Talk:First Opium War

Awkward phrasing

This sentence appears in the introduction:

The British government objected to the Chinese Empire's insistence on negotiating with all foreign representatives, including Britain's diplomats, on the basis that they were foreign barbarians accepting a position of submission, an assertion which the British never formally accepted but had to work around and overlook.

I'm having a hard time understanding what's going on here. Who does "they" refer to? Is the British government objecting to something on the basis that Chinese are barbarians, or are Chinese refusing to negotiate with the British because the British are barbarians? This sentence should be rewritten

Zdorovo (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"They" refers to Britain's diplomats. This is standard English grammar.  Philg88 ^♦talk 18:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Great Britain/ United Kingdom or what?

I wonder if the opening sentence shouldn't just use the common name, "Great Britain" or perhaps "United Kingdom." It now looks at first glance if the war was "fought between Great Britain and Ireland." The text of the treaty seems to be slightly different in different places in any case:

• "Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith" (in beautiful handwriting, no less) [1]

• In the official Gazette it is called "TREATY between HER MAJESTY and the EMPEROR of CHINA." and then the first sentence of the treaty, "HER Majesty the Queen of the Unite d Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the Emperor of China"[2]

Cheers, ch (talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"Great Britain" is not a correct alternative name for United Kingdom, although it seems to be used for that in the US. It refers only to the island of Great Britain or the United Kingdom's predecessor state, Kingdom of Great Britain which became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 following the Act of Union, 1800. The Opium War tok place 4 decades afer Great Britain became the United Kingdom. The other correct short form, other than "United Kingdom" is "Britain", without the "Great". See United Kingdom#Etymology and terminology. One name that's never been used is Great Britain and Ireland. DeCausa (talk) 18:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I took the "Great Britain and Ireland" from the text of the Treaty of Nanking as that is a relevant contemporary document. Many of the sources of the time shorten in to Great Britain although that is technically incorrect. I don't think it should be "United Kingdom" as the term was not in common usage in the 19th century and isn't used in documents of the time. Bear in mind that the current "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is not the same thing, because of the 1922 creation of the Irish Free State.  Philg88 ^♦talk 18:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

ch above says the opening of the treaty refers to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". But in any event how the state was called in a particular treaty (even one relevant to this article) can't be the determinant of how it is called in this article. The United Kingdom of the 1840s is the same state (legally) as the current UK (just with the removal of some of Ireland and adding "Northern" to the name). There's legal and political continuity. It's what we call it now that should be the determinant. Btw, I doubt that "Great Britain " was any more common than "United Kingdom". In fact, "England" even in official documents would be the most common. That would be just confusing here though. I suggest if you don't like United Kingdom, simply "Britain" would be the best compromise as it is widely accepted as the corrected short name for the country. DeCausa (talk) 18:51, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"Britain" is fine by me; it also removes any potential confusion when referring to "British forces" etc., if we call it "United Kingdom" in the lede.  Philg88 ^♦talk 19:25, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"Britain" seems to the consensus as the most convenient and clear, which is also fine with me. The term "China" is a short-hand for "Great Qing Empire," so we're just being even-handed ch (talk) 19:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes being or attempting to be too correct or literal can be a dangerous thing. There id always in situations when previously existing political entities no longer exist there is the "then" so and so. The government of the British Empire has been for some time Her/His Majesty's Government. Just what constitutes the political entities effected by that government is up to discussion since even as late as a couple days ago, Mary Qeeen of Scots would have had her revenge on another Elizabeth if the vote had gone otherwise. Thank goodness the latest Liz's heir apparent is not named James. So what now-a-days is the good ole Soviet Union ranking as a WP recognized appellation when it comes to treaty parties?66.74.176.59 (talk) 14:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Casualties

A 1847 book from a British bureaucrat became a reliable source? It just look absurd by any standard. Vinukin (talk) 20:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

