Talk:Blue Army (Poland)

Jews in Haller's Army

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This section is based on one web page:[1]. The section seems to be designed to present a rosy picture of Haller's army as being somehow philosemitic. The source itself states that members of and probably units of Haller's Army commmitted "atrocities" against Jews. To quote from that source: "Based on the evidence I have considered I conclude that: (1) individual Hallerczyki and probably units of Haller’s Army committed anti-Semitic atrocities while in Poland, and (2) thousands of Jews served in Haller’s Army." Several sources of better academic qualifications than the web page describe Haller's army participation in pogroms. All of these have been removed by user:Hallersarmy. Diff is here: [2]. The sources removed are: Pavel Korzec. (1993). Polish-Jewish Relations During World War I. In Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism, 1870-1933/39, Volume * Herbert Strauss, Ed. Walter de Gruyter: pp.1034-1035 Heiko Haumann. (2002). A history of East European Jews Central European University Press, pg. 215 Justyna Wozniakowska. (2002). Master's Thesis, Central European University Nationalism Studios Program CONFRONTING HISTORY, RESHAPING MEMORY: THE DEBATE ABOUT JEDWABNE IN THE POLISH PRESS pg. 22 William W. Hagen. Murder in the East: German-Jewish Liberal Reactions to Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland and Other East European Lands, 1918–1920. Central European History, Volume 34, Number 1, 2001 , pp. 1-30. Page 8. As the article now reads, the parts about pogroms are limited to the phrase "Despite accusations of Anti-Semitism" and an entire section is devoted to the Jews within Haller's army (estimated at 5% of the personnel). This is a very skewed presentation of the army. In my edit I created a section that included both information about the pogroms committed by Haller's Army and about the Jews serving in it, to present the full story based on the sources. I will add the blanked sections of referenced information and rename the section in order to reflect the content. I realize this is my third "revert" and will not revert again here for awhile. I hope that the information will not be removed now that this edit has been explained in detail. Hopefully there will be a discussion before more changes are made. User:Hallersarmy accused me in an edit summary of pushing an agenda, and another editor of making racist remarks: [3]. My only agenda is an accurate presentation of the literature with no undue weight.Faustian (talk) 05:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC) This section as written, made it clear that Jews fought amongst the ranks of Haller's Army. These sources are as or more reliable than others, including first hand knowledge. Faustian has decided to change the subject heading to serve his needs. He easily could have started a new section about Haller's Army and Jews, but then could not explain why Jews were in a supposedly anti-Semitic army. Goldstein questions this himslef in his work, but Faustian carefully edits around this. Changing the title Jews in Haller's Army to Haller's Army and Jews is a deliberate distortion and attempt to manipulate the facts to serves one's needs. He states that identifying 5% of the army as possibly Jewish is a skewed view? How is this skewed? It is fact and is realiable. Potentially these numbers could total several 1000 members, not just a few isolated cases. When you try to cover up the facts, of course these facts to one appear skewed. Faustian also attempts continued use of a reference which he himself questions accuracy of, sources which have been removed from another article due to insufficiencies. It is an agenda of disruption and cover-up. 98.227.224.187 (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC) Sockpuppet? At any rate, Goldstein himself states that individuals and probably units of Haller's army committed in his words "atrocities" against Jews. He doesn't question this. Multiple reliable sources ascribe pogroms, murder and theft of Jews to Haller's army. Removing this information and replacing it with bits of information from another source describing 60+ members of this army having Jewish-sounding names (while conveniently ignorinng the atrocities part) presents a skewed view of the army. In my edit I combined all the info involving Jews and the army - the pogroms as well as the participation of Jews in the army. Frankly, given the weight of the evidence in the literature, there is probably too much emphasis on the Jewish presence in Haller's army already. A separate section entirely devoted to these 60+ identified Jews described on a website is probably a violation of the pricipal of undue emphasis. Faustian (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Nonreliable source

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Goldstein, Edward. in Haller's Army. The Galitzianer, the quarterly journal of Gesher Galicia, May 2002. Not a peer-reviewed journal, per the website [4]: The Galitzianer is a quarterly journal focused on Galicia, covering topics of interest to Jewish family historians. Members and nonmembers contribute articles and suggestions for articles on a variety of subjects on Galician history and society, travel experiences, photos, research results, advice on obtaining records, and stories from their own Galicia family history. Town and regional research groups and town historians provide updates to each issue. I'm not inclined to remove the material (although perhaps it ought to be removed given that it doesn't meet wikipedia criteria for reliability), the info doesn't seem particularly controversial, but given the nature of the source its info ought to be trimmed down or presented as such.Faustian (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Civilian atrocities

