS it's not difficult to find another way to avoid confusion with the King: refer to WLMK as Mr. King or Prime Minister King (as is often the case in my modest history library). Not rocket science....PS2 My apologies that this debate is proving somewhat interrupted with time gaps....but it would not have been my first choice to engage in it during the Olympics! I'm off to bed now. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 23:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

What would be the problem with using "W.L. Mackenzie King"? john k (talk) 13:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

No real problem but to the uninformed it might leave a question mark in the mind as to whether Mackenzie King is a double barrelled (albeit unhyphenated) surname rather than his given name followed by surname. However, this would be resolved if in subsequent mentions the solitary "King" or "Prime Minster King" were to be used. It makes more sense to me to stick to the convention of using the style by which he was normally known to the public (which I understand to be Mackenzie King) with his full formal style (which serves no value in an article about Alexander and seems over-formal relative to the other people mentioned in the article who are not referred to by their full style) being available through a wikilink to the Mackenzie King page. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 14:53, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

From the silence may I take it my argument is accepted? Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 23:21, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not. I've restored the status quo until a consensus for change is found.

I can unenthusiastically accept john k's proposal; it, at least, doesn't lead readers to believe the prime minister's name was Mackenzie King. However, I remain fine with using the man's full name at first mention of it in the lead and article body; there's nothing "overly formal" about it; it's simply a clear and factual. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

May I point out that a consensus for change is not the issue? Quoting WP:CONLIMITED

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.

The use of King's full name appears unique to King in this article and indeed as far as I can see in any article (except the special case of biographical articles where there are rules about the use of the bio subject's full name at the first mention in the header para (see WP:NAMES)). The Wikipedia-wide accepted practice for mentioning people in an article which is not the biography of that person is to use the "most commonly used name" in the first instance and thereafter use surname. Where it is the biography of that person then the practice is to give the person's full name in the first sentence of the header paragraph and use only the surname thereafter (see WP:NAMES). It is therefore for you either to 1) justify the use of the aberrant full-name form (see WP:CONLIMITED) or 2) establish that his full name is the "most commonly used name" or 3) accept the edits I have proposed. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 15:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Consensus for change is the issue if you seek to change the long-standing status quo and someone else opposes.

I suggest you start an RfC, if you do indeed really wish to see implemented the change you want. Whatever the conclusion is here will have to be affected on other Canadian GG bio articles. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

RfC??!! Listen, you're behaving like someone with a bad case of WP:OWN. Please consider the facts. I've looked at your reference to impact on the other Canadian GG bios: There are 56 mentions of Prime Ministers in all the GG infoboxes. Of these 38 are in the form first name second name. Of the rest 4 are to H.H. Asquith (rather than Herbert Henry Asquith), 6 are to John A. Macdonald (rather than John Alexander Macdonald), 2 are to R.B. Bennett (rather than Richard Bedford Bennett), 2 are to Lester B. Pearson (rather than Lester Bowles Pearson), 4 are to William L. Mackenzie King and 1 to William Lyon Mackenzie King. In the main text of these articles the names follow more or less the same pattern.

I'm a great believer in editors being rational, co-operative, open minded and applying consistent common sense. Far from me suggesting a change to a "long standing status quo" I am proposing a tidy up to bring some consistency to the appearance of Prime Ministers' names in GG articles so that the "normal form" of the name is used consistently rather than in just the large majority of the cases. You'll see from the above that what I have proposed changes a long standing inconsistency rather than a long standing status quo and brings this article into line with what is really the status quo: the common practice applied in the other GG bio articles (and indeed the vast majority of other articles) and which complies with WP:NCP, WP:NAMES etc.. I have asked for your help to establish the "normal form" in this particular case (Is Mackenzie King's "normal name form" William Lyon Mackenzie King - like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - or W.L. Mackenzie King - like F. Scott Fitzgerald - or is it Mackenzie King - like Winston Churchill?). I'm hearing back no measured response to my carefully thought out proposal, just the sound of a "watchlist guard". Well, it's not life and death (after all there's nothing wrong with the article's content, we're discussing presentation here) and I understand how protective you feel over something you've put a lot of work into. I'm also a great believer in the Darwinian nature of Wikipedia - that is the article will evolve and get better and better over time. This is not achieved by RfC. When I come across illogical intransigence rather open-minded engagement I refuse to waste time in trying to bludgeon through change. I tend to move on and turn my attention to some other of the 4 million Wikipedia articles where there is low hanging fruit. It's not that I don't believe in the correctness of my argument: it's just that I'm confident in the knowledge that at a later date (maybe much later) when you and I have lost interest someone will pick up on it and correct the problem.

But in the meantime I humbly ask you to do justice to your obvious intelligence and consider the proposal one more time, follow the logic with an open mind and respond with something other than a flat assertion: "no because my way is better". Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 19:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I said already that I am unenthusiastically willing to live with "W. L. Mackenzie King". If that is not a satisfactory compromise for you, then an RfC is your next step in the dispute resolution process. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(Sigh) It's not a question of compromise, it's a question of what aligns with Wikipedia best practice which is to use the name most commonly familiar to the public. What dismays me is that although you may not have been familiar with these style guidelines before, now that I have demonstrated them to you with reference to both the style manual and and actual usage, you still seem to refuse to accept them. If there is a dispute between us then it is about this, not the actual name used. I'm not Canadian so I have no idea how King is normally referred to - all I have is my history books (normally use Mackenzie King) and his Wikipedia bio article which says he is commonly referred to as Mackenzie King. So I infer that Mackenzie King is what should be used. I accept there is some confusion because the best practice states that an individual's bio article should be named with the commonly familiar style. However, it's equally possible that given the weight of evidence pointing to Mackenzie King that whoever started MK's bio page was unaware of the manual of style and no-one has been moved to change it since. As I said, I am clear in my mind that the style guideline mandates the use of the "familiarly used name" but I have an open mind to arguments as to what that familiarly used name is. There must be a stack of examples in Canada evidencing what his "common" style is. That is why I asked for your help to establish what it is. So work with me: acknowledge the best practice and help establish what his normal style of reference is. One thing I deeply suspect though, the "compromise" style, W.L. Mackenzie King, is used only in formal indexes at the end of books! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 23:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The guidelines you pointed to relate to naming biography articles and the use of the rendering of the name of a subject of a biographical article in said article. None forbid the use of an individual's full name in an infobox or upon first mention in any article.