The author being Robert Montgomery Martin doesn't necessarily make it invalid or unreliable. If you read the source (pp. 80-81) instead of just dismissing it based on the author and year of publication, you'll see the methodology used to get those numbers. Those figures aren't some wild guesses. They are obtained by adding the total number of killed or wounded on each side based on periodical despatches of each battle published in The London Gazette. Having read a lot on the military history of the war and creating almost every battle article of this conflict, the figure of 18,000-20,000 casualties isn't unreasonable when you consider the majority of that seems to refer to the number of wounded, not killed. Interestingly, the report says "the slightest scratch was called a wound" when presenting a table of casualties for both sides. Despite the Chinese often greatly outnumbering the British, it was still a very one sided conflict. Spellcast (talk) 21:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I took a look and it says "It is impossible to give the actual loss in killed and wounded of the Chinese. The oflicial reports frequently advert to the “ great loss," “ dreadful slaughter," etc., of the enemy. The numbers here given are those mentioned in the British statements." Half of that table is composed of adjectives as unknown, immense, very, many, severe, great and so on. Present it as a valid estimation is almost WP:FRINGE. Vinukin (talk) 23:01, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

A more recent secondary source with a less blatant POV problem would certainly be preferred, but there's nothing unbelievable about the numbers given. Similarly lopsided engagements are quite frequent in history. It's not WP:FRINGE unless the current scholarly consensus is in disagreement with the source. The bigger issue is that so many Wikipedia history articles cite old public domain works (like this one), often primary sources, in a cavalier fashion, just because they're easy to find on Google. We need to put more effort into ensuring that what we write here is consistent with what modern historians in the field are saying. It's shocking how poor period sources are at getting basic facts right -- even those written by quite intelligent individuals. We should be very cautious about citing them. I would go as far as to say that for historical topics, we should never use a source from before the year 2000 unless it is indisputably the most authoritative work on the subject, and the information cannot be found in, or disputed by, a more recent work. --diff (talk) 00:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

High quality sources should obviously be used but works written before 2000 shouldn't simply be disregarded. The Opium War, 1840-1842 (1975) by historian Peter W. Fay and The Chinese Opium Wars (1975) by Jack Beeching are good secondary sources published in the 20th century. Also The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (1958) by sinologist Arthur Waley is a good source in explaining the conflict through a Chinese point of view. Spellcast (talk) 16:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is indeed impossible to give the exact number of Chinese casualties but that does not mean there aren't reasonable estimates. Terms like "immense" and "severe" casualties does not equate to having no idea how many there were. For example, it states the casualties for the Second Battle of Chuenpee as "immense", but the article shows minimum and maximum estimates reported by the commanders. Those reports, published in the London Gazette, were used as a major source of info in the source's table. One should be careful when dealing with primary sources, so the article clearly states those figures are estimates, not precise numbers. Your argument seems to boil down to 'I can't believe it' and saying it's fringe implies the majority of other sources say something different about the figures, but they do not. After extensive reading on this topic from primary and secondary sources, I've yet to see any source deviate from the cited estimated figure. Spellcast (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

BTW if you're curious about the number of Chinese killed vs wounded, in my copy of the book The Taking of Hong Kong (1999), it states Charles Elliot put the number of Chinese losses at 5,000 when "looking only at the loss of life" (p. 248), i.e. killed. So it doesn't seem to be surprising or unreasonable for the number of wounded to be three or four times that figure. Spellcast (talk) 01:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Small clarification, the 5,000 figure only refers to the period from January to August 1841 when Elliot left China, not the whole war, so the actual number would be higher. Spellcast (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

This article appears to be very one sided- British. Can any more sources be found to provide an alternate POV? Is there a link to this in the Chinese version of wiki, which might help? (if there is one) otherwise the page should be flagged as biased. 82.30.38.216 (talk) 22:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Infobox flag

File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1889-1912).svg and File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1889).svg are anachronistic flags. Although there was no official national Chinese flag at the time, I'd be fine with adding a flag icon that was de facto used during the war. So I've added File:Imperial Chinese junk flag.jpg, which the National Maritime Museum said was captured during this war and was used by the Commander-general of Guards Brigade of the Eight Banners. Spellcast (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)