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Please note that these two sections should be combined Haller's Army and Jews and Jews in Haller's Army... I see absolutely no need to have two separate sections devoted to the Jewish subject in this case. It seems unusually ethnocentric! The new section does detail and describe the allegations of pogroms against Ukrainians and Jews in Lwow that took place in a era of significant ethnic tension at the end of WWI, and also notes the service of Jews in the Haller's Blue Army. But, to include such inflammatory quotes given the fact that there is serious doubt as to where the Blue Army was at that time, and to concentrate only on Jewish victims, and omit any significant mention the Ukrainian casualties is again, very ethnocentric and bias. Instead a section about alleged civilian atrocities is much more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 (talk) 02:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Please read the discussion above on this page. There are reliable sources that state the Blue Army engaged in atrocities against the Jews. If you can find reliable sources that say otherwise, we'll add them to the article too. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:51, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Again, the new section does detail and describe the allegations of pogroms against Ukrainians and Jews in Lwow that took place in a era of significant ethnic tension at the end of WWI, and also notes the service of Jews in the Haller's Blue Army. NO ONE IS DENYING THESE ALLEGATIONS. But to have two sections devoted to the Jewish subject is highly bias and ethnocentric! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Your "new section" removed referenced information, which is unacceptable.Faustian (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC) This is unacceptable what you Malik Shabazz and Faustian are doing... it's a form of Wiki Terrorism pushing a personal agenda... the last two sections engage in blatant and obsessive ethnocentrism. Instead of providing facts, it goes on a RANT about the jewish subject in this case, and even omitting other victims such as the Ukrainian. The new section does NOT omit anything... it acknowledges the civilian atrocities jewish and Ukrainian alike. On this page there were four sections... two about the Blue Army "History" and "Order of battle"... and two about the jewish subject, "Haller's Army and Jews" and "Jews in Haller's Army" What is this article about? The Blue Army or Jewish civilians? NONSENSE... UTTER NONSENSE!!! Thanks to people like you Wikipedia is loosing its fairness... stop pushing your ethnocentrism!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 (talk) 03:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Please stop lying about what you are doing. You keep deleting a paragraph about atrocities committed by the Blue Army against the Jews. You don't add anything. So stop pretending this has anything to do with Ukrainians. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Because I don't want to violate 3R, I won't edit until this is cleared up. But I found another source with reference: [5]. I will add it once the disruptions are halted. I will add: Although Haller's Army has been highly regarded by Poles, Jews remember it as a group that went around shaving Jewish beards [a form of ritual humiliation - F]. Antony Polonsky. (1990). 'My brother's keeper?': recent Polish debates on the Holocaust . Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies (Oxford, England) pg. 100. I will then add accounts from Jewish newspapers about looting and plundering of Jews by Haller's army, such as here [6]. That will be described simply as an account from a newspaper. I have not seen any information about Haller's army harming Ukrainian civilians but if a reliable source includes this info than of course it ought to be added. As should any info from reliable sources that claim that the army didn't harm Jews.Faustian (talk) 04:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC) I haven't looked exactly at the actual issue underlying the edit warring that's been going on, but, Faustian, both these sources are problematic, at least for the purposes that you seem to indent to use them for. The first one specifically says that it is referring to perceptions. It even says "What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered". This does not at all support the inclusion of the text you propose. The way you seem to want to put it into the article is actually quite misleading and bordering on straight up POV pushing done via out-of-context citation. Yes, you have "Jews remember it..." in there but you are still misrepresenting the gist, and purpose of that quote. Likewise the second source is a PRIMARY source and in fact it only mentions Haller's army in passing. You can't use this.  