Talk:Platine War

RfC: Does article violate NPOV guidelines?

Does this article meet the Wikipedia guidelines for Neutral Point of View?

Ending translation

I´m almost done translating the text from portuguese to english. Only a few paragraphies left. - --Lecen (talk) 00:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, only two left. I´ll do it tomorrow! - --Lecen (talk) 02:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong direction

I think the article takes a wrong approach to the subject. Someone who doesn't know about the war could read it and think that it was a Brazilian-Argentinian War, rather than an Argentinian Civil War with foreign soldiers having a minor participation.

It explains a lot about the internal situation in Brazil, a country which was not affected much by the war, other than the strenghtening of the Monarchy. But the war was far more important for Argentina, because it was the end of a 20-year tiranny, it forced Buenos Aires to accept a Federalist governor as Argentina's Head of State, it diminished the power of caudillos,

Also, there are many places names which appear in their Portuguese name rather than their English (or Spanish) one. I think that many parts of the text were directly translated from one single Brazilian source into the page. There are some parts that are clearly POV and others are bordering it. 201.252.64.222 (talk) 02:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, you can clearly see the point of view expressed in the last section of the article. It also states the beginning of a "Golden Age" for Brazil, and says that other Latin American nations (from Mexico to Argentina) experienced civil wars and coup d'etats whereas Brazil didn't. Which has very little to do with an article about a civil war in Argentina. Genusaus (talk) 21:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It may be considered in Argentina a civil war but in Brazil it is considered an international war as Argentina declared war on Brazil. Also, it does not say that it was a golden age for Brazil, the SOURCE says that the period after the War of the Triple Alliance (that is, another different war) was the apogee or golden age of the monarchical era in Brazil. It is just the highest point on this period of Brazilian history. And indeed, from 1849 up to 1889 there were no rebellions or coups in Brazil. This part of the text refers to the consequences of the end of the conflict in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. - --Lecen (talk) 22:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Article is FINISHED at last

At last I´ve finished this article. I believe it should be reviewed to get an Featured article status. Who else agree with? - --Lecen (talk) 16:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Rating the article

Shouldn´t this article be nominated for a featured article? I believe it is good enough by now. - --Lecen (talk) 01:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Causes of War and instability in the region - blatant POV

Every single reference about the hegemonic aspirations of dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas (and about his supposedly policy goal of re-creating the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata) is sourced in non-online refs. Besides, every one of the autors are Brazilian.

So, to say the least, there is no balance on the approach to the conflict, and the burden of the proof remains on the controversial claim.

Lecen, I would like to state this situation with the neutrality disputed template, at least as long as some balance is achieved in the approach to the rationale and genesis of the conflict, considered in a more broadly sense. --IANVS (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

My good friend, there is no place in Wikipedia that says that sources must be found online. In fact, sources taken from books are better than the ones taken from a website. The nationality of author is not an issue, either. In that case, let's see what the British historian Roderick J. Barman says about it:

"The emperor played an equally important role in the third crisis, which involved a struggle between Brazil and the Argentine Confederation (formely the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata) for supremacy in the region of the Rio de la Plata. The focal point was the republic of Uruguay, created in 1828 out of disputed territory between the two countries. Uruguay's government lacked all authority, and civil stryfe was endemic. Politics were polarized between the Blancos and the Colorados, political parties originating in preindependence factions respectively favoring Argentine and Brazilian rule. Deliberate manipulation of Uruguayan politics for external advantage began in the year 1835, when Juan Manuel Rosas became president of the Argentine Confederation and the Farrapos rebellion, a popular uprising against rule by Rio de Janeiro, erupted in the province of Rio Grande do Sul, abutting on Uruguay. In 1836 the Colorados revolted against the Blanco-controlled government, which they overthrew two years later. The Blancos turned to President Rosas for support, which he willingly supplied. In 1839 the new Colorado-controlled goverment declared war on Argentina, starting a twelve-year conflict. Rosas not only enabled the Blancos to dominate the Uruguayan countryside but also encouraged them to give aid and asylum to Farrapos rebels, across the frontier in Rio Grande do Sul. By these policies Rosas outmaneuvered Brazil and dominated affairs of the Rio de la Plata. The best response that Brazil could muster was to aid the Colorados on remaining control of Montevideo, the capital and principal port of Uruguay. The imperial goverment sought to reduce Rosas's influence by ending the revolt in Rio Grande do Sul province. This goal it did not achieve until 1845, as much through concessions to the Farrapos rebels as through military victory." (p.125)

"When the new Conservative cabinet took office in September 29, 1848, its members were divided as to what policy Brazil should seek a settlement with Juan Manuel Rosas or whether it should try to challenge his power. The president of the council, the former regent Pedro de Araújo Lima, viscount of Olinda since July 1841, favored conciliation. It was the emperor who forced Olinda's resignation from the cabinet in October 1849 and his replacement by an advocate of challeging Rosas's supremacy. The new minister of foreign affairs worked to forge an alliance against Rosas between Brazil, the Colorados of Uruguay, and the caudillo [political boss] who controlled Entre Rios province in Argentina. Rosas sought to counteract this policy by using his envoy in Rio to undermine the cabinet's position. As tensions mounted in 1850, Pedro II became a key player in the dispute. Late in that year, he personally coducted the negotiations with the Argentine envoy in Rio, maneuvering so that Rosas would break off relations with Brazil. The emperor's resolution and unfliching support gave the cavinet the confidence to embark in 1851 on open hostilities against the Argentine Confederation. In the ensuing war Brazil gave critical naval and military support to Rosas' Argentine and Uruguayan opponents, a truggle which culminated in his overthrown at the battle of Montecaseros in February 1852." (pp.125-126)

Source: Barman, Roderick J. Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–1891. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. On-line version in here.

As you can see, beyond this book (not used as source on the article), there are more than 20 different books on the bibliography section that supports the text. Unless you bring other reliable books, and I am not saying one or two, but a considerable number that might turn the books used as references into a minority vision, you shouldn't and you can't add a "POV" tag in it. And more, you added the tag without an explanation nor a source or even before writing in here, the talk page, the reason. And no, saying that its is "blatant POV" is not a good reason enough, obviously. I will revert it once again your edit and with reasonable talking and discussion, I hope we can settle peacefully. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 17:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

IANVS, I'd support the idea of seeing what any alternative sources are like - if we can find them. I was involved in some of the earlier copy-editing on the article, and as part of that discussion did have some useful debates with Lecen over the Brazilian perspective on this (like you, the fact that this history is being written by the victors makes me a little twitchy!), but in the absence of other cited works, the interpretation here feels relatively balanced and a fair reflection of the literature. If there's an alternative view in the academy, that's great, we can discuss and cite it.Hchc2009 (talk) 18:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Lecen, Barman's paragraphs are very interesting indeed, but they do not say anything about the intent on the part of J.M.Rosas of re-creating the Viceroyalty sphere of influence. All I can see there is the intention on the part of Buenos Aires' Governor to exercise hegemony over the Plata region (wich is not at all the same with the extent of the former Viceroyalty). Moreover, partisan meddling in internal affairs, on one way or the other, from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, to Entre Ríos and Corrientes, Santa Fe, and even Córdoba, were as common as daylight in the plata basin littoral region during all the years 1810-1861 (and even after that, if we consider the War of the Triple Alliance under the same light). In every single one of these conflicts, leadership and factionalist issues (with ever-changing protagonists -not only Rosas in here-) were always present, but all of those conflicts were more probably founded on more structural factors (should we call it geo-political constants?).

So, I understand that this article was created on the basis of the portuguese-wiki version (in fact, spanish-language scolarship does not treat the platine war as a discrete, single, event -or, at least, as far as I know-)... so it has all the brazilian-flavor that shocked me at first sight. But, Lence, I respect your points re/your references, and -of course- the great amount of work that you (and Hchc2009) had surely spent on this.

So I thank you both for your comments, and I will start working on the elaboration of my own point so as to try to get the best possible outcome for the issue I raised before. Of course, I'm ready to hear as many suggestions as you have on this topic.

Salut, both of you. --IANVS (talk) 22:04, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere it is written that the fact that Rosas was putting his finger in other countries internal affairs is "evil" or something similar. But I still haven't got your point. Are you saying that Rosas did not intent to recreate the old viceroyalty? If that's it, please bring sources so that we can talk about it. I don't have any issue on changing the article as long as it is to improve it. If you want to, I can transcribe in here the text about each book that is used as source that mantions his intention of recreating the viceroyalty. However, it's obvious that he did not want to recreate the colonial status or even the name "viceroyalty". He wanted a powerfull republic with Bolivia, Paraguai, Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul annexed. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 23:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

"so it has all the brazilian-flavor that shocked me at first sight"

This is not the first time you give a hint that you have something against that comes from Brazil, either as sources or as... "flavor". Careful, please.

"I will start working on the elaboration of my own point"

Why your point of view? --Lecen (talk) 02:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

"My" point (which -FYI- refers to the issue I raised in this talk-page and is the one I'd like to elaborate further, so as to try to help improving this article) is that the alleged rationale for the conflict should underscore the structural geo-political importance of the plata basin as reflected in the centuries-long succesion of wars revolving around the key access to the Paraná waterway and the continuous warfare between platine provinces (and between national factions across boundaries) ever since the 1810 revolutions. So, I don't want to deny Rosas active interference in Uruguay or elsewhere, as seen from Rio de Janeiro, as the effective cause of the conflict (the spark that ignited it, so to say), but I think the structural causes and continuities should be noted with greater enphasys. By the way, my previous reference to eh brazilian flavor of the article was indeed some impolite way to describe the unusual approach to the subject, as seen from the Argentine perspective. I sincerely apologize if the expression was too rude or even offensive. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 17:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not permit inserting our own syntheses of what resources say. Few, if any, sources lack biases, some obvious, some not. The article's language should be NPoV, but it isn't our job to second-guess the resources, which would amount to editorial synthesis and/or original research. But if a source seems to be presenting a PoV where there are opposing views published, it is perfectly fine for balance to quote from one or more other reliable sources which give an opposing perspective or conclusion. Your point about there may have been a geographical element among those prompting the conflict would make an excellent addition. But, as Lecen seems to have been saying, until such sources are introduced, we must work with what is said by the resources cited. • Astynax ^talk 18:51, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

the structural geo-political importance of the plata basin as reflected in the centuries-long succesion of wars revolving around the key access to the Paraná waterway

That's true. However, you must have noticed that the article begins in 1828. That's because anyone who should like to know more about what happened before should take a look at the article Argentina-Brazil War, and in articles about earlier wars. What are you saying should be included in an article called "Platine Wars" or "Platine disputes" or "Platine Questions" that could give a a better insight in the matter as a whole. There you could explain that Brazil and Argentine inherited the conflicts from Portugal and Spain and blah blah... I could explain the origins of the World War I taking on account every single European conflict since the end of the Carolingian Empire. Should we do that on its article alone? No.

the continuous warfare between platine provinces (and between national factions across boundaries) ever since the 1810 revolutions.

That's also true. However, this is not an article about the several Argentine civil wars since its independence. I know that Federalists and Unitarians fought for decades over power in Argentina and that's mentioned in this article. The only reason that the Uruguayan Civil War was given a section for itself is due to the fact that it was the aproximate cause of the war. Remember, this is an article about the war between Brazil, Uruguay and Argentine rebels against Argentina, not about Argentine or Brazilian history.

but I think the structural causes and continuities should be noted with greater enphasys.

Agree. As I said before, it deserves an article itself. In fact, Spanish Wikipedia has a very interesting article about it called "Guerras civiles argentinas" And it has an English version too: Argentine Civil War. It's very weak and that's why is not used but instead the article about Rosas as "main article". If you or someone ese could improve the article about the Argentine civil wars between Unitarians and Federalists we could put a link in here instead of the bio-article about Rosas as main article to be read.

sincerely apologize if the expression was too rude or even offensive.

Don't worry, it takes quite a while for my self to get upset with something. As you can see, the problem is not "blatant POV" but instead, the lack of a more compreensive article about the Argentine political disputes in the 19th century. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 20:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Platine War/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MBelgrano (talk) 02:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

As pointed in previous threads, this article is based on a translation of a portuguese one, but this brings a problem: it "imports" the local view on the matter, and fails to represent a global view on the subject. In particular, being a war between Brazil and Argentina, both Brazilian and Argentine books must be checked. There's a huge number of Brazilian books referenced, but not a single Argentine one. I will point some of the problems.

• First of all, as I have pointed in the respective article, the view of Rosas as a dictator is hardly an hegemonic one as it would be needed to label him as such as a matter of fact. According to the book "Historia de la Historiografía Argentina" (in Spanish, "History of the Argentine Historiography"), a book that makes an overview on Argentine historians from 1850 to the present day, the early portrayals of Rosas as such were not the result of an academic consensus but a state-imposed view on the topic, arranged by contemporary people right after Rosas defeat (and the quote I have provided speaks for itself). Decades later, when such imposing faded as well as the anti-rosist fury, many authors would view him under wholly different angles, even highly positive ones. And this was by 1930, there was still 70 more years of developing until modern day.
• I am aware of Rosas's desire to reunite once more the old viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. However, the concept of it being a shared goal by Argentines is a surprise. I have never read about that; on the contrary, what I have read is that most people of that time cared only for their local areas of influence. According to Félix Luna, the brief life of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata did not allow for a patriot feeling to grow and link those cities toguether: he viceroyalty was united for the mutual loyalty to the Spanish kingdom, with it lost, nobody in Buenos Aires cared too much about what happens with Uruguay or the Upper Peru. After all, San Martín marched to free Lima without the support of Buenos Aires, and even against the orders to come back with his army and join the civil war. So, I find it hard to accep vague quotes like "an old Argentine dream", "Like many other Argentines" or "a goal cherished by many in Argentina since independence.", and a vague generalization in a foreign book seems a weak reference. I ask a better question: if there were "many" Argentines, besides Rosas, that wanted to do this, it shouldn't be so difficult to name a few contemporary of him that supported this project.
• "In theory, Rosas only held as much power as governors of the other Argentine provinces. But in reality, he ruled over the entire Argentine Confederation, as the country was then known." is an inaccurate description of Rosas. It fails to mention that it was the legislature that invested him with absolute powers, and his appointment to manage the international relations of the Confederation, in the lack of a formal head of state. A deeper description of the nature of his ruling should be more appropiate.
• That Rosas was "corrupt" is merely a diatribe of his political enemies. The fact is that there isn't any charges of embezzlement against him, and that he left power more poor than when he took it. Choose another adjetive or topic.
• "allied with the Federalists"? Rosas was federalist! in fact the head of the federalist party. Would you say that Obama is "allied with the Democrats"?
• There's no mention at all to the history of attemps to create a national Constitution, which is the main reason of the divergences between Rosas and Urquiza. Neither is there about the situation of Entre Rios during the government of Rosas, or the mailings of Echeverría and Sarmiento urging Urquiza to riot against Rosas and be seen by the world as a liberator.
• The "The Empire of Brazil reacts" section should be moved to the background section, as it describes the background in Brazil.
• That section is too favourable for Brazil. There are other perspectives. José María Rosa describes Brazil, in his book "El Pronunciamiento de Urquiza", as a country still ruled by a monarchy, with a huge level of slavery work, and ruled by an aristocratic class, whenereas Argentina was ruled by a government that supported the lower classes. Where the authors you checked talk about rebellions financed by Rosas, Rosa talks about people with abolicionist aims that saw Rosas as an example of a social system not run by the aristocracy feasible.
• There is no mention on the dispute for the Misiones Orientales, that Argentina considered illegally taken by Brazil in 1801.
• Urquiza did not reassumed the sovereignity of Entre rios out of the blue. Rosas resigned such powers periodically, but in the knowledge that his satellite governors would reject it and everything would remain the same. What Urquizas did was to actually accept Rosas resignation. Of course, being a "false" resignation Rosas would not honour it (nor Urquiza really expected him to), but this context should be described nevertheless. And even if it may seem obvious, it must be noted that, except Entre Ríos and Corrientes, all the other provinces of the Confederation supported Rosas against Urquiza.
• There's a detail missing in the agreement between Entre Rios, Corrientes, Uruguay and Brazil. They did not declare war against Rosas, but agreed to do so if Rosas declared war on any of them. When he did, declaring war against Brazil, this clause tur the others into war as well.
• It's a little unclear in the text that it was Urquiza, not the Brazilian armies, who dominated Uruguay. The Brazilians were marching slowly and arrived to the zone a week later. Even more, such delay risked the alliance with breaking, as by the time Caxias arrived to Montevideo Urquiza and Oribe had already ended negociating.
• "See also" sections must not include red links. If a related topic does not have an article, write it first and then link it here.
• In a general overview, the article talks about Brazil as if it was the protagonist of the war, the one who made it happen and the clear victor of it (even in the infobox). Urquiza seems as a mere pawn of Brazil, like an otherwise loyal governor turned against Rosas because of Brazilian plotting and support. But that's far from being the case. It is not me who says so, nor any of the books I have: it is the agreement itself of the allied forces. Urquiza was the leader, and Brazilian troops would be just of an auxiliary type, with the Empire of Brazil having denied any territorial claim from the victory. As already pointed at some point, there were 20.000 Argentine soldiers, against just 4.000 brazilian ones. Of course, Brazil had reasons of their own to oppose Rosas, and expected certain benefits from their aid, but it was just that. No war can end with a victory of the auxiliar troops. MBelgrano (talk) 02:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