If you're not going to accept "W.L. Mackenzie King" in the infobox and for first mention of the man's name in the article lead and body (and "Mackenzie King" from there on), then we're both bound to just repeat ourselves henceforth. This is why I strongly suggest you seek others' input, so that some kind of consensus can be found. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Last edit. I previously pointed out myself that the guidelines relate to biographical articles. But I also pointed out that the accepted best practice as evidenced empirically in practically any article you choose is clearly based on the same guidelines. I'm not going to waste time in dispute resolution over what is essentially a formatting issue. I'm frustrated that what appears through the application of logic to the widest available evidence to be an obvious called for change is arbitrarily rejected. It has never been established why King's full names, information supremely uninteresting to the reader, are required to be given here contrary to normal practice, when they can be easily found on his bio page. You repeatedly refuse to address that point and clearly won't start now. Enough is enough. There's only so much brick wall I can take. Good editing. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 08:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I explained at least twice already above why having King's full name mentioned upon introduction is of benefit to the reader. Perhaps you might go back and review the discourse? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"Mackenzie King" is a 'double-barrelled' name and so both names are surnames. So his normal name would be "William Mackenzie King". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 11:06, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Titles, styles, honours, and arms

I would like to have a go at getting this article up the assessment scale. It is already in pretty good shape but is only assessed as "c" at the moment. The main section that needs further work is the section entitled "Titles, styles, honours, and arms" where quite a bit of the information is unsourced. Does anybody have any objections to me giving it a good clean up per WP:SOURCE and removing the unsourced material? I am also not sure that all the little flags add anything and would propose removing them in the interests of standardisation. Dormskirk (talk) 19:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't say for sure, but I suspect that if any honour or decoration was added in, there was some source for it somewhere... Then again, perhaps not.

Standardisation is another matter: Currently, the section in question is standard among all articles for Canadian governors general. Removing the flags would then make this page outside the standard. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:01, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

OK that's very helpful: I am still inclined to remove unsourced material because that is a basic feature of wiki but will leave the flags then. Thanks. Dormskirk (talk) 20:04, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

If the flags don't add anything, then there's nothing in MOS:FLAG to say they should be kept. Alexander is primarily notable for his military career rather than his tenure as Governor-General of Canada, so I don't see that any "standards" that might exist on other Governor-Generals' articles are necessarily relevant here. Opera hat (talk) 23:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The flags indicate from where each honour originated; that's pretty obvious.

Alexander was a Governor General of Canada; his article is thus part of the series of those on Governors General of Canada. Also pretty obvious. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

King of Canada

An editor has added "king of Canada" to the sentence saying Alexander "was in 1946 appointed as governor general by George VI, king of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada...." The curious phrase "king of Canada" is redundant and jarring, and therefore I will remove it. TFD (talk) 02:39, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

See Talk:John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir#RfC on use of 'king of Canada' for an already ongoing discussion on the same matter. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Orange Order

According to the Orange Lodge of BNA he was a member http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CAN-ORANGE/2004-04/1081898239 not certain how to cite it within the article as I am not certain it is important enough to be mentioned in the main article. But obviously he should be in the Members category in this case.

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Alexander's 13/11/1944 speech and partisans activities in Italy

The content of Alexander's radio speech of 13th November 1944 is known in Italy as the "Proclama Alexander" (Alexander Edict, as bad as that sounds...), see http://it.wiki.x.io/wiki/Proclama_Alexander. It announced what had already taken place since Operation Dragon: a diminished Allied focus on partisan war in Italy. Is it worth mentioning it? 83.219.35.163 (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2018 (UTC) Klod (not logged at the moment)

Privy Councillor

The only source I could find that Alexander was appointed to the Imperial Privy Council is a biography that says he became a member when he was appointed defence minister in the British government. But ministers in the UK are not appointed to the Privy Council and there is no record in the UK Gazette of his appointment. The book does not say where it got this information. Unless someone can show he was appointed, I will remove it. TFD (talk) 11:39, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Why were his post-nominal letters removed?

Almost all the articles about British people on Wikipedia have the person's post-nominal letters after the person's name at the very beginning for the article. For example: Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, RA.

Why did someone remove the post-nominal letters from after Harold Alexander's name at the beginning of this article? It's very annoying, since many people use Wikipedia to quickly see what knighthoods, awards, and other honours a British person has received, and it is easy to obtain this information simply by looking at the post-nominal letters after a person's name (as in the example of Winston Churchill which I mentioned above).

But in this article about Harold Alexander, someone has removed the post-nominal letters from after his name at the beginning of the article. Thus, the only was to determine what honours he received is to scroll down to the section concerning his honors, which takes much longer. Can someone please restore the post-nominal letters after his name at the beginning of the article, just like how almost every other article about a British person has their post-nominal letters after their name at the beginning of the article. 69.138.243.14 (talk) 04:07, 5 June 2023 (UTC)