Volunteer Marek  04:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC) The perceptions are noteworthy, although of course they should be labelled as such.Faustian (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC) More: Encyclopedia Judaica [7]. "Responsible for the murder of Jews and anti-Jewish pogroms in Galicia and the Ukraine." pg. 281Faustian (talk) 04:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC) And here you have a tertiary source - an encyclopedia - which while not exactly prohibited, should be avoided, especially for controversial claims. It looks like you have some reliable sources up above which capture the essence of these statements you want to include, so why not just stick with those? (Add: I'd skip Hagen though, just on the basis of common sense/factual editorial judgement). Volunteer Marek  04:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC) I'm inclined to agree about Hagen - that part should be significantly shortened because this article isn't about Hagen and whether or not he was correct about Haller's Army.Faustian (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC) This is crazy and you are clearly BIAS Faustian! NO ONE IS DENYING THAT THE ATROCITIES HAPPENED, and by you saying that Ukrainians don't matter show what your agenda is... just cause YOU can't find anything here in North American on the subject does not mean that this never happened. This is a very basic article yet you insist on documenting in obsessive detail only one issue out of the entire history of this "Blue Army". And in a "propaganda" style quote exaggerated sources. Looting and humiliation during the war only happened to jewish civilians? Really? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 (talk) 04:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Perhaps you should have tried to find reliable sources documenting Haller's army's actions against Ukrainian and put them into the article, instead of removing referenced information about actions against Jewish people.Faustian (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Remember that even "period sources" were at times greatly exaggerated to create anger within the target population, so you should abstain form using the most extreme of descriptions. Most of all, you should note that there are conflicting accounts of the exact whereabouts of the Blue Army— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.227.161 (talk) 04:56, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Please note that the issue of removing sourced information has been confirmed by the administrator Volunteer Marek... he stated that I have correctly took out material in question which was POV... and you can see his direct quote below.. and also on the discussion page. "but, Faustian, both these sources are problematic, at least for the purposes that you seem to indent to use them for. The first one specifically says that it is referring to perceptions. It even says "What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered". This does not at all support the inclusion of the text you propose. The way you seem to want to put it into the article is actually quite misleading and bordering on straight up POV pushing done via out-of-context citation." So,before you restrict my access you should really read the discussion page. Some people are dumping POV's onto Wikipedia and then claim it was sourced material! Not only that, when one administrator does not agree with them they go to another who will support his view. SHAME!!! AND AGAIN PLEASE UNRESTRICT MY ACCESS UNDER IP ADDRESS 76.118.227.161 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.162.211.76 (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC) VM was referring to what I posted here on this discussion page, not to the referenced information you removed from the article. Nice try.Faustian (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC) And... you don't think that the section that I took out is of the same character that what you wanted to post earlier, and MV refused to accept. Your credibility is very dubious... obsessively ethnocentric and bias. What you quoted of Pavel Korzec is not a first hand account, its a literary flourish intentionally designed to arouse anger within the designated target population. Also, you constantly discredit yourself by trying to make this section about the Jewish victims only, and omit any significant mention of the civilian and/or Ukrainian victims.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.162.211.76 (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Edit warring and personal attacks.Faustian (talk) 16:04, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Faustian you are in violation of so many wiki rule's its unbelievable! You restrict access to users and call them vandals when they have the right to edit. When someone removes material, and give a reason like I did above... it's not Vandalism! Also, yet another user Volunteer Marek called your neutrality into question, and you went ahead to include the highly inflammatory and bias claims anyway. You Faustian are not new to these allegations... this past January user: Hallersarmy made similar claims of "wiki terrorism" against you! At this point I do not have good faith in your editing, and I will make the assertion that you a bully. I will expose your nonsense to everyone! YOU CENSORED ME BY BLOCKING MY IP ACCESS, AND THAN WENT ON TO ADD HIGHLY BIAS AND QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE DESTROYING WIKIPEDIA. EVERY ONE CAN SEE YOUR DISREGARD FOR RULES JUST BY LOOKING AT THE DISCUSSION ABOVE!!! --Xiiiiix (talk) 05:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Nuetrality Tag