1. I am quite suprised to learn that Wikipedia has a rule that says that to write about something you must bring sources on several different languages. So, if I, as a Brazilian, worked on the article with Brazilian books that would make the whole text useless? So, because it is a text about Argentina and is written by a Brazilian that means that is completely biased? A Japanese can not write about the Pacific campaign unlees he also use an American book?
2. It might not be hegemonic among ultra-nationalist Argentine historians, perhaps. But Rosas killed more than 10,000 people and other 15,000 fled the country to escape from him. You call that a democracy?
3. If you are surprised by that, you should read more about your country's history. Even Bartolomé Mitre's support of Flores' rebellion that led to the War of the Triple Alliance happened because he desired to reunite Uruguay and Argentina. Even Peron made talks with Nazi Germany in 1943-45 to recreate the old viceroyalty by taking territory from Brazil.
4. A legislature that invested him with absolute powers? Isn't that another name to... "dictatorship"? Because as far as I know, Fidel Castro and Saddan Hussein were also "elected" several times and they were nothing more than dictators.
5. Of course he left the country more poor. He fled to exile to escape from his enemies.
6. Rosas as a federalist: fine, just change the wording. No big deal.
7. Empire of Brazil reacts: fine.
8. No reason to talk about constitution on Argentina or disputes over it. This is not an article about Argentine political history or about the Argentine civil war. This is an article about a war between Brazil, Uruguay, two Argentine Provinces against the Argentine Confederation. Just that. If the political history in those countries are mentioned, even if in a short way, it is because it was needed to explain who the war begun. More than that should be seen in other more focused articles.
9. So what with Brazil was a monarchy? Since when a country being a monarchy is wrong? Japan, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain are still monarchies up to this day. In fact, almost all Europe was then composed of monarchies. Anyway, that's not to be discussed in this article. And so what if it had slavery? The United States was a republic and also had slaves. On what slavery in Brazil should be considered important in this article? Did slavery in Brazil had any kind of influence in the war? What you are saying does not make any sense. And I won't lose my time making any comment about your view of Rosas' goverment as democratic and "for the people". You are clearly upset with the article because it shows Rosas as nothing more as yet another dictator-caudillo in Latin America.
10. And why should be mentioned the dispute over the Missiones Orientales in 1801? That territory was granted by Spain to Portugal while Portugal delivered Sacramento. This is not an article about the history of Brazil-Argentina relations. Is about a war that occurred in 1851. If we would write in here every single piece of disagreement, wars, battles, claims or whatever that occurred since Brazil and Argentina were nothing more than colonies the article would be huge and it would lose its focus.
11. No reason to describe that Rosas had "periodically resigned" or anything similar. Again: this is an article is about the war between Brazil, Uruguay and two Argentine provinces against the Argentine Confederation. Such details should be in an article about the Argentine Civil War or on Uruquiza or Rosas' articles.
12. Nowhere it says that Brazil, Uruguay and Corrientes declared war on the Argentine Confederation. It says that they made an alliance and that's it. The text is clear when it says that the war begun when Rosas declared war on Brazil.
13. Is not clear? The text tells about the Brazilian army advance through Uruguay and then tells about Urquiza having surrounded Oribe's forces forcing him to surrender. Do you want something more clear than that?
14. Red links: fine.
15. Brazil as a supporter: That's wrong. The allied forces was divided in two armies: one composed of Brazilians, Argentines and Uruguayans. Another one composed of Brazilians only. If Rosas had won Monte Caseros or had retreated to Buenos Aires to continue the war your view that Brazil was simply a small player wouldn't make sense. If Brazil did not have the chance to engage with its own army in the war and it looked like it had send "only" 4,000 men it is unfair to blame it. Blame Rosas who surrended and left the country without a true fight. To call Brazil forces simply "auxiliar" is incorrect. Had Rosas won Caseros on kept fighiting in Buenos Aires and the 16,000 Brazilians had had the chance of fighting (as it was believed it would) you wouldn't be calling the Brazilian forces "auxiliar".

I don't know why I bothered to answer you now. You did not give any chance to make any change on the text or to discuss your comments. All you want is to downsize Brazil's participation in the war and turn it into an article about the Argentine civil war. Not only that, you clearly has something against Brazil and wants to show Rosas as a democrat who died poor and fought for the people. The article's text is biased? Your view is the one that is biased. It is not because you are an administrator that you can act like that and ignore the effort of several contributor only because of your personal opinions. You are acting according to your own personal reasons and did not give us the chance to discuss the matter. You wanted to block any chance of the article being raised to good status because it is not written in the way yoy want it? Fine. What you did was wrong and unfair. You should know that, --Lecen (talk) 06:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I failed the article directly because the problems with it are not something that may be fixed right away, such as copyedit problems or small details, but a failure in presenting a worldwide view on the subject that will need a big rewriting of the article. Even more, it will involve finding a whole new set of sources that have so far been overlooked, and with the added problem of being in a different languaje. Being a conflict between two countries, both countries views must be considered. Nobody said that the work done with sources from one of the sides was "useless" or that you gave prominence to the brazilian viewpoint on purpose, just that the work is still incomplete. And it must be completed, Neutral point of view is a mandatory requirement.

By the way, I did gave a chance. I requested in the article to point "who" were the "many Argentines", but you neither reference, clarify or delete it, you simply reformulated it into a weasel quote of "an old Argentine dream", with the same problem. Such lack of cooperation led me to decide to skip doing so in "phases" and provide instead a general review in a single time. But as I kept reading it, the problems and omisions I kept finding were so important that I decided that a direct fail was in order.

Another thing, we are not here to discuss Rosas ourselves. In fact, if we did I would be against him, as I personally support the idea that the National Constitution should be written decades before, but that's just my idea. Here, we must discuss what do historians think about Rosas, and reflect it. And don't be so surprised if there's greater investigation and discussion about Rosas at Argentina than at Brazil: Rosas was, after all, an Argentine politician. "You are clearly upset with the article because it shows Rosas as nothing more as yet another dictator-caudillo in Latin America." is actually disturbing: you are basically saying that you are portraiting him as such on purpose.

I may point some of the mistakes in your answers, but it doesn't seem to be justified. You don't sound as being ready to identify the problems and act upon them, but rather on a merely defensive position. One of the main ones: the Brazilian army was not an auxiliary one because I or any author says so, or because of their little participation. It is because it was arranged that way in the pact of the allies.

By the way, a side comment. I'm not an admin here, I'm an admin at Commons. But even if I was, that would not mean anything in a GA review. Only the reasons provided are important. In short, this article is not balanced between the Argentine and Brazilian viewpoints, and I have provided a good list of topics that must be adressed to fix so, but you refuse to acknowledge them. MBelgrano (talk) 13:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Would it make any difference, any at all, to the article, if we put in there that Rosas was a dictator who fought for the "people" (a very catch word in Latin American politics, isn't?) who died "poor"? No, it wouldn't. What you want is simply to portrait Rosas in a positive light. The moment you said that Brazil "was a monarchy" and had slavery revealed your true position. Being a monarchy (or a republic) has never been an issue for any country (perhaps for Denmark, Norway and Japan?) or even slavey (when slavery was something considered "acceptable" until the 19th century) as I pointed out by giving U.S.A. as an example.

Brazilian viewpoint? What? The Argentine Confederation government supported rebellions in several countries with the goal of recreating the old Viceroyalty (not as a monarchy, it's obvious) and Brazil saw it as threat for its own interests and sovereignty and thus the war happened. That's it. And you consider that a "Brazilian viewpoint"? The book "Brasil e Argentina: Um ensaio de história comparada (1850-2002)" written bythe Brazilian historian Boris Fausto (for the Brazilian parts) and the Argentine Fernando J. Devoto (for the Argentine parts) also refers to Rosas as a dictatorship and the war as a conflict of interests between the two countries. What you call an "Argentine viewpoint" is nothing more than the view of ultra-nationalist Argentines towards Rosas's government and that's a minority view in Argentina.

I never said it was "on purpose". I wrote according to the sources. Was the Brazilian Getúlio Vargas a dictator with caudillo traits? Yes, he was. Was he someone who is considered by ultra-natioanlists as someone who died poor and ruled "for the people"? Yes, he is. Would that make any difference to understand Brazilian internal politicla disputes and even less foreign relations? No, it wouldn't. You want to put in there that Rosas was a patriot who fought for the people and ordered the death of 10,000 political opposiotionists for I don't know what reason? Do it, Feel free. You'll ruin the article because that is nothing more than a lie.

The Brazilian army was supposed to wait for the result of the clash betwwen the allied army and the Confederate army. If it went bad for the allies, the Brazilian army would advance towards Argentina. The fact that it did not need to do that (thank God or else the Brazilian and Argentine relations would be far worse nowadays) does not means that you can make the Brazilian participation as simply a footnote. And that's what you wanted to do.

There were no "phases". You never said "Hey guys, I'm starting to review the article so please, help me out with any doubts or comments I make, ok?". You simply changed "dictator" for "governor" and wrote "See Rosas article". Since then that's explains anything? Then you put a "who" tag and I tried to make the wording more clear. You could have asked in the talk page: "Guys, could someone give me the quotation from each source so that I could understand exactly what the authors meant when they wrote that that was an Argentine goal?". Did you do that? No. Did you warned us that you were reviewing? No. Did you asked for comments or answers? No. You simply pointed out what you call a "non-universal view" (which is not even a predominant view in Argentina itself!) and a "I don't like the way you portraited my hero so I will vote against it! Sorry!" type of review. You called my behavior a "defensive" one? No, that's from someone who thought it was an outrageous behavior from a reviewer who did not acted neutral nor tried to reason. --Lecen (talk) 15:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Removal of sourced information by Belgrano

While making several edits, user Belgrano has removed a complete sentence with no reason, clearly trying to "hide" the removal. The sentence is: "Rosas himself was seen in a bizarre spectacle where he would ride on top of an Afro Argentine, who was obliged to behave as a horse, even trotting and neighing, in parties he made in Palermo. The article is clearly suffering of ownership since it is obliged to portrait Rosas in a positive light and too focused on him when in fact it should be focused in an international war.

Belgrano, since his "review" (if we can call that a review), hasn't answered my remarks in it and now not only revert edits but also erase information that displeases him. Not only that, but to write about a war the editor, according to Belgrano and only him, are also obliged to use sources on several different languages or that would be not be consideral an 'universal view'. --Lecen (talk) 19:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't "remove" the sentence, I reformulated it. You cited as a fact something that modern historians dispute, so I described the dispute. You may be interested to know that José Ramos Mejía in an author from the begining of the XX century, and the modern perception of Rosas is clearly different than the one hold by then. Even more, I linked it to the war itself, by telling a detail from the slavery topic that created stir between the two countries.

No, the article shouldn't portrait Rosas under a positive light, but neither at a negative one. Much of the things written aim to influence the reader into developing a negative idea about Rosas. Notice for example my second edit: you pointed that Rosas intended to restore the territorial extension of the viceroyalty, that he did not recognize the independence of Paraguay, and that Corrientes removed itself from the Confederation. But you did not mention that Paraguay had its own projects to anex the argentine provinces of Corrientes and Entre Rios into itself, that even if not recognizing independence Rosas agreed a pact of no agression with Paraguay, and that it was Carlos Antonio López who declared war to Argentina, not the other way. With the cherry-picked facts you presented, the reader is influenced into thinking of Rosas as an evil conqueror and Paraguay a helpless victim protected by the benevolent Brazil, but things are much more complex than that.

And your accusing of "ownership" of the article seems hardly justified. Those are the first major edits I have made so far in the article, and I never reverted anything you did here, except from your attempt to remove the template without having done any work to fix the problems I listed before adding it. And the issue with the slaves isn't ownership, as I didn't remove the sentence, but worked upon it. The point of view you made reference to, is still here.

And yes, being a war involving two different countries, both countries's bibliographies must be consulted. Neutral point of view can't be properly reached otherwise. MBelgrano (talk) 20:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

What?! It wasn't removed? You have completely removed any mention of Rosas riding in a black Argentine as he was a horse. Not only you did that but you called the historian used as source as "detractor". What? A historian who mentions Hitler's views towards jews is to be called a "detractor"? And who judges if a historian is or not a detractor? You?! And there is no rule in Wikipedia that says that sources must come from different languages to not be considered a particular point of view. If that's the case, to write about World War I someone would need books from at least 20 different countries! Or to write about the U.S.-Indian wars of the 19th century I would need books written by Indians! Your behavior in this article is outrageous. Keep it for yourself, then. --Lecen (talk) 21:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You also added: "Paraguay aimed as well to expand itself into the Mesopotamia, and had support from the unitarians, the British and the French, but such plans had a severe blow when Corrientes was invaded by Urquiza and Corrientes and Entre Rios signed the treaty of Alcaraz, where Corrientes joined once more the confederation and delegated international relations over Buenos Aires." But there is no source! Aren't you capable of understanding that I am doing a serious work in here? Haven't you noticed that everything written in here is sourced? Neither the remarks about Rosas that I added nor this sentece you added about Paraguay should be in here. I only added because you had the wonderful idea of portraying Rosas as somekind of "hero of the people" in your so called "review". Iam losing my time in here. --Lecen (talk) 21:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The thing is simple: the book you read is outdated. It's a book from the early XX century saying something as a fact, whenereas a book from 2008 explains that this "fact" is not so certain as it was considered a century ago. And no, it is not me who considers Ramos Mejía a detractor of Rosas. Read any book about the historiography of Argentina, historians are divided in detractors and supporters of Rosas (not much unlike the different approaches to the American Civil War held by Northern and Southern historians), only a very small handful of historians, like Felipe Pigna or Félix Luna, try to keep an uneasy balance between both. As for the World War I comparison, no, we don't need to check the books of all the countries involved. The ones from the leaders of the Allies and Central Powers would suffice. However, if the article was written purely using brazilian sources, there would be a problem, wouldn't it? Finally, the source for the Paraguayan thing has been included. I did not have time at that point to take notes on the ISSN and all that stuff, but as you can see, it has been added quickly afterwards. There wasn't need to be so vocal about it, surely this information must be as well at the brazilian books anyway.

By the way, a side note: in internet culture, it is usually considered that the first user to employ Reductio ad Hitlerum reasonings has automatically "lost" the debate. I don't give much credit to internet culture anyway, but nevertheless I request you to keep Hitler, the jews or the holocaust out of this, as it is a completely unrelated topic and easily leads to emotionaly charged responses. MBelgrano (talk) 02:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ow, let me see: your book has information about Paraguay that "surely this information must be as well at the brazilian books anyway" and thus can be considered reliable but the ones I used are not? Anda book written in the early 20th century is to be considered "outdated"? So no one can use writings of ancient Greek scholars or anything written by Adam Smith to explain Capitalism, right? After all, they are surely "dated". Your reasons make sense only to yourself. And I don't care about using Hitler or anyone else because you clearly have the power do decide what is reliable and what it not. --Lecen (talk) 02:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a danger here that we miss the point of the section we're describing here, which is part of the background to the Platine War - i.e. explaining why it occured and giving essential context. The key points I've seen presented in the discussions over the last few months on these pages are that:

a) de Rosas ran a corrupt and despotic regime, which caused an exodus of his political enemies, who would ultimately join forces with Brazil and help enable the war. There are lots of examples of de Rosas being pretty nasty, although some will argue over precise details.

b) de Rosas' government and the Brazilians disagreed over the historic and future shape of the Rio de la Plata region, which gave another impetus for the conflict.

c) Paraguay had traditionally been isolationist, but was coming out of this phase, which again shaped the timing of the conflict.

d) Many (most?) of the histories of the conflict have focused on de Rosas' ambitions as the cause of the conflict; neorevisionist historians (e.g. Pacho O'Donnell) have more recently emphasised both Paraguayan regional ambitions, and tensions over Argentina's role in providing a haven for escaped Brazilian slaves.

Looking at the material presented so far, we have references for all of this, although some need to be tightened up a little in terms of sourcing (e.g. the "Memories of Tomás de Iriarte"). If people agree that these are the key points we need to bring out in the section (and they're only a starter for ten!), I'd be happy to run through and do a little bit of redrafting along these lines. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You are losing the focus in here, Hchc. Mentioning Paraguay as a key player and its reasons are important in the War of the Triple Alliance article, but not in this one. The country is briefly mentioned some times because it was the target of Rosas's government ambition. And most important of all, you did not understand is that Belgrano wants to portrait Rosas at a positive light at all cost. He went so far as to remove a whole sentence that was sourced. If I bring Brazilian books, they are not good enough. If I bring Argentine books, they are not good enough. Nothing will be good enough until I agree with his point (and only his) of view. He made an "awful" review and now is becoming the owner of the article while enforcing his POV. His behavior was wrong since the begining and after he erased the sentence while trying to cover it while making several edits revealed his character. Anyway, thank you very much for your time and patience. It does not matter. I won't be working on this article anymore and I have already removed it from my watchlist. Belgrano isn't worth the time lost. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 11:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree in that Paraguay isn't a key element here, the war did not take place in Paraguay nor involved Paraguayan armies. However, to notice the Argentine ambitions over Paraguay but not the Paraguayan ones over Argentina, is POV pushing. So we either explain the whole facts, or remove Paraguay completely from the section (and, as I noticed how you overreact over "removals", I choosed the first option).

And no, I'm not requesting a positive light over Rosas. In fact, if you check again the review, you will notice that I request a mention to the failed attempts to create an Argentine Constitution, which Rosas had been delaying indefinitely for years. That doesn't speak well of him. Nevertheless, I did not request that because of the idea the reader may get of Rosas, but because it is the whole reason of the disagreements between Rosas and Urquiza.

As for the reasons of the conflict, the problem lies in the perspective: this article tries to treat all this as an international conflict between Argentina and Brazil, when it was actually an internal conflict between Entre Rios and Buenos Aires, part of the Argentine Civil War, where Brazil provided auxiliar support for one of the sides in the conflict. Notice that there are general reasons listed but not an actual casus belli. Despite general "ideas", Rosas did not declare war to Brazil to recover the mentioned provinces, nor send troops to take them. Even more, we have references of Rosas aiming to recover the territorial extension of the viceroyalty, but not an specific reference of any specific action, declaration or attempt regarding the brazilian province by this time (the War of the Farrapos took place a decade before, and was motivated by local reasons). The mere intention to reconstruct the viceroyalty is a weak reason, there's a thing called "Pragmatism": ideal goals are often left aside in favour of more realistic ones. And Rosas was hardly an idealistic.

There is no casus belli mentioned because there isn't, not from a brazilian-argentine perspective. The real casus belli is the "statement of Urquiza" of 1851, when he resumed for his province the authority delegated over Buenos Aires, to force Rosas to accept to call for the making of a Constitution. This led to military hostility between them, the making of the "Big Army" (which included auxiliar troops from Brazil, as reinforcements), and the war itself. But that was all the role of Brazil in here: that of an auxiliar army. It is wrong to seek the reasons of the conflict (and not just the reason of the brazilian intervention) in the relations between Argentina and Brazil. To cite a more global example as analogy, Spain and France took part in the American Revolutionary War, but the reasons of such a war are not found in the relations of those countries with Britain. MBelgrano (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Second nomination

Being the reviewer of the first nomination, and the open hostility of Lecen towards my contributions, I won't fail this article again. I'm not even in the mood to talk anymore with a user that compares me with Hitler. However, I leave some points for consideration for other users that may rview this article.

• I have made an extensive review at Talk:Platine War/GA1. Most of the points I mentioned have not been adressed at all. Others, like the strong bias against Rosas, have been deepened. A review should consider whenever the points adressed at the first review were legitimate, and whenever they have been fixed by now. Notice as well that the answers to the review are more focused to me as a user and GA procedures than actual content concerns.
• As a result of the review (where much of the flaws can be resumed as the presence of a strong brazilian systemic bias, magnifying the brazilian intervention inside what was really a civil war between Argentine provinces with a simple task force of brazilian soldiers around there), I placed the "globalize" template. Here, two months after the failed review, and with only a bot edit in the middle, he removes the template, just like that. Here he does so again.
• As noted at the above thread, the content of this article is under dispute. The user rejects all the critics formulated but, instead of seeking mediation, he insists in nominating the article.
• A pair of examples about his refusal to make collaborative work. Here he expands on Rosas by adding an outdated myth about Rosas "riding" a slave, referenced with a century old book. Here I pointed that this myth has long ago been refuted, referenced with a 2009 book, and adding a mention to the slavery issue that generated stir between Argentina and Brazil. User Hchc2009 supported this adding. However, here he removed the whole thing, as "non-important". The other example, the article portraits Paraguay as a possible victim of Argentine expansionism, while actually there were expansionist projects over the other's territory on both sides. I clarified this, but the user removed the edit, and returned to the cherry-picked facts to give the reader the idea of a conqueror Rosas.
• This user has accused me of owning the article, but that's far from being the case. In fact, the only reversion I ever made was to restore the template attempted to be removed, and all my contributions here have been removed and the article restored to Lecen's version. If someone is "owning" the article here, it's him.
• And a final detail: when a new user participates here, here he evades the points and blames me by stating that he had given up working in the article (April 13), only to come back here and keep enforcing his POV... just one day afterwards, April 14. And 2 days afterwards, new GA nomination.

Before leaving, I want to add something to my original review. First, the numbers of dead people provided are just another one of the myths generated by anti-rosist authors that took power after his defeat. Yes, there was a "Mazorca", yes, it was used for political intimidation, but 20.000 deaths is simply incredible. The population of Buenos Aires by this time was around 70.000 people, if we count 20.000 deaths, that's almost the third! And with 14.000 emigrated, almost the half! Not even the Holocaust itself, one of the most destructive genocides of history, reaches such proportions between killed and total population. That's what simple common sense says. And if we go to sources, the book I cited has precise numbers: demographics numbers of this time period shows deaths of around 1000 ~ 1500 a year (demographic deaths, meaning, of any cause, including old age, diseases, accidents, etc.). Two of the most notorious actions of the "Mazorca" were "Red October" in 1840 and 1842, but the total of deaths in those events were just... 60 and 80. Meanwhile, journalist José Rivera Indarte is requested to make a record of deaths Rosas may be blamed for, being paid by Lafone for each death found (this was reported by the Atlas of London, and confirmed by the "La Presse" of Paris). Rivera included in this all crime victims in Argentina (even Facundo Quiroga), and all people died at wars, none of which would be considered as victims of "terror" by any serious author. But in short... it's just another anti-rosist myth, provided in order to introduce bias in the article MBelgrano (talk) 04:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's go by parts:

1. Nowhere I called you "Hitler". If you are going to simply lie, then you should to do it better. The only time I mentioned Hitler was when you said that everytime a historian says that Rosas was a "dictator", or ordered the murder of anyone that historian was a "detractor". For that remark I asked: "then if a historian who writes that Hitler ordered the death of 6 million Jews that historian is to be called a detractor?" Plase, do not lie anymore.
2. In your "review" (I refuse to call it a review) you simply pointed out why you don't want the article to be raised to GA (in other words: "I don't like the way you portrait Rosas") and that's it. You gave no chance neither to me nor to Astynax to talk or to discuss. When I complained about that you said that you tried to make an edit in the article and I changed it with "weasel" words. Then I complained once more that when you made that edit you did not tell anyone that you were reviewing. The only reason you made to that edit was "take a look in the article about Rosas". Well, that's not a reason that explains too much for us.
3. Most of the points you raised were corrected: from the red links to the misplaced section "The Empire of Brazil". Even your absurd complains that we could not use books written in Portuguese only was adressed. To deal with that I added FIVE books written by American authors, which should be treated as "neutral", right? However, everyone, from American historians to Brazilian and including Argentine shows Rosas as a ruthless dictator. I can't, only because of you and only you, show him in as anything different than that.
4. Nowhere it was said that Rosas was riding a slave. It was written that he was riding an Afro-Argentine. The source I used says that the man was Rosas's henchman and not a slave. The book you added did not refute that information. All it says was that Rosas did not slaves. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
5. I removed was the information I added about Rosas's individual atrocities because I argued that they should be in his article not in here. I removed a sentence that you added about Paraguay and Argentina because I said that it should be in the article about the War of the Triple Alliance and YOU AGREED. This is the second time you simply lie outright trying to imply bad faith from my part.
6. There was no new user in the debate. Hchc2009 is an old colaborator who helped me a lot with this article some time ago. I have no reason to evade him or something like that.
7. That's not my POV. If something is written by Argentine, Brazilian and American historians, how could it possibly be "my POV"?
8. I spent the last days adding new information to the article according to American historians so that I could remove the "globalization" tag. The way you writes seem to indicate that I care nothing to what you wrote when in fact I was trying to deal with that by bringing sources from historians from a "neutral" country.
9. And you remarks about the Mazorca makes no sense at all. First, the brutality (20,000 people dead) was not written by a Brazilian, so you can't even argue that that is nothing more than another Brazilian trying to blacken Argnetina's image. That was written by an American historian. Another American Historian (John Lynch in Argentine caudillo) call the Mazorca "superterrorists" (p.102) who "wipped" anyone suspected of being an Unitarian (p.105) and also cut the throat of Rosas's political enemies (p.106). Second, all you wrote was your thoughts with no sources to back your claim that 20,000 people were not killed, which means that either it is your POV or original reasearch.
10. And do not say that I did not try to colaborate or dicuss. Anyone is free to look in your "review" and notice that the last text written in there was mine. You never bothered to answer my remarks. You only reappeared once I began to edit the article once again to deal with the matter. --Lecen (talk) 13:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

A British historian, Leslie Bethell, wrote: "Rosas used terror as an instrument of government, to eliminate enemies, to discipline dissidents, to warn waverers and, ultimately, to control his supporters. Terrors was not simply a series of exceptional episodes, though it was regulated according to circumstances. It was an intrinsic part of the Rosas system, the distinct style of the regime, its ultimate sanction. Rosas himself was the author of terror, ordering executions without trial by virtue of the extraordinary powers vested in him. But the special agent of terrorism was the Sociedad Popular Restaurador, a political club and a para-police organization. The society had its armed wing, commonly called the mazorca. These were the true terrorists, recruited from the police, the militia, from professional cut-throats and delinquents, forming armed squads, who went out in various missions, killing, looting and menacing." (in The Cambridge history of Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p.643) Perhaps the author is also a detractor?

An American author, John Armstrong Crow, gives the following figures of people killed by Rosas: 4 poisoned, 1,394 shot, 3,765 hanged, 722 assassinated and 16,520 killed in armed clashes for a total of 22,404 people killed. He says: "...even if submitted to a deduction of 50 per cent they would still be appalling, for the whole city of Buenos Aires had at that time a population of only 60,000. One person killed out of every three inhabitants (or one out of every six) would be a fair record even for a more up-to-date dictator." and continues later on: "Changes the name Rosas to Hitler or Mussolini and the same sentence would equally apply. It was the dictator psychology at work, the pathological despot who, despite all his seemingly high-strung lack of direction, invariably heads toward a single goal. His concern is to divide his opponents, unite his followers, strike fear and misgiving in the skeptics, and maintain his power over the majority." (in The epic of Latin America. Third edition. Los Angeles: University of Californe Press, 1980, . p.589)

Perhaps there is a conspiracy in U.S., UK, Brazil and Argentina to present Rosas as ruthless dictator? Everyone is a detractor, then? --Lecen (talk) 14:27, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

In case you didn't understand it yet, there has been a paradigm shift in Argentine historiography regarding to Rosas, and things that were once considered facts have been re-checked and re-analized, and were either refuted or couldn't be confirmed. Yes, there was a conspiracy at Argentina to do anything to discredit Rosas (see his own article, the speech included speaks for itself). There were also conspiracies at Britain and France by that time, when they were at war with the Confederation (not much unlike the "weapons of mass destruction" modern issue). Modern authors like Lynch are not part of a conspiracy: they are just stating as facts the lies from the old anti-rosist paradigm, unaware of the paradign shift.

And yes, I realize my mistake here. When you started using arguments aimed at me or mere process rather than content, or when you started posting absurd nonsense like talking about a phrenologist author as if he was Adam Smith, I thought it would be better to give a pause to the debate and keep it on later. I also thought that, by limiting myself largely to discuss here without actually editing the article, the problems may be kept to a minium, and perhaps you may even correct them yourself. Clearly, I was mistaken, and you misunderstood my silence with a "victory". I will start correcting myself the many mistakes in this article soon enough, always with the proper sources. --MBelgrano (talk) 14:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

If if Argentine historiography's view toward Rosas and his government changed, I presume (PRESUME) that it may have happened between the 1950s-70s and quite probably by either historians who sympatyze with Perón or with Comunnists. In other words, it must be part of the same "Revisionist" wave that transformed Francisco Solano López from a dictator to an anti-imperialism hero. If so, it is a minority view and as such, it might be discussed and presented in ther article about Rosas, and not in here.

I mentioned Adam Smith in this talk page not in the review page. Which means that you still did not explain why you simply ignored my remarks in there. And please, stop, for the last time, stop accusing me of things I did not such as to consider your silence a "victory".

And please, stop with the Conspiracy nonsense, ok? I do not care if you believe that there was a conspiracy in UK, France AND Argentina in the 19th century (I wonder myself if Napoleon III or a British prime minister lost their time creating a conspiracy to destroy a South American dictator's public image after his fall from power). Even if that's real, which is an absurd by itself, it still does not explain why in the 20th and 21th Centuries a British historian, an American historian and a Brazilian historian perceive Rosas as a ruthless dictator. If you want to turn him into a democratic and peaceful president of a republic, feel free to that in his article. But please, save me from all these absurdities. --Lecen (talk) 15:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems you don't know yet how do historians work. Did you thought that Lynch had come to Argentina, made his own investigation about Rosas, and arrived to the 20.000 number out of his own research? No: he checked the work of previous historians, deemed them as reliable, and wrote a summary of all the information he found. Primary sources are only part of the sources checked by historians, the other part is reiteration of things investigated by others (you can check that any good history book has lots of footnotes or bibliography). However, if the statements made by the first historian in the chain are found to be wrong, then the repeats of such statements made by others fall like pieces of domino.

I have mention the book where I found what I said. But I have something better. "El apogeo del régimen rosista", by Luis Alberto Romero. Population of Buenos Aires in 1840: 70.000. "Buenos Aires enfrenta a la confederación", same author. Population in 1850: 90.000. Let's consider it was true that 20.000 were killed and 14.000 emigrated. This would left a population of 36.000. And yet, in mere 10 years, it would be almost triplicated. Even more, there's no recorded inmigration wave to Argentina, like the one of the end of the century. Then, the only rational way to explain this may be that Rosas, after hearing Sarmiento's critics about the "empty pampas", had gathered an army of super-virile men having sex all day with every woman available, so they had baby after baby in order to produce this demographic miracle. I will do my part, the Confederation needs me! (oh, wait, this was a century ago). MBelgrano (talk) 17:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

So, beyond the existence of a large scale conspiracy between the British Empire, the second French Empire and Argentina against Rosas in the 19th century after he was ousted from power and that has endured to this day... one writer and only one wrote that 20,000 people were murdered. So, since then everyone else copied his information and now he is wrong and as such everyone one else since him is also wrong? That's the most hilarious thing I ever saw someone saying in here! And who are you to say that Brazilian, Argentine, British and American historians are wrong? Now you want to discredit all books that there are in this article by arguing that one supposed "original book" that every single author followed since then is wrong and so that means that Rosas is indeed a democratic peace-loving hero? Reaaally? --Lecen (talk) 20:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Recents edits by Belgrano

Belgrano has made recents edits that although they are probably important to articles about early 19th century politics in Argentina, they should not be in here. Example:

1. After the Argentina-Brazil War in 1828 Bernardino Rivadavia resigned as President of Argentina, as well as his vice-president shortly after, the 1826 Constitution was repelled and the office disolved.

Unnecessary info. Why is that important to understand the causes of the war?

1. The many provinces were organized since then as a Confederation, with the governor of Buenos Aires Province being invested with the power to manage war, foreign relations, and debt payment.

This should be in the article about the Argentine Confederation, more precisely, in the section about the State structure.

1. The wealth of Buenos Aires, generated because all of Argentina's international trade had to pass through its port, was a decisive tool to make political pressure over the other provinces.

It doesn't add much. It should be in the article about the Argentien civil wars, not in here.

1. Rosas ran a first term as governor in the 1829-1832 period, declining to be reelected, and again in 1835, this time with the legislature granting him the "sum of public power" (Spanish: "Suma del poder público").

In other words: he was granted the powers of a dictator. Why is that important? Ow, I see, because if he says "sum of public power" it looks nicer than "dictator" or "tyrant". It is the same as instead or saying "someone was murdered" you say "he passed away forcibly". Belgrano is desprate to present Rosas as a nice fellow.

1. which vary from 80

Again, he goes miles to show Rosas as a "nice, kind and peaceful dictator who did not kill that many". If Belgrano wants Rosas as a nice guy that much I propose removing all info about his ruthless dictatorship. It's simple but I just want to get rid of Belgrano, who has doen nothing but ruin this article. --Lecen (talk) 00:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Lecen, you are not beign cooperative with anyone that does not share your POV. MBelgrano is sourcing quite well his perspective, and is beign polite. You, on the other hand, are not only stuck to your ideas but you are becoming more and more impolite with fellow editors. Please, calm down and try to reach some consensus. None is "ruining" anything, nor you are the owner of this piece. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 00:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The new paragraph takes up more or less the same space than the former one, and in this conditions precition is always better than vague or unprecise statements. "In theory, Rosas only held as much power as governors of the other Argentine provinces. But in reality, he ruled over the entire Argentine Confederation, as the country was then known." fails to acknowledge that this wasn't because of Rosas actions, but things were legally arranged that way even before Rosas first mandate and applied for him as well for the other governors of Buenos Aires of those times. "With the exception of a short period between 1832 and 1835, he governed the country for more than 20 years as dictator" acknowledges that he ruled in 2 different mandates, but leads the reader into thinking that the sum of public power was granted to him at both ones, and no: only at the second one.

as for the 80 deaths, it's referenced. In any case, the other ones clearly show the lack of any clear academic consensus in the matter: 18.000 deaths of difference is incredibly away from being an acceptable margin of error. MBelgrano (talk) 03:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added a link to the historiography bit of the main de Rosas article, and tidied up some of the paragraphs. I'm not entirely neutral here - as Lecen noted, I've been involved in previous editing on this - but I honestly don't think that the current wording is presenting de Rosas as a nice person - the paragraphs are full of words like "terror", "repression" etc. There is a historical debate over the details of Rosas rule, which - given the importance of de Rosas and his regime to this war - needs to be noted here, although I don't think it needs to be much longer.

I'd have been personally inclined not to go into the details of the 1826 constitutional crisis, but I wouldn't feel strongly enough to take it out now it's there. If others (with better Spanish than mine) agree that "sum of public power" meant an effective dictatorship, I'd be inclined to clarify that as well, e.g. 'granting him the "sum of public power", making him effectively a dictator.' or something like that. Hchc2009 (talk) 12:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Wonderful. Now there are four portraits of Argentines in the article. And someone still says that is focused on Brazil... --Lecen (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Couple of things...

The latest sequences of edits have been pretty ugly - it'll need some copy-editing, we've now got stranded bits referring to Corrientes, Urquiza etc., and we seem to have lost a lot of the background on the Paraguayan elements, which I don't think (?) was disputed in the earlier debates above. I'll try and tidy this up a bit later if I get a chance.

"The Argentine Confederation and the Empire of Brazil were competitor expansionist countries." (my emphasis) I'd strongly agree that the two were competing for influence across the region, but most would read "expansionist" to imply "territorially expansionist" - MBelgrano, did you really mean that Brazil was expansionist in that sense?

"because of the lack of a patriotic feeling product of the short life of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata" - do we mean that there was a lack of patriotic sentiment because of the short life of the Viceroyalty? (I was a little confused here!)

Ref the map - I found it quite useful. MBelgrano - was it taken out because you disagreed with it? If not, we could squeeze it in on the right under de Rosas' portrait quite easily.

MBelgrano, when you're adding new bibliographic references in the footnotes, could you remember to add them in the references section as well? De Santillan, Luna etc. have been put in the footnotes, but aren't in the references section. The second Felix Luna ref is also mising a page number.

Hchc2009 (talk) 05:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The "expansionist" term is used in its full meaning: countries that try to expand their influence by any means available, including but not limited to, territorial expansion. And yes, Brazil was expansionist in the territorial meaning as well. Notice that the section about the uruguayan civil war starts with "The old Brazilian province of Cisplatina...", but if we go back a little longer, we would find that the Banda Oriental used to belong to the Viceroyalty, and then to the United Provinces, until being invaded by Brazil. The Misiones orientales were also taken by Brazil in 1801. Was Brazil an expansionist nation in the territorial meaning? Definitely, yes. Not to mention the Riograndense Republic, whose situation with Brazil wasn't so much different that the one of Uruguay or Paraguay with Argentina.

The thing with the patriotism is that cities didn't thought themselves as part of a big country, but within a small localist view. For Buenos Aires, the "nation" was Buenos Aires and the Pampas. For Entre Rios, it was the territory between the Parana and the Uruguay, etc. The short life of the viceroyalty did not allowed a patriotic feeling to grow and link them as part of a perceived unity: their only unity was their relation with the metropolis, but with it severed, Buenos Aires could not assume that role and the provinces started to look out for themselves. (Note: this is not my explanation, I'm just reformulating the ideas explained by Felix Luna in the referenced book). The point is to explain that the recreation of the viceroyalty wasn't "an old Argentine dream", but Rosas dream, which didn't generate that much support among other contemporaries. In any case, it wasn't a solid and specific project but merely a vague a general one, like the Manifest Destiny in North America, so the image of the viceroyalty may be misleading. MBelgrano (talk) 15:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

There are two explanations for Belgrano's absurd edits. One: he knows nothing of history. Two: he might know, but he pick the facts that better suit his needs. I will prove that right now:

Belgrano wrote: The "expansionist" term is used in its full meaning: countries that try to expand their influence by any means available, including but not limited to, territorial expansion. And yes, Brazil was expansionist in the territorial meaning as well.

My answer: If Brazil had expansionist plans, why it did not annex Uruguay in 1851? Or in 1853 or in 1858 when the Brazilian government sent troops on two different occasions by request of the Uruguayan government to quell rebellions in Uruguay? That would be pretty much easy, after all, Argentina was at that point weakened, split in two different countries that spent 10 years fighting each other: The state of Buenos Aires and the Confederate Argentine. Or why did not Brazil annexed Uruguay after it defeated the country in the Uruguayan War in 1864? Why did not Brazil annex Uruguay and Paraguay after the War of the Triple Alliance in 1870? It had at that moment an army of 50,000 men in the region and the fourth most powerful navy in the world. Meanwhile, Argentina was weakened by several internal revolts and had an army of around 5,000 men, Uruguay had 500 men and Paraguay was completely destroyed. The U.S. was just then leaving a bloody and expensive Civil War (American Civil War), the same can be said about Mexico and its war against France (French intervention in Mexico), of the other Spanish-American countries that had been fighting Spain (Chincha Islands War). In Europe, France was desperate trying to deal with Prussia (which would later result in the Franco-Prussian War), while Austria had been humiliated by Prussia (Austro-Prussian War). The British Empire was to worried with Russian expansionsim in the caucasus and threats to its hegemony in Africa.

Tell me, with no one capable of holding Brazil in 1870, why it did not annex Uruguay and Paraguay? Perhaps even Argentina?

Belgrano wrote: but if we go back a little longer, we would find that the Banda Oriental used to belong to the Viceroyalty, and then to the United Provinces, until being invaded by Brazil.

My answer: The first country to colonize what is today Uruguay was... Portugal. Not Spain. But Portugal in 1680. Portugal gave the territory to Spain in the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso signed in 1777. A little later Spain created the viceroyalty. In 1811 Portugal returned to conquer the "Eastern side" (as Uruguay was called) but failed. It returned once more in 1816 and it was victorious. In 1828 Uruguay became independent. So, as you can see, from 1680 to 1777 and then from 1816 to 1828 that sums... mnn... 105 years at the hand of Portugal and Brazil. On the other had, from 1777 to 1816 that sums... 39 years. So, only taking math as a proof, that would mean that Brazil did not conquer anything... it reconquered what once belonged to itself. The Portuguese-Brazilian influence was so strong in Uruguay that by 1864, that is, 36 years after its independence in 1828, 33.3% of the Uruguayan population was Brazilian. Another 33.3% were immigrants that had arrived after 1828. And the remaining 33.3% were the descendants of Indians, Spanish and Portuguese that had settled in the area during the colonial era.

Even so, Brazil never tried to reconquer Uruguay after its independence in 1828.

Belgrano wrote: The Misiones orientales were also taken by Brazil in 1801.

My answer: They were not taken by Brazil, that did not exist then, nor by Portugal. In the treaty signed in 1777 Portugal gave Uruguay to Spain. In 1801, in the Treaty of Badajoz (1801), as a compensation for the loss of the Eastern side (Uruguay), Spain gave to Portugal the Misiones orientales (nowadays part of Rio Grande do Sul). That is why Rosas wanted to take "part of the sourthen region of Brazil" in 1834. That's the region he wanted.

Belgrano wrote: Not to mention the Riograndense Republic, whose situation with Brazil wasn't so much different that the one of Uruguay or Paraguay with Argentina.

My answer: yes, there is. First of all, neither the Paraguayans nor the Uruguayans (except for Oribe's pawns) had any kind of desire to be annexed by Argentina. There was no common identity between them to consider themselves part of one nationality. In Brazil, however, in the Farrapos rebellion, the population stood by the side of the child-emperor adn the rebels never managed to conquer the whole province. They stood near the Uruguayan border, attacking Imperial troops and evading to Uruguay.

As anyone can see, or I am far better in history then Belgrano or he is simply telling fairy tales. Perhaps this is all part of the big conspiracy that existed between Argentina, UK, U.S., France and Brazil to blacken Rosas's image as a true democratic patriot? --Lecen (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If we start discussing about the legitimacy or not of this or that military action, then we would never end. The best way to settle is with 4 questions. Are there sources that acknowledge the Argentine Confederation as expansionist? Yes. Are there sources that acknowledge the Empire of Brazil as expansionist? Yes. Are there sources that state that the Argentine Confederation took actions, military or otherwise, to interfere in foreign countries policies? Yes. Are there sources that state that the Empire of Brazil took actions, military or otherwise, to interfere in foreign countries policies? Yes.

By the way, some answers to things posted by Lecen elsewhere. First of all, Historical revisionism in Argentina is not a minority view. Without getting into what do they actually postulate, policies of Wikipedia on how to set apart which are or aren't minority views is to check whenever other authors, unrelated with it, acknowledge it. Of course, citing revisionist authors directly does not prove anything, so I have other examples. "Historia de la Historiografía Argentina" (in Spanish, "History of the Argentine Historiography"), 2009, by Fernando Devoto and Nora Pagano, ISBN 978-950-07-3076-1. "200 años pensando la revolución de Mayo" (in Spanish, "200 years thinking about the May Revolution"), 2010, by Jorge Gelman and Raúl Fradkin, ISBN 978-950-07-3179-9. Both books talk about Argentine historiography itself (the way the ideas and perceptions of national history have evolved over time). One from a general perspective, the other specific to a certain key event in the history of Argentina, but both gave a strong place to revisionism, with full chapters. The reasons on why is the "Official history" called that way differ, but both agree in that the term does not equal "mainstream history", or whenever such version of history has strong academic consensus. And even more: historian Félix Luna, antiperonist in politics, antirevisionist as historian, wrote the book "La época de Rosas" (already in the references) with a section devoted specifically to describe what do historians said about Rosas.

And yes, historical revisionism became important during peronism, but don't let that detail taken in isolation make you think that the others were apolitical. The "Academia Nacional de la Historia" was created by Bartolomé Mitre himself, and was later influenced by antiperonism, the "Revolución Libertadora" and others.

In any case, I must remind that, of the authors I cited so far, only Pacho O'Donnell is revisionist, the others are not. And a detail in advance: at this pont of the article, the description of what was the government of Rosas all about, I'm raising the revisionist perspective because it's the one being neglected. But with my main concern with the article, that it minimizes the role of Urquiza in favor of taking it as a war with Brazil, things will be turned: in that, the brazilian historiography seems to be in line with argentine revisionism, with the "official" history being the one neglected. At all points in the article we must equally represent them all.

As for the section in the article of Rosas that describes the dispute, yes, I have wrote it. However, it's unimportant who wrote it, but wich references are provided. The section describes revisionism without being referenced by a single revisionist author, thus stating the scholar significance of the dispute (yes, one of the references comes from O'Donnel book, but if you read it, you will notice that the book is merely reproducing someone else's quote, a quote from very public circumstances and from someone that may never be suspected of supporting Rosas).

And a final notice for casual readers: when we deal with Argentine history, when we say "revisionism" we mean historical revisionism of the history of Argentina (most the XIX-century one) as told by Mitre, Vicente López and other Argentine historians. It has nothing to do with the neonazis that deny the holocaust and try to be called "revisionists" in order to attempt to receive some scholar recognition. They are completely different topics. Revisionism is a general concept related to history (any nation's history) and predates holocaust denial, or the holocaust itself. MBelgrano (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Ow, so beyond arguing that in the 19th century a conspiracy between the British Empire, Brazil, U.S., France and Argentina was drawn to destroy Rosas's historical legacy and all subsequent historians (from all countries) up to the 21th century have taken as source one single author that was wrong, now you are saying that you are the one who created the section on Rosas's article about a suposed dispute among historians about him? And you are also saying that the "official" history in Argentina, that is, the one that millions of Argentine students learn every year is simply wrong?

Beyond the fact that you have been removing or altering the meaning of the text to suit your own POV, you also admit that you believe in a historical conspiracy that created the nowadays Rosas's public image and that the history that is tauch in Argentine schools are wrong? Am I the only one who think that Belgrano is not helping at all and that all his edits should be reverted? --Lecen (talk) 20:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I see that you insist in taking things down to the personal level. It is not me who says those things about Argentine historiography, it's many different authors who say this, and those authors are then referred by other authors (including anti-revisionist ones); and all I do is to state the multiple viewpoints and atribute them to their authors.

And, answering to an ironic question you asked to Hchc2009... yes, there were unitarians that didn't hesitase to promote fragmentation of Argentina merely to harm Rosas. Sarmiento, Alvear, Rivadavia, Paz, they all tried to do so, their attemps are well documented. Yes, I can cite books, but why bother? Let Sarmiento himself state it.

Que el gobierno de Buenos Aires deje el estrecho de Magallanes a quien lo posee con provecho y no podrá abandonarlo sin mengua. El estrecho de Magallanes pertenece a Chile y, quizás, toda la Patagonia. Es una tierra desértica, frigida e inútil. No vale la pena gastar un barril de pólvora en su defensa. ¿Por qué obstinarse en llevar adelante una ocupación nominal?

I must also point that I did not "call" IANVS to discredit Lecen's remarks. He came here by his own will, you can check at User talk:IANVS that I never called him requesting him to take part in this (even more, he was involved in a thread prior to my review, so it isn't unlikely that he has this page at his watchlist). MBelgrano (talk) 02:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Globalize

I fully concur with the need to globalize this article. In this sense, I think that, so far, the editions and edit proposals by MBelgrano are entirely within this objective: in fact, they are well sourced and are far more representative of contrasting (and relevant) perspectives about the subject than the previous redaction was. As far as the inmediate previous discusion goes, Lecen please bear in mind WP:Verifiability, WP:Consensus and WP:AGF policies. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 04:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

You are nothing more than Belgrano's "pawn" in here. So, I hardly care about what you think. Sorry. --Lecen (talk) 06:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm nobody's pawn, and I remind you that I also raised this issue long time ago. If you do not apologize for the way you treat your fellow editors and you continue to disrespect them you will not only undermine your position in this -or any- discussion, but I will look forward for report you for your unconstructive position and rejection of WP:AGF policy. Please, cool down. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 06:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Do it, then. And then I will have the chance to show Belgrano's false accusations that I called him "Hitler" and that I erased sourced information. And also, I will have the chance to show how he has erased sourced information and has changed the meaning of the text to suit his needs. I treat everyone around very well, as anyone can see in my several (successful) requests for article's reviews or in other matters. But Belgrano's behavior, since the beginning, was (at least) flawed. --Lecen (talk) 11:53, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Reporting users should be the last resort. It may be better to try Wikipedia:Requests for comment first. MBelgrano (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the article will clearly have to end up including several different historical points of view, some of which we won't all agree with. The trick is going to be ensuring that we do so neutrally, and that the eventual text remains readable. On the plus side, it is a well referenced article compared to the vast majority out there, which is at least making the debate slightly easier than some, and we all seem to care about these issues a lot. I'm halfway along reading through some of the other English language works on this, and I'll try to get them into here as well over the weekend, as well as working back in the odd reference we've lost along the way (work and personal life are intervening in between). There's some serious copyediting and so on to do as well, following the recent changes; I'm happy to take a stab at that on Sunday, if people like, then we can pick over that text to see if we can agree a final neutral version? Hchc2009 (talk) 22:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Latest changes...

MBelgrano: sorry to be a pain, but can I clarify what you mean in some of the latest changes? I want to make sure that I understand the intent before doing any copyediting!

• "raised by 9 the members of the legislature" - not disputing that he did, but wasn't obvious to me why this was significant! I may not understand the local context though.
• "Justo José de Urquiza was designed military commander" - do you mean "designated military commander"?
• "Entre Ríos faced military threats from Montevideo and Corrientes, but Urquiza could prevent that Fructuoso Rivera and Genaro Berón de Astrada, governor of Corrientes, joined forces" - you lost me a bit in this section. Did you mean that that "Urquiza could stop Rivera and Astrada from joining forces? Or that "Urquiza couldn't stop Rivera and Astrada from joining forces..."? Also, at this point, we haven't introduced Fructuouso into the article, so we'll need to explain who he and Montevideo is etc.
• "Astrada died in the battle" - which battle? No battle is mentioned.
• "an attempt to Face Rivera's armies in Montevideo failed" - failed in the literal sense that they couldn't put together an army to deal with Rivera, or failed in the sense that there was a battle and they lost?
• "Juan Lavalle" - its wikilinked, but you don't say who he is in in the text, which makes it a little hard to understand. "Juan Lavalle, the former governor of Buenos Aires and a Unitarian enemy of..." might make it easier to follow, pehaps?
• "Paz and Rivera could take parts of Entre Ríos, but Urquiza defeated Rivera at the battles of Arroyo Grande and India Muerta, and then corrientes at the battle of Laguna Limpia. " Could or did? (the former might mean that they could but didn't; or did so repeatedly, etc.)
• "The defeat at Laguna Limpia led to the Treaty of Alcaraz that made Corrientes join the Pacto Federal" made - do you mean that the Treaty said that Corrientes had to join the Pacto, or that the Treaty resulted in Corrientes choosing to join the Pacto?
• "Urquiza defeated them once more and left Benjamín Virasoro as governor of Corrientes." I'm assuming that this means that Urquiza appointed Benjamin as governor? Or was there some else after Berón de Astrada died, and Urquiza just let him remain in post?

Lastly, are there any dates for the later sections? (follow on: as in, what years did the later events take place Hchc2009 (talk) 11:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC))

Hchc2009 (talk) 07:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

This is indeed the last time I am going to say anything on this article. It was fine the ways it was before Belgrano began his edits. It was simple, direct and explained well everything. Now he is turning the article that is about an international war into an article about the Argentine Civil Wars. The article Argentine Civil War is the correct place to do that. Also, he insists, and as I can see, Hchc2009 too, on giving the same weight to different sources. What Belgrano has been writing is not considered by historians in Brazil, UK, U.S. and not even in Argentine schools. If there is somekind of discussion over Rosas's legacy it sould be dealt in his article, not in here. The article is getting worse and worse and it makes me feel sad because I wrote it from the very beginning. I know it isn't "mine" but one thing is to see other editors do useful contributions and another one completely different is to see one single editor push his POV. It is awful. Do not count on me on working on this article anymore. --Lecen (talk) 14:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that equal weight should given to all different sources, Lecen. Indeed, on the basis of the volumes I've been going through in the last few days, I'd argue that the English language histories of the war do indeed perceive it as an international war, driven by an individual dictator's ambitions (and I choose my term carefully!). But there is an opinion, albeit it revisionist (with all of the political baggage that goes with that term!) that it was primarily part of a longer civil conflict, and we need to ensure that this is reflected in the article. It may be that we need to be explicit in the text that there are several different interpretations (a reasonable solution in many articles). I also agree with you that we need to ensure that the article remains readable - this is something I want to try and tackle over the weekend: the recent changes have incorporated additional information and perspective, which is good, but they haven't always been very easy to read. I'd strongly encourage you to stick with the discussions here, particularly after all the hard graft you've put into this article so far. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Notice that it was Urquiza who declared the war, it was Urquiza who commanded the armies, it was Urquiza's the bulk of the armies in Caseros, it was Urquiza who dealt with the transition of power after Rosas defeat... of course it's part of the Argentine Civil War, rather than an international conflict. And have in mind a detail I already said: the historiographic view from Argentina that considers it part of the Civil War is not the revisionist one, but the so-called "official" one. If we ignored the revisionism, the section about Rosas's government would go back to its previous state at some points, but the rest of the article would have to be modified anyway. In fact, except for a pair of things here and there, it's not even needed to cite revisionist authors that much. MBelgrano (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

As for the questions, I don't have the book with me at this moment, but the ones I remember right now: Urquiza prevented Rivero and Astrada from joining their forces (each had had to fight alone at their respective territories), the battle with Rivera in Uruguay was lost, Corrientes was forced into accepting the treaty (they were defeated in battle, and the victor sets the conditions the defeated must follow, seems clear, but I'll improve it if needed), and yes, there was an unmentioned governor in Corrientes between Astrada and Virasoro, but I don't remember the name at this moment. MBelgrano (talk) 16:06, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the viewpoint in English, Brazilian and US histories is necessarily right, MBelgrano (I'm nowhere near qualified to do that!) - all I'm saying is that in most places outside Argentina it does seem to be seen first as an international conflict, secondly as an internal conflict. In that sense, I agree with Lecen. Where we disagree is that I think we should be representing both views in the article; wikipedia isn't the place to determine which historical consensus is right, only to capture the totality of historical views on a topic in as neutral a fashion as possible. NB: I agree that if we can avoid using the revisionist/traditional terms, so much the better, as they always cause trouble!

And thanks for the answers on the questions! Hchc2009 (talk) 16:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The Argentine government declared war on Brazil in 1851. That is, as far as international laws are applied, the beginning of an international war between two sovereign countries. Was the Second Sino-Japanese War that begun in 1837 a war by itself? Yes, it was. Was it also part of World War II? Yes, it was. Did the Japanese used rebel Chinese and Manchurian as allies against their own countries. Yes, they did. The same applies to Brazil and the Platine War.

Urquiza was the leader of an army composed of Argentines, Brazilians and Uruguayans. The other army was led by the Duke of Caxias, was was composed solely of Brazilians. While the first army was to invade Argentina from the North the second one would invade from the south, conquering Buenos Aires and then attacking Rosas from the rear. That did not happen because Rosas fled after a single battle. To turn all that in a ridiculous civil war makes no sense.

In this article there was a brief, yes, brief explanation on the Argentine internal conflicts with a "see also" link to the article about the Argentine Civil wars. All these bullshit that Belgrano has been adding should be in there, not in here. If he believes that Rosas is a hero as some Argentine historians may consider him too, that should be dealt in Rosas's article (in "Legacy" section). This article has, for some time by now, departed from its focus: the war between Brazil and Uruguay against Argentina. If someone wants to write about the Uruguayan Civil War that was also part of the Platine War he can do that, on its proper article. The same goes to the Argentine Civil War. Belgrano is too lazy to work on the article, however. To him is far more simple to simply turn this one into an article about the Argentine Civil War.

I can not, I will not, accept what is going on in here. But I will not help anymore. This article is not reliable. --Lecen (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Brazilian declaration of war was after Urquiza rebeled against Rosas and formed the alliance. The mere presence of foreign auxiliary forces does not the war is against that country. Spain and France aided the 13 colonies against Britain, but that didn't turn the American War of Independence into a war between France and Spain against Britain. But in any case, the "part of civil war" vs. "part of Argentine-Brazil war" are not excluding or contradictory perspectives. We simply have to mix both, and add all the information that suits both ones. MBelgrano (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Brazil did NOT declare war on Argentina. At least try to read some history books before writing that. It was Argentina that declared war on Brazil. Also, I have reverted Belgrano's recent edits. He has erased sourced information, added others that do not represent a majority view and it is changing the subject of the article. Do not edit until the present dispute is settled. --Lecen (talk) 16:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want to work further on the Argentine civil wars, do it on its proper article. This is an article about an international war between Brazil, Uruguay against Argentina. If you want to debate Rosas's rule, do it on his article. Not in here. --Lecen (talk) 16:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have removed all controversial information about Rosas himself, or his government, of the civil stryfe in Argentina that might be a source of debate. All that is left is the mention of Rosas ruling Argentina for 20 years. Even the mention of him being a "dictator" was removed as was also any mention of his atrocities. The dispute between Federalists and Unitarians is simply mentioned. Nothing else is. So, if someone wants to debate if Rosas was a dictatorship or a noble hero is free to do that in his article. If someone wants to write about the wars between Fderalists and Unitarians is free to do that on the article about the Argentine Civil War. --Lecen (talk) 17:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added in the infobox the mention that this international war is part of the Argentine and Uruguayan civil wars just as in Second Sino-Japanese War. Again, if someone wants to write about the disputes between Federalists and Unitarians please do it on its proper article. The same goes to anyone who wants to discuss about Rosas's legacy as a hero or villain. --Lecen (talk) 17:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits

Now that a week has passed, it's time to start again with this. As it can be seen in the article history, Lecen reverted a huge lot of referenced information, back into his favourite version of the article, even when nobody in the talk page supported such a radical measure except himself. He unilaterally declared the debate to be over, and nominated it for good article yet again. There's enough here to justify reverting this and restoring the deleted information and speedily fail the nomination according to existing policies, but I choose not to enforce anything. Let's try once more by talking. The information I added can be retrieved at any time, and my books are still in my personal library.

And to help with the development of this, let's change the order of topics. We'll discuss first the body of the article, the war itself, and leave Rosas for later.

The biggest concern with the article on this war is that, as I stated before, it neglects Argentine historiography. Not just in the dispute about the nature of Rosas's government (which, as I said, we shall leave for later) but also in the reasons, development and outcome of this war. In Argentine books, this war is described as a war between Rosas and Urquiza. The events that are described as leading to it are all inside Entre Rios and/or the Confederation, the "casus belli" is the action taken by Urquiza, the objetive of it the Constitution (made almost immediately after Rosas's defeat) and the post-war administration is managed by Urquiza. That's how all Argentine books tell this. And in this, revisionism is not involved: when I say all, I mean it. Félix Luna, for example, is not a revisionist author, in fact he is anti-revisionist, and yet the books "La época de Rosas", "Grandes protagonistas de la historia argentina: Juan Manuel de Rosas" and "Grandes protagonistas de la historia argentina:Justo José de Urquiza" (in Spanish, "the time of Rosas", "Great people of the Argentine History: Juan Manuel de Rosas", and idem for Urquiza) barely mention things from Brazil at passing-by sentences.

However, I'm not proposing to delete or reduce the sections about Brazil, but to expand (and create) the ones that are missing. Argentine and Brazilian perspectives, even if different, are not mutually exclusive in this.

As described in one of the removed paragraphs, the Confederation was expansionist, but so was Brazil, and territorial disputes about this or that territory (some of which survived to our day as independent nations, while others did not) where part of the same system employed to weaken the other country or prevent it from becoming more powerful. It's not up to us to describe or justify whenever any of them was expansionist or not, or whenever this or that action was "legitimate" or not. We simply repeat what sources say, if reliable sources consider Brazil to be expansionist, that's enough. Oh, and a side comment: being expansionist is not a "crime", in fact it's a trait that any country needs to become a world power. Quite the contrary, it's isolationism the trait that countries should be ashamed of.

What's up with Paraguay? As described earlier, the paragraph as it is cites facts, but conceal others, such as the paraguayan desires over the Mesopotamia. If the paragraph stays, it should be completed. But there is another problem: should it? Paraguay did not took part on the war, nor the war was fought in Paraguay. Which is the purpose of explaining the stir between Argentina and Paraguay if nothing is going to come from it? (Not in this article, I mean). MBelgrano (talk) 22:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

This is not the first time you "disappear" from the article and reappear after some time to, once again, block any chance of improvement in it. Indeed I removed you aditions as I also removed much of the information I had written about Rosas's government. Why I did that? Because it does not matter to this article.

The war began on August 18, 1851 when the Argentine Confederation declared war on Brazil. Period. Once a country declares officialy a war through its diplomatic channels that means one thing only: an international war. Period. You will not turn this article into a mere Argentine civil war. There is already an article about that and as I saw you were the one who created. There is also an article about the Uruguayan civil war. Anyone who wants to write more about the dynamics of each country if free to that... on its proper article.

I am getting tired of your behavior, Belgrano. And I am not kidding. You have vanished, although you were clearly editing other articles in the mean time which means that you can not even say that you were travelling or busy. Every time I try to move this article foward you do something to stop it. Once I get sick and leave it alone, you simply vanish. I brought several books, witten by Argentine, American and British historians and all agree that not only it was an international war but that Rosas was a brutal tyrant. If that's not a worldwide view, I don't know what it is. You don't agree? Then start being a man and stick to this discussion once and for all. Do not, I repeat, do not disappear to return later to prevent any advancement of this article. --Lecen (talk) 00:05, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S.: I do not agree with your proposal of adding more information about Argentine internal politics, itis political parties, its internal conflicts, civil wars, etc... Why not? Because there were three connected civil wars occurring in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay: the War of Tatters, the Argentine Civil War and the Gerra Grande. If we follow your logic we would have to also add information about the regency during Pedro II minority, was well as the internal conflicts between the rival political factions, and even more info about the War of Tatters. IF you failed to notice, all three countries have three sections dedicated to each one. It is simple and direct. And that's the idea. If a reader wants to know more about the Argentine civil wars, all he has to do is to click on the link to the main article. That's it. You want to change the focus of this article? No, you will not do that. --Lecen (talk) 00:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S.2.: If we take your thoughts as an example, and consider that 16,000 Brazilians in a war can not match the 20,000 Argentines under Urquiza's command, could we then consider the Argentine participation in the War of the Triple Alliance as superfluous? After all, Brazil sent 160,000 Brazilians to the war while Argentine sent 30,000. --Lecen (talk) 00:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have been deliberately absent for a week. There's no hidden purpose in this: it is a recomended procedure in Wikipedia:Etiquette. If I had answered a week ago, angered by the removal of content, my answer would have been highly aggresive. Now, that the anger has cool down, I can offer once more to settle this in a civilized manner. Nevertheless, I insist that you direct your opinions towards the content of the article, and not towards me.

As you acknowledge yourself, this war is a highly complex topic, with many subtopics being mixed in it. Yes, we can take advantage of the capability to create and link subtopics, but there are limitations to it. First, even if not going into full detail the article must still be precise and neutral as a standing alone article. Brevity is not excuse for incorrect or misleading information, or to select a number of facts to guide the reader into a predefined conclusion. Yes, this may mean that the article may need to be expanded even futher, but there's little to do about it: complex topics require complex articles to be properly explained. Does this mean we have to write here all there is about the 3 civil wars? No: only the parts that actually have an effect over the topic of this article. Is it needed to explain the history of failed attempts to write an Argentine Constitution? Yes: Urquiza started this all in order to allow the making of such Constitution, so it is needed to understand the context and motivations of the people involved. Is it needed to say anything about the stir between Argentina and Paraguay? No: Paraguay played no part in this war, so that information is off-topic and leads to nowhere.

And no, this isn't an "international war, period". It would be if, regardless of the civil war, all the Confederation had standed toguether against a common foreign enemy, like during the anglofrench blockades. That was not the case here, in fact the alliance was led by a province of the Confederation itself. Then... it's clearly a civil war, with foreign parties involved, but a civil war all the same.

Oh, and may I make a request? Please keep the discussion about this article here, at the talk page of this article MBelgrano (talk) 02:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

1. I am free to speak with anyone in here, in case you do not know.
2. Were you "deliberately absent" when you made that awful review of yours and ignored my remarks, too?
3. The war is far from being a complex topic. It's simple: Rosas wanted to reunify the former Viceroyalty and Brazil wanted to stop it at any cost so that it could continue to be the only power in South America. Both countries influenced regional conflicts and disputes to acchieve that goal. It is that simple.
4. Does writing in here about the failed attempts in Argentina of creating a constitution will help on understanding what I just explained above? No. It will not. Since no historian that deals with the war (and mention the internal politics of each country involved briefly) ever bothered to mention that, there is no reason to do it in here. It is important to write about that in the article about the Argentine civil wars? Probably yes. But not in here.
5. Paraguay was important to this war because in case you failed to notice, it was part of the alliance against the Argentine Confederation. Just as Bolivia.
6. As you just revealed, you want to turn this article into an article about the Argentine civil war. You are one lazy editor, did you know that? It is far easier to write over other people's hard work than to begin one from scratch, right? That is true since you never bothered to improve the article about the Argentine civil war that you created yourself.
7. You are the same person that claimed that Rosas was a democratic hero (although Argentine, Brazilian, American and British sources all have a very different opinion on that). You also claimed that there was a far reaching international conspiracy between Britan, France, Argentina and Brazil to ruin Rosas's image into posterity.
8. You have also erased sourced text and changed the meaning of others without bothering to explain why and now you complain that I removed your sources that are clearly a minority view toward the subject (not only in Argentina, but also in Brazil, United States and Britain)? How dare you?
9. What I did, and I confess that I was quite nice on that, was to remove any mention of Rosas as a dictator or of his atrocities and I even simplified the disputed between Unitarians and Federalists so to avoid controversy.
10. You want to discuss Rosas's legacy? You want to discuss exactly why Federalists and Unitarians fought against each other? Fine. But do it in Juan Manuel de Rosas and Argentine Civil War. Not in here. Stop being lazy and start working on those articles. --Lecen (talk) 04:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

My views are unchanged from before (see above). I like the idea of working up the Juan Manuel de Rosas and Argentine Civil War articles, though, as neither are in good shape. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:29, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Lecen, I'm afraid you're losing control of yourself on this. Please calm down and stop with the bullying or I will definitely report you for beign unconstructive. You beign an intelligent person, I really don't understand why you cannot act cooperatively with other people that does not share your view. I sincerely hope you change your attitude. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 09:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The immediate causes of the war are mentioned in the article, and reflect what I've found in other encyclopedia articles on this subject. Even including revisionist views would be fine, so long as they are noted as such and aren't given undue weight.

I understand that MBelgrano sees this war as an intra-Argentine conflict. However, I have yet to come across any sources which present it in that manner. The insertion of foreign troops under their own commanders and flags in significant numbers makes that impossible. There are many similar examples of where internal strife has expanded into an international war.

My objection to going into depth regarding background factors which may/may not have contributed to the conflict is that doing so in a way which properly balances the various scholarly interpretations is a vexed undertaking. Sources tend to emphasize one or another underlying factors (economic, incipient nationalism, personal ambition, etc.), and these are going to differ depending on which nation or faction in the conflict is being addressed in addition to the authors' emphases. I agree that some of these underlying factors were in place prior to the conflict, and this particular war did not resolve many of them. Here we have Argentine factions, Uruguayan factions, Brazil, interests of and treaties with Paraguay and Bolivia, and meddling by France and Britain—each with their own immediate reasons for involvement and each with a variety of scholars who put their own spin on what deeper factors may have influenced their involvement. The best solution may indeed be to put things like contributing underlying factors into the articles on the history of each participant (and perhaps articles on prominent persons who made decisions) in the conflict. In my view, this article relates to the war itself and does not need to detail much beyond the immediate causes of the conflict. It seems to do that in a manner which reflects the majority of sources, including encyclopedial sources, which I've come across thus far. • Astynax ^talk 10:01, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I have mentioned at the start of this thread 3 books where the perspective is in the Argentine Civil War, the approach is not simply my idea or desire, but the way it's done in there. Some other books that employ it may be the following: "Historia Argentina", by Diego Abad de Santillán, "Los mitos de las historia argentina", by Felipe Pigna, "Breve historia de la Argentina" by José Luis Romero, "Proyecto y construcción de una nación: Argentina, 1846-1880", by Tulio Halperín Donghi, etc. None of those authors are revisionists, quite the contrary, Félix Luna is anti-revisionist, and Halperín Donghi even more (he even wrote a book specifically to criticize Revisionism). You can check the "Proyecto..." book here MBelgrano (talk) 13:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Asynax in that if we're not careful, the context becomes larger than the rest of the article. I think it needs to spell out the recent history prior to the war so that a reader unfamiliar with the Platine region has some sense of the history; the elements that cause most (e.g. pretty much all UK/US/Brazilian) historians to see it as an international war; the elements that cause some Argentian historians to view it as part of a longer civil war. We can easily move any material we don't use here to the Argentine Civil War article, for example, which is only a stub at the moment. Hchc2009 (talk) 14:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, as an example of underlying factors not being dragged into an article, see the Franco-Mexican War. That article does not integrate into the Franco-Mexican War article the intra-Mexican conflicts which led up to the war (and which resumed afterwards) which some have argued made the French/British/Spanish intervention possible. Instead, the conflict is treated as the international war which it was. That article does not go beyond the general view to delve into the various available and conflicting analyses of the characters of Napoleon III, Maximiliano or Juárez. Instead the reader can go to the articles on those participants for more information. That article does not go into French expansionism of that period or even into much detail regarding views of the main Mexican political factions. That article does mention the immediate casus belli, but does not presume to lecture readers on predatory lending practices of the period (another theme fit for a separate article). The focus needs to remain on the subject of the article: the war itself. Articles which lose that focus tend to become PoV debating arenas, which is not a way towards advancing article quality.

With regard to there being people who have written alternative views of Rosas, that also is a side-issue with regard to the Platine War article. I can find U.S. historians which have given hugely varying pictures of the characters and motivations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Some are scholarly speculation, some are attempts to fit these people into broader social or economic theses, and some slip into revisionism. Regardless, advancing those alternative views belong, if anywhere, in the articles about those people. Such views are peripheral to, not subjects of, and do not belong in, short encyclopedial articles on the American Revolution or the U.S. Civil War. Although I appreciate the contentious nature of the additions and deletions over the last few weeks, I think these are also peripheral to the subject at hand and Lecen's removal of material (both written by himself and others) has focused the article more on the war itself. From reading here, I am only becoming more confused as to what are the remaining contentions, but they do not seem to be regarding main purpose of this article. If they are indeed important and summarize scholarly consensus, then they need to be much better and clearly explained than has been done here, and summarized using a very few words. • Astynax ^talk 18:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Contemporary views on the war

On the war:

"September 30th. - [...] The free navigation of these [rivers] is essential to her [Brazil] interests. One chief objective in the policy of Rosas, however, was been to kept them closed to all foreign commerce, that the trade of the confederacy might centre exclusively in Buenos Ayres; and thus to enrich and aggrandize her, at the sacrifice of both Brazil and her sister republics of the confederation [the other Argentine provinces]. All negotiation on the part of the court of Brazil, to secure free access to the interior of the Empire by the tributaries of the Plata, having proved abortive, that government had determined to try the effects of arms." (p.239)

Comment by Lecen: this paragraphy follow very close to what is despicted in Platine War#The Empire of Brazil reacts section.

"General Urquiza, the President of the State of Entre-Rios and Corrientes, long the principal coadjutor of Rosas, and the most successful and distinguished of his soldiers, weary of his tyranny and selfish policy, has entered in compact with Brazil to aid in the accomplishment of her purpose. The first objective to be attained is the overthrow of Oribe, and the consequent relief of Montevideo from siege; and thus to lay the basis to a joint attack on Buenos Aires. Urquiza, with a force of fifteen of twenty thousand Entre-Rians and Corrientans, is approaching in one direction; and the Baron of Caxias, having an equal force of Brazilian infantry and artillery, in another: while a squadron, consisting of a frigate, two sloops of war and three steemers, under the command of Admiral Greenfell, has arrived from Rio, and is at anchor near us." (p.239)

Comment by Lecen: The author says that Urquiza was to aid Brazil, not the opposite. And that the allied forces were divided in two armies that would, in a joint attack, conquer Buenos Aires. This can be seen at Platine War#The allied army advance. Belgrano has insisted on saying that Brazl was nothing more than an almost-forgotten participant on a conflict between Argentine caudillos. Interesting enough, that is not the view of someone who saw the war on first hand,

On Rosas so called "democratic" government:

"For years, it has been the custom of Rosas formally to tender to the representatives of the confederation, the resignation of his office as Minister of Foreign Affairs [the then-de facto office of the head of state of Argentina], pleading to be released from it, on the grounds of the great burden of the charge, his advancing age, broken constitution, and declining health. This is invariably followed by the most laudatory and fulsome panegyrics, from the leading member of the House, upon his character - the value of his past services, and the necessity of hteir continuance; and the unanimous resolution that he shall still fill the office: it being well known that not a member dare - even if he has the secret will - to move or second the acceptance of the profered resignation. The Archivo Argentino [Argentine Archives], or Government register, printed in English, and French, and Spanish, and sent widely over the civilized world, is filled with the record of these political farse. This year, however, Urquiza, as the President or Governor of Entre-Rios and Corrientes, promptly accepted the resignation" (p.239)

Comment by Lecen: Anyone who have seen Belgrano's edits will remember that he tried to insert an information that said that Rosas never wanted the office and tried to resign several times as he was someone that was doing that out of patriotism. As you can see, that was Rosas's farse to try to give an appearence of legitimacy to his dictatorship and noe one else was allowed (or was crazy enough) to go against it.

"The terms 'Unitarian' and 'Federal,' designate the original parties of the confederation, the first being applied to those who are in favor of a consolidated government, similar to that of the United States, and the last to those who advocate that of the compact at present existing. Under Rosas, the Unitarian party became outlawed and in effect exterminated." (pp.239-240)

Comment by Lecen: Exterminated. That's the word he used. Exterminated. That's why there were 20,000 people murdered by Rosas. Belgrano said that only "80" were murdered. That wouldn't be called an "extermination".

On the course of war:

"October 6th - Affairs on shore are rapidly approaching a crisis. Oribe, who led his troops westward some days ago, to meet the advancing force of Urquiza, has been driven back into what has been so long his besieging camp ; and, cut off from both the interior and the river, he is virtually the besieged instead of the besieger. Deserted already by some of his troops, who have joined the advancing enemy; limited in the supply of provisions, for those who remain, and daily more and more encircled, he must speedly capitulate, or fall in an unequal conflict." (p.244)

"October 10th - The pacification hoped for, has actually taken place, by the unconditional surrender of Oribe, with his entire force, amounting to to some fifteen thousand men to Urquiza." (p.246)

As anyone may have noticed, these were all written in the present tense, not past. They were taken from the journal of a eyewitness who was present during the conflict. The man is the American Admiral Charles Samuel Stewart of the U.S. navy. He published it as a book in 1856. Anyone is free to read the online edition in here.

In other words, Belgrano insists on presenting a view not even shared by contemporary nationals from neutral and uninvolved countries in the conflict. Of course that Belgrano may say that the United States was also involved in his so-called international conspiracy to blacken Rosas's image to posterity. In fact, the American government was even capable of asking one of its citizens to write a journal during the war only so that 150 yeas later people would consider the "just", "noble" and "democratic" Rosas a tyrant?

If that is the case, that was a well made conspiracy. Because the historian John A. Croy on his book "The epic of Latin America" has a chapter entitled "Juan Manuel Rosas: tyrant of the Argentine" (p.580), while other Argentine leaders have chapters such as "Sarmiento: Civilian President" (p.599) and "San Martin: protector of Peru" (p.470). The one devoted to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is called "The Democratic Emperor of Brazil" (p.531).

Another book, "Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850", has a chapter devoted to Rosas called "Juan Manuel de Rosas: Argentina, 1829 - 1852" (p.241) and a sub-chapter entitled "Conservative dictator" (p.250). Isn't odd that every single English-speaking historian considers Rosas a ruthless tyrant? Isn't this the Wikipedia in English? Why Belgrano's view, which is not shared by people who lived the war nor historians in English-speaking countries should have any weight in this article?

P.S.: According to historian Joseph Criscenti in his book "Sarmiento and his Argentina": "Another failing of Urquiza, Sarmiento noted in his Campaña, was his demonstrated unreliability as an ally and anti-Brazilian stance. In the recent campaign against Rosas, Urquiza had shown little respect for the Brazilians and their contributions to the anti-Rosas campaign. Brazil had furnished half the troops at Monte Caseros, yet the Brazilians were not mentioned in the official battle report on Monte Caseros, which Sarmiento and Mitre had written as directed. Sarmiento felt obliged to explain to the Brazilian commander in writing that references to the Brazilians at Monte Caseros in the official batle report had been surpressed."

And continues: "At Palermo Urquiza and the Brazilian representatives [ led by Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná ] had even exchanged threats of war. Urquiza was then assuring the Uruguayan government of his aid should it break its treaties with Brazil. What Sarmiento failed to mention was that Brazil was also disturbed by talk at Palermo of including Uruguay in the new Argentine confederation. Sarmiento concluded that Urquiza did not apreciate Brazil's importance and power and had abandoned the idea that Argentine exiles had nurtured an of an 'alliance of interests' with Brazil. The porteños, however, had extended every courtesy to the Brazilians when they entered the city after Monte Caseros, during their stay there, and when they left. Sarmiento himself had nothing but praise for Pedro II and the Brazilian troops." (p.119) No wonder that a few Argentine historians might turn down Brazilian presence in the war and perceive it as an internal conflict: everything was made in the official adresses to hide Brazilian participation. --Lecen (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources do not "cancel" each other, and modern authors from more than a century afterwards are equally uninvolved with the conflict. We may add this into the global perspective, but not decide that "this source is right, therefore the others are wrong". Even more, first-hand reports from eyewitness are considered primary sources, whenereas secondary ones are preferred in Wikipedia. MBelgrano (talk) 14:43, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Is that so? Let's see what the Argentine José Luis Bustamante who also witnessed the war on first hand and publish a book called "Bosquejo de la historia civil y política de Buenos Ayres, desde la batalla de Monte-Caseros" in 1856 has to say about it:

"La Batalla de Monte Caseros el 3 de Febrero de 1852, cambió en uno dia la faz politica e social de los pueblos argentinos, especialmente la de Buenos Ayres, teatro principal del Gobierno despótico del general Rosas. En pocas horas de combate desapareció ante las armas del Grande Ejército Aliado de Argentinos, Orientales y Brazileiros aquel poder sangriento que por dos decadas pesaba sobre los pueblos del Rio de la Plata."

"Los ultimos cañonazos disparados en aquel dia memorable anunciaban que alli terminaba el reinado ominoso de aquella tiranía, verdadeiro flagelo de la humanidad y que con sus reuinas se sepultaban sus elementos todos, su sistema y sus medios de accion, abrindo paso al triunfo de la liberdad que le habia combatido sin cesar en los campos de batalla y en la prensa.

"Diez e siete años de la suma del poder público, de dictadura la mais espantosa en los tiempos modernos habra relajado y corrumpido los vinculos de la sociedad, roto Y aniquilado los resortes de la maquina publica. Las leyes conculadas, violadas todas garantias, la vida Y la propriedad del ciudadano bajo la accion continua del cadalso, la proscripcion, el puñal y la confiscacion, elementos privativos del aquele Gobierno tan sómbrio como él del Dr. Francia tal feroz como el Neron." (pp.III-IV) --Lecen (talk) 15:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I translated it into English, a fun task since Spanish is, but not enough, close to my language, Portuguese:

Translation: "The Battle of Monte Caseros in 3 February 1852, changed in one day the political and social face of the Argentine towns, especially the one of Buenos Aires, main theater of the despotic Government of general Rosas. In few hours of combat that bloody power that for over two decades weighed on the towns of the Rio de la Plata disappeared before the arms of the Great Allied army of Argentineans, Orientals [Uruguayans] and Brazilians.

Translation: "The last cannon shots in that memorable day announced there that the ominous reign of thattyranny had ended, a true scourge of humanity and that with his ruins was buried all its elements, its system and its means of action, aopening the way to the triumph of freedom which had fought it incessantly in the battlefields and the press."

Translation: "Seventeen years of la suma del poder público [the sum of the public power], of the most frightful dictatorship in the modern times had relaxed and corrupted the bonds of society, broken and annihilated the means of the public machine. The laws distorted, all [civil rights] guarantees violated, the life and the property of the citizen under the continuous action of the scaffold, the privative outlawing, dagger and confiscation, elements of that Government as dark as the one of Dr. Francia as as ferocious as the one of Neron."

As you can see, Rosas was considered a very democratic and nice person on his day. Also, anyone who saw Belgrano's edits will remember that he used la suma del poder público as a way of hiding the word "dictatorship". There it is. An Argentine of the 19th century tell us now that la suma del poder público is nothing more than "dictatorship". --Lecen (talk) 15:34, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with MBelgrano that sources don't "cancel" each other out, but I do agree with Lecen that the commonest English translation of Rosas' position in the literature, both then and now, is a "dictator". Hchc2009 (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Now that's the point, Hchc. Belgrano's sources could be used, indeed, to reveal different positions, albeit a minority, in the article devoted to him: Juan Manuel de Rosas. If he wants to also present other views, again, minority views, toward the dispute between Unitarians and Federalista he may do that on Argentine Civil War. The problem is that he made it clear that he wanted to turn this article from "Platine War" to "Argentine Civil War". He insist on turning down the Brazilian participation even though that was not the view during the war and is not the view noawadays.He is simply pushing his own point of view no matter how many times I present sources and more sources that clearly reveal how lonely he is. And I warn you: do not fall in his trap. He wants us to "dicuss" and then accept his POV about Rosas. Rosas is not the focus of this article. It does not matter if he awas a dictator or a nice guy. At least not in here. Nor is the focus of this article (although it is part of and is already mentioned) the disputes between Federalists and Unitarians. --Lecen (talk) 17:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Platine War/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Xtzou (Talk) 20:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I signed up to review this article previously, but before I could complete the review another editor started the review process. So I am happy to get a second chance as I enjoyed reading the article when it was a nominee before. I shall start the review shortly. Meanwhile I am doing a little copy editing which I hope you don't mind. It helps me just to fix the little stuff as I go along, rather than present you with a long list of nitpicks. Regards, Xtzou (Talk) 20:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Lecen. I see a few problems here; the user Belgrano is defending an unusual view that is not supported by reliable sources. Not getting into the discussion if it is right or wrong, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia therefore it should not contest or promote ideas that are not supported by well-known sources (be it primary, secondary or even tertiary). This has nothing to do with being neutral in a subject, even different points of view should be defended using reliable sources and the use of personal opinion is against the rules. In my opinion the discussion is just silly. I can see that the parties involved are passionate about the subject; nonetheless the reality is that the article has sources that are above the quality standard at Wikipedia.

Xtzou if you need help with the article or sources please let me know, I will be glad to help. Regards Paulista01 20:58, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Paulista, Historians cited by MBelgrano are absolutely representative of contemporary Argentine Historiography, José Luis Romero, Félix Luna and Tulio Halperín Donghi beign the mainstream; Pacho O'Donnell and Felipe Pigna well considered though discussed. You can find many others, but you won't find a best general representation of Argentine historiography than these. As for the views spoused by MBelgrano, there are not just one view, and they are not at all minoritary at least in Argentina. Quite the contrary. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 21:45, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

'Comments 'I am beginning my review. In general, this is an excellent article and very well written. However, I do have come concerns.

Lead

• The lead is very clear and concise, However, per WP:LEAD, it does not adequately summarize the article. There should be summary statements for each major section.
• I tentatively added a couple of links, as (ashamed to say this) but I only have a very rough idea where countries are in South American and need all the help I can get to orient myself geographically. For example, I was reminded by info in a link that Uruguay is a landlocked country, something that becomes especially important when states are feuding.

Background section

• This is a very intense section for someone like me, and rather hard to follow. It is quite long and involved with many names, etc. I wonder it it could be summarized more. Perhaps info can be spun out into daughter articles. (This is just a suggestion.) It would be helpful to focus on the parts that are important, clear cut factors in the actual war.

The war begins

I had much less trouble following the remaining sections.

• However, I wonder about the TOC. Both The war beings and Allied invasion of Uruguay each have one immediate subsection. It would be better, in my eyes, if there were an overall heading, that encompassed the subsections (and sub subsections) for a clearer TOC, as the layout of the TOC determines importance. The outline should be clear. (I hope I am explaining myself here.) What is the point of a heading, if it is immediately followed by a subheading?
• A minor issue: in some places it says "seven ships", and in others it says "7 ships". I see why this is done (to maintain one kind of consistency), but I am pretty sure that the other kind of consistency is what is wanted.

Xtzou (Talk) 00:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC) (I may add more later.)

Thank you for taking on the review and for your constructive comments. I have rearranged the headings so that there is now no heading with only a single subsection. I've also changed the 2 lists to display numerals the same. I intend to look at the lead and to further summarizing the Background section tonight. There are other articles into which some of the material in this section might be offloaded, but the bulk of the information may need to remain until those are in better shape. Still, some simplification can likely be done. • Astynax ^talk 18:19, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I make Astynax's words my own: thank you for making this review. You have mistaked Uruguay for Paraguay. The latter is a landlocked country while the former (as you can see on the maps at "allied invasion of Uruguay" is not. Nonetheless, I agree with you in every point that you've raised. I will make the background sections more simple and direct. I will also change the map that despicts the viceroyalty to one that show all the countries involved. Aside from that, there is anything left? Regards, --Lecen (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC

• Sorry for mixing up the countries. (I told you my lack of knowledge regarding South America was appalling!) I have one more suggestion:
• I wonder if you would consider putting a more informative picture/map in the infobox. The reason I ask is that when I hover over a wikilink I get an informative "snapshot" of the article. For example, when I hover over a country, I frequently can see a map or other informative picture without even having to click on the article. I think many use this method, as sometimes to click on an article means a long wait for the page to load. All the pictures in the infobox, while dramatic, are too small to see without clicking on them.

Xtzou (Talk) 19:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

But all articles about wars have that kind of image on the infobox, that is, a grouping of several images. You believe we should change for another one? About the map, don't worry, I will add it to the article! Regards, --Lecen (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a suggestion. If all articles about wars have that kind of image in the infobox, then certainly you should retain it. Xtzou (Talk) 20:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the lead

I have rewritten the lead. There is material drawn from each major section of the article, and it is now presented in the order in which the info appears in the body of the article. Hopefully it is now a bit more clear. • Astynax ^talk 09:07, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Other changes

I added another map that explains the border of the former viceroyalty as weel as the countries that were part of it and also presents Brazil. I also made changes to the text of La Guerra Grande and The Empire of Brazil reacts sections, by removing several not so important historical figures (at least to the background of the war), and making the text more direct and simple to follow. --Lecen (talk) 13:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for the changes. The article is much clearer to me now, though it still encompasses a great deal of information, none of which I knew before. Xtzou (Talk) 16:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality: Clear and concise writing

   B. MoS compliance: Complies with the basic MoS

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources: Sources are reliable

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: Well referenced

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects: Broad in scope

   B. Focused: } Remains focused on topic

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: Pass!

Congratulations! Xtzou (Talk) 16:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources

I appreciate your comment IANVS. Here is my understanding of this matter:

- Most of the defense of Rosas is based on Peron and Menem, nationalist politicians. Don’t get me wrong, Brazilian history is also full of historians that are, let’s say ‘compromised’ by ideology and political parties. Unfortunately it seems to be common in Latin America. The best we can do here is also use the sources provided by English-speaking historians, and they do confirm the history written by Uruguayans, Brazilians and non-Rosista Argentineans. Let’s take a look at what the historian and professor Jeffrey M. Shumway said about the subject, note that this is a recent book published in 2004 and edited by Lyman L. Johnson:

“Revisionist historians did not hesitate to challenge and expand the national historical consciousness with heavy doses of pro-Rosas interpretation of the ceremonies and past history. Surely the Rosistas saw it as an act of balancing the historical record that had been so long titled against them.”

My notes: According to Shumway one of the first historians responsible for the revisionism of Rosas was Fermin Chavez, note that Chavez based his revision not on primary sources (correct method for a historian). He based his revision on what the Argentinean supporters of Rosas thought of him. The process used by Chavez is very unusual if we use the modern methods of historical research used in the English speaking world.

Shumway continues:

“Other commentators stood on more moderate ground. As noted historian Felix Luna pointed out, debates over Rosas will always exist because those who value the ideal of liberty above all else will never accept Rosas, the absolutist dictator. By contrast, those who place national sovereignty above all will praise the “Restorer” for protecting the national territory and standing up to aggression…. People no longer referred to Rosas “simply as ‘the tyrant,’ just as no one attempts to hold him up as an ideal model.”

My note: The issue really is about how Argentina is approaching its past and not how history happened. Argentina is taking a neutral approach to avoid internal conflict, but in the real history only one version can be correct.

If you are interested in the book, check it out here, it may be useful for other articles related to Argentina: "Félix+Luna"+Rosas&cd=3#v=onepage&q&f=false Google Books

Anyway, this could be added to his biographical article, but to add it in this article is just not correct.

Paulista, besides not sharing your concept that just one acount of History should be valid, being History a highly controversial subject (i.e., English-speaking traditional view on Rosas relied primarily on anti-rosista works), I do agree with you in considering the long and ongoing debate about Rosas and the nature of its government a truly important issue for Argentines. This debate should obviously be considered at lenght in Juan Manuel de Rosas and Argentine Civil War articles.

In the present article, however, we are not discussing about Rosas goverment's merits and demerits but about the general representation and explanation of the War. The main issue is not if Rosas should be considered a dictator or not, but about how we conceptualize and represent major aspects of the War: Does the War explains itself because of the expansionist ambitions of a South American leader, or does it derive from complex causes involving diverse interests and the way those interests inter-related in a complex History?, Does the Brazilian campaign account for the global scope of the War itself, or does it only represent a part of a broader conflict?, Does the casus belli rely on the Brazilian need to overthrow a potential menace in the Rosas Regime or does it include other relevant causes (i.e., Argentine Constitutional organization; Uruguayan civil war, control of the Paraná-Paraguay waterway)?, Do we have to consider Argentina as a single State or should we take into account the Confederational nature of its organization?, etc.

All of this problems are reflected in the differing historiographical views about the subject. So the need to globalize the approach underlying this article. It is not about how do we value Rosas' regime. It is about how we conceptualize the conflict. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 03:06, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

IANVS, I never said that just one acount (Sic) of History should be valid. What I said is that only one explanation can be a fact. If different explanations exist, one or both are certainly incorrect. We will never capture the full picture of history, not even if we were living at the historical period in question. If we choose to go down this road of argument we may deconstruct everything, and even this encyclopedia and all historical books are invalid or useless. Since Wikipedia has rules and we live in a society that accepts basic principles of historiography, we have to follow it.

Here are the rules regarding foreign sources and neutrality of sources WP:NONENG, in it you will notice that English-language sources should be used in preference to non-english ones:

Non-English sources

Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be used in preference to non-English ones, except where no English source of equal quality can be found that contains the relevant material. When quoting a source in a different language, provide both the original-language quotation and an English translation, in the text or in a footnote. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians. When citing a source in a different language, without quotations, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote, or to the talk page if too long for a footnote. If posting original source material, editors should be careful not to violate copyright; see the fair-use guideline.

Reliable sources and neutrality

All articles must adhere to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view. Tiny-minority views need not be included, except in articles devoted to them. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation.

I went to the library today (I am from Canada, so it was easy to get a lot of English-language books) and none in the library defended the points of view defended by Belgrano. I will add extra sources to the article. In my region we have a huge library with a lot of Spanish books regarding Argentina and written by Argentineans, I will try to check it next week. If I find any Argentinean sources confirming Belgrano’s view I will add it here, if I find it I will support the extra paragraph proposed by Belgrano.

My regards to everyone, Paulista01 19:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulista01 (talk • contribs)

Civil war?

The other argument put forward by Belgrano that this was a simple civil war is despicable. Different countries declared war on Rosas and vice-versa, how can this be civil war? I think the argument is not even logical.

I also have my personal opinions about certain historical figures; however I try not to let it influence the way I analyze or write a historical text, in the end all should be based on sources and facts.

Best regards, Paulista01 17:19, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Paulista, thank you for being a part of this discussion. However, do not fall in the same mistake commited by Belgrano: this is not the place to discuss Rosas. Let it go. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 19:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I answered to this topic as well in the precedeng response to Paulista at Sources. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 03:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

There's a way to solve the conflict in here for everyone's satisfaction. We may add a "historiography" section, detailing the different approaches made by historians about this war (causes, motivations, protagonists, etc.), and controversies among them. It would be more clear, and it wouldn't "interfere" with the sections about the chain of events themselves.

I remind the other editors that the controversies about this war itself, and about Rosas's government, are 2 related but different controversies, and that the one about this war involves the whole of Argentine historiography, not just the revisionist venue. MBelgrano (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Have fun doing that on Argentine Civil War. That's the place to discuss how Argentine historians perceive this period of their history. Or else, we can bring the historic view that Brazilians, Paraguayans, Uruguayans and others have of it, too. If you want to show Rosas as a hero, do it on Juan Manuel de Rosas. --Lecen (talk) 20:30, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

An example: The article states, and surely brazilian books tell it that way, that Brazil was seeking support and find it with Urquiza. Argentine authors usually tell it the other way around: that it was Urquiza who was searching support against Rosas, and that for this he involved Brazil into the conflict (as it can be seen, a topic specific to this war).

And yes, uruguayan bibliography would also be welcomed, as it was also a country involved. MBelgrano (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The Urquiza example is one fine example of what you should be writing in Argentine Civil War to explain how it evolved into the Platine War. P.S.: So, in the World War II article we should use books from at least 70 different countries to be considered a "worldwide" view of the subject? --Lecen (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been following Lecen's work for months now and I can say that I am really grateful of his work. Over the past months he has managed to shine a light on the much neglected history of the Brazilian Imperial period by producing articles of immense quality and fully verifiable.

His series of articles detailing the life of Pedro II is astounding.

With that said it is with great worry that I realize that he has had to spend time arguing about an article that if it weren't for him simply wouldn't exist, he had had to do this instead of continuing on with his work. I really hope that all this bickering and arguing don't sap his enthusiasm of writing articles.

So I urge you (@MBelgrano) to consider the fact he is bringing the history of Brazil to Wikipedia and stop this discussion because something 90% or 95% correct is way better than nothing. King <Ref> (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Likewise, MBelgrano has been doing an extraordinary job on multiple Argentine History articles, creating most of the from the bottom up. Aricles of great quality and thorough investigation as the May Revolution series. So, given that the topic of this particular article involves both Brazilian History and Argentine History, I'm sure the diverse historiographic views regarding the subject are worth discussing and elaborated. And please, let's try to avoid talking about users themselves from now on. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 01:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Then the problem is worse, 4 months have passed and we still have two highly productive editors stuck here for no reason, this article is done and time is being wasted on minor details.

There is no other editor on Wikipedia producing such high quality articles about Brazilian History, not a single one.

For example, the articles on Pedro I, Maria Leopoldina, Isabella the Redeemer, José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva and Duque de Caxias are crap compared with anything he has written. The list is endless.

Because of that reason I really would like to see Lecen moving on to write or improve other articles. But no, he is still here. King <Ref> (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the idea of this proposal is precisely to solve this dispute and end it. Instead of trying to write an article coherent with the perspectives of all historians that have dealt with this topic, we would largely keep it as it is and describe instead how do historians disagree, as a subtopic of its own. I'm not surprised with Lecen's resistance, he has rejected all and each one of the things I have said so far (even that minor and inconsequential correction that Rosas was not "allied" with the Federalists but a Federalist himself, which is still kept in the article). However, as there are more users involved now, I thought that the others may agree to consider it a feasible solution. MBelgrano (talk) 02:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

There was no article about this conflict, now that there is, it is being cherry-picked for controversies. Instead of us being glad that it has been created and instead of using this article as motivation to improve and finish other articles such as Argentine Civil War, Justo José de Urquiza or Bartolomé Mitre we chose instead to bicker for 4 months.

For some reason, now that Lecen has taken the time to research, compile and write an article that didn't exist in the first place, suddenly there is interest on the Platine War.

Look, Lecen has completely rewritten the Empire of Brazil article and created 4 sub-articles related to it. I mean, he completely rewrote 67 years of Brazilian History. If he had faced such long disputes there, he wouldn't have had the time to write this article. I am glad he faced no disputes.

Why can't we drop this and come back in a few months? Why does it have to be now? I really want to see Lecen improving articles again. King <Ref> (talk) 04:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

No one is stoping Lecen to work in every article he wants to. Moreover, this dispute is not about User:Lecen or User:MBelgrano. Lastly, the timing of this debate only depends on WP practices. Nothing more, nothing less. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 04:47, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

King Ref, I am very grateful for your kind words. However, I can only take half the credit, the other part must go to Astynax, who has done an outstanding work with me.

I never said that Rosas was not a Federalist. I've just made it more clear in the article.

I am not against changes into the article. However, for the last couple of months I had to deal with Belgrano, who actions were deplorable (to say the least) since the start, and IANVS, who threatened me several times saying that he would report me, clearly trying to intimidate me to yield over Belgrano's claims. And now, and only now, both are surprisingly cooperative and nice. Don't be surprised if I am all suspicious and resisting to give away.

Belgrano does not want to work on historiograph only. He wants to re-write history. That's what he has been doing since the beginning. The moment he made that absurd review of his (by the way, look at Xtzou's review to learn what a true one is) which was nothing else then a measure to prevent his adorable dictator from being presented as he was, I undertood his goals. He has made it clear that he wants to turn this article into a simply "Argentine civil war" and wants to portray Rosas in a positive light. I saw what he did on Rosas's article (which is an awful article, by the way) and I know what he wants to in here. Anyone is free to take a look at Juan Manuel de Rosas#Criticism and historical perspective to know what I mean. When I read that "After the defeat of Rosas in Caseros and the return of his political adversaries, it was decided to portrait him under a negative light" followed by a huge quotation that says that "No sir, we can not leave the trial of Rosas to history, because if we do not say from now he was a traitor, and taught in school to hate him, Rosas will not be considered by history as a tyrant, perhaps he would as the greatest and most glorious of Argentines", I got a chill on my spine.

When Belgrano tried to insert that only 80 were murdered by Rosas, a red light instantly appeared at my head. I've seen that type of revisionism before and I know where it leads. I will not, unless if other editors want to, yield.

This is the Wikipedia in English. Do not forget that. As I revealed in here, sources written in English (both in U.S. and Great Britain) all says the same, in the past (from people who witnessed the war) to historians of present time. Not only that, but Brazilians and even Argentine historians (as I also brought in here) has the same view. If Belgrano is so eager to say that "sum of all power" is somekind of democratic constitutional prerogative, or that "only" 80 people were murdered by Rosas, or that Brazilian participation was insignificant, or that this was not an international war but nothing more then a Argentine Civil war (which it was, until it evolved into an international war), he can do that at Juan Manuel de Rosas and Argentine Civil War. --Lecen (talk) 11:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

You may discuss that in the article if you want, but as it is noted and referenced, that long speech was made at a legislature. Yes, extraordinary claims (like that there was a conspiracy to harm Rosas image) require extraordinary sources, and which can be more extraordinary than the transcription of the speech of an anti-rosist legislator calling precisely to create such conspiracy, and whose proposal was approved? But in any case, that belongs in that article. You don't want Rosas to be mixed here? Then stop bringing it into the discussion at every oportunity. I have already proposed to skip him and go on with the war rather than Rosas.

Second, that this is Wikipedia in English does not mean that English sources take priority over non-english ones. If any X topic has been much more discussed and investigated at a non-english speaking country than english ones (such as the history of such countries), then non-english sources are welcomed. This has been discussed many times, by many users at very public places (the village pump, policies talk pages, etc.), and such discussions always end this way.

Finally, to compare Rosas with Hitler is highly provocative, and there is no relation nor comparison between holocaust denial and the Argentine revisionism. It is even misleading for foreign users who have no idea about who were Rosas or Pedro II. I may mention 2 simple examples. Rosas is currently included in the Argentine currency, at the $20 banknotes. Revisionist author José María Rosa requested the battle of Vuelta de Obligado to be celebrated as the "Sovereignty day", the 20 of november, which is aproved by law Nº 20.770. Can we expect Hitler to be included in German currency any time soon? Can we expect proposals by holocaust deniers to homage Hitler to be honoured by national legislatures any time soon? MBelgrano (talk) 12:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I am sorry I didn't mention Astynax, he has done a good job as well. So we have the team Lecen/Astynax and MBelgrano stuck here and arguing for the past 4 months. This is not good, I believe it is time to move on, at least for a while.

The most important article that there will ever be about Rosas will be Juan Manuel de Rosas, the time spent arguing here could have been spent improving it.

All this time spent arguing here but the Argentine Civil War article is still incomplete and besides Lecen barely talk about Rosas here.

Why all this urgency with this matter? Can't we let this cool off for a period?

King <Ref> (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me. Let's go back to my original proposal at the top of this thread, and we're on business. MBelgrano (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Not go back but rather move on, at least for a while. The team Lecen/Astynax would like to move on to Brazilian War of Independence and Pedro I of Brazil, but first they need to be done here.

Meanwhile you rewrite the articles Argentine Confederation, Argentine Civil War and improve Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Can we do that? King <Ref> (talk) 21:13, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we go back from all this user-level discussion and Rosas, which are not part of my proposal, and move on from that point, as it provides a new direction to solve all this that hadn't been explored before. Yes, I can easily simply let it go and fill those other articles, but eventually I would have to return here and fix it as well. MBelgrano (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Whatever you have in your mind, if it is trying to turn this article into an Argentine civil war article, or to tell that there was an international conspiracy against Rosas, or that Brazil was expansionist but at the same time was an insignificant player in the drama, or whatever you want to do, be sure on one thing: I will not let you do that. --Lecen (talk) 22:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unless I am misreading the proposal, I see this as being at cross-purposes with Wiki guidelines. By "detailing the different approaches made by historians about this war (causes, motivations, protagonists, etc.), and controversies among them" the article starts to look like a term paper or a textbook chapter, rather than an encyclopedia entry, and requires too much from both readers (demanding conclusions) and editors (synthesis and WP:OR coming up with criteria as to which sources should be included/excluded in such an analysis). Anything of the length involved in the proposal also would take away from the focus of the article. If varying historiographical positions need to be explained, then a separate article devoted to the subject is needed, since these approaches affect more than just the Platine War entry, ranging all the way from the different explanations of the breakup of Spanish colonialism, to how they have been used in coloring current issues (e.g., social stratification; pro-British/anti-British positions, etc.).

However, if what is being suggested is, a short, referenced paragraph giving very brief summations from the perspective of each of the parties to the Platine War, there would be room for something on the order of...

From the perspective of Argentina, Urquiza's victory over Rosas represented a big step, but only one step among many, in its process towards establishment of national unity. Brazil saw the Platine War as a matter of defending against an existential threat, and its participation helped consolidate a still-fragile central government and a sense of nationhood. To Bolivia and Paraguay, the war represented a respite along their paths towards forging their national identities. For Uruguay, the war was also just another step in a longer, intra-Uruguayan struggle in which interference from outsiders continued to play a part. (just a quick example; would need citations)

There is no rush, and none of us has ownership of the article, no matter how much we have or have not contributed. People may still be tweaking the article long after we are all dead. As I look at other references, the article does seem to reflect the consensus of non-regional sources. Historians from outside the area present Brazil's involvement as decisive and as boosting the prestige of that nation. As became apparent, their modernized army and navy far outclassed anything in the region. They also do acknowledge that Rosas played an important part in holding together the confederation, though they have almost nothing else good to say of him or his methods. Some speculate that if Rosas's wider ambitions not drawn Brazil's attention, the civil conflict in Argentina would likely have continued on indecisively for much longer with the proxy conflict in Uruguay also dragging on. The Platine War itself did not solve much of anything, apart from getting rid of Rosas. But it was an important factor in moving along the process of estabishing national identities for all of the nations involved. • Astynax ^talk 22:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. For I all wrote before and also for what Astynax wrote above me. He said all: "the article does seem to reflect the consensus of non-regional sources. Historians from outside the area present Brazil's involvement as decisive and as boosting the prestige of that nation. As became apparent, their modernized army and navy far outclassed anything in the region. They also do acknowledge that Rosas played an important part in holding together the confederation, though they have almost nothing else good to say of him or his methods. Some speculate that if Rosas's wider ambitions not drawn Brazil's attention, the civil conflict in Argentina would likely have continued on indecisively for much longer with the proxy conflict in Uruguay also dragging on. The Platine War itself did not solve much of anything, apart from getting rid of Rosas. But it was an important factor in moving along the process of estabishing national identities for all of the nations involved". --Lecen (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I oppose a review of the article and the use of a different historiographical approach as originally suggested by Belgrano. Like Astynax mentioned this would be against the guidelines. The current version seems perfect for the English Wikipedia. Like I said before, I would accept some additional information, it has to be with sources, a paragraph similar to what Astynax proposed would be nice. Here is what he suggested:

From the perspective of Argentina, Urquiza's victory over Rosas represented a big step, but only one step among many, in its process towards establishment of national unity. Brazil saw the Platine War as a matter of defending against an existential threat, and its participation helped consolidate a still-fragile central government and a sense of nationhood. To Bolivia and Paraguay, the war represented a respite along their paths towards forging their national identities. For Uruguay, the war was also just another step in a longer, intra-Uruguayan struggle in which interference from outsiders continued to play a part. (just a quick example; would need citations)

Regards, Paulista01 (talk) 00:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• Partially oppose. I would be supportive of a short, sourced historiography section at the end of the article, in a similar fashion to the English Civil War example, with a context paragraph similar to Paulista01/Astynax's proposal near to the beginning. The English Civil War historiography section is justified by the existence of widespread secondary literature on the historiography of the war itself; a similar argument might be made in this case. Placing it lower down in the article, however, still makes the article work for a non-specialist audience.Hchc2009 (talk) 06:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)