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Ok Faustian, while the above user was clearly being disruptive it seems like your response has been some kind of over-reaction completely the other way. You've started going out there trying to find anything negative you can find and stuffing it all into the article. It looks like you've even given up on trying to actually approach the subject neutrally. And in doing so you've started using sources which, as I mentioned above, should not be used to cite controversial claims and cherry picked the sources you are using. Hence the tag. Volunteer Marek  08:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC) Could you please specifically outline which of the additions to the article you have a problem with, and how? I acknowledged your points from this discussion and therefore did not include refernces from the encyclopedia into this article. From our previous discussion page I only included one source - about how the Blue Army was perceived within the Jewish community. And in this article it was clearly presented that way - the Jewish perception (quote from article "Although Haller's Army has been highly regarded by Poles, Jews remember it as a group that engaged in antisemitic acts"). The source didn't go either way on the atrocities themselves (the source wasn't about them). With respect to the atrocities, I used other souces, and clearly referenced. My approach here has been quite nuetral. That, is, I did not specifically seek out negative information and leave out positive information. My methods was this: in response to the anon's disruptions I started looking more into this topic, and put whatever I found into the article; if I had come across any reliable source that cast doubt on the existence of these actions I would have included it. The only "exculpatory" bit of info I found was that Haller himself issued proclamations forbidding his troops from cutting off the beards of Orthodox Jews. I included this info in the article. How is my approach not nuetral? Faustian (talk) 14:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC) Let's look at the specific additions I made that casued VM to place a nuetrality tag on the article and to accuse me of editing in bad faith: "Although Haller's Army has been highly regarded by Poles, Jews remember it as a group that engaged in antisemitic acts". Original source quote: "One such example is the General Haller's Army, so highly regarded by Poles. In the collective memory of Jews Haller's soldiers are remembered as people who went about shaving off Jewish people's beards. What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered." Source: Antony Polonsky. (1990). My brother's keeper?: recent Polish debates on the Holocaust. Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies: Oxford, England. pg. 100. Read it here. So how would you reword that to make it nuetral? It is an accurate summary of how Jews remember Haller's army, accordin to the relaible source.. "Haller's soldiers and officers legitimized acts of violence against Jews by claiming that they were acts of national self-defence, and generally believed that Jews collaborated with Poland's enemies, such as Ukrainians, Bolsheviks and Lithuanians." Original quote: "The tendency to legitimize anti-Jewish violence as national self-defense was first found in the speech and actions of officers and soldiers of the Haller and Wiekopolska armies in the eastrern territoies between 1918 and 1919. In general these officers and soldiers shared the convictions that the Jews as a collectivity were the enemy of the Polish nation-state and that they collaborated with other enemies - the Bolsheviks, the Ukrainians, and the Lithuanians." Source: Joanna B. Michlic. (2006). Poland's threatening other: the image of the Jew from 1880 to the present . University of Nebraska Press, pg. 117. Read it on googlebooks. "As they travelled East, Haller's soldiers plundered Jewish houses, pushed Jews off moving trains, and with their bayonets cut off the beards of Orthodox Jews, particularly the elderly, as crowds watched. The latter acts were referred to by Haller's soldiers as "civilizing" the Jews". Original quote. " The Polish troops, in particular 'Haller's boys' and the regiments from Great Poland (the western province of Poland), engaged in violence, looting and other atrocities against Jews. At every railwary station on their way east, the soldiers harrassed each passing Jew and sacked the nearby houses. Very often the Jews were pushed off the moving trains. 'Haller's boys' and the 'Poznan boys' specialized in 'civilizing' the Jews: the caught Orthodox Jews, especially the aged, and cut off their beards with bayonets in the presence of excited mobs. Officers and police tacitly approved of these barbaric acts." Source: Pavel Korzec. (1993). Polish-Jewish Relations During World War I. In Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism, 1870-1933/39, Volume 2 Herbert Strauss, Ed. Walter de Gruyter: pp.1034-1035. Available through googlebooks. "Haller's soldiers also engaged in the rape of Jewish women and girls." Original quote: "After the first world war the soldiers of the Polish army and gangs of maruaders were wreaking havoc on the Jewish population, excelled in that mater the Polish soldiers from Gen. Haller's army, known from their anti-Semitism, they robbed Jewish property and raped Jewish women and girls." Source: Amon Rubin. (2005). The rise and fall of the Jewish Communities in Poland and their relics today: District Lublin Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, pg. 49. Seen through googlebooks. This is the only reference to rape I found (the other crimes have several references) so I've cahnged it int he article. It currently reads: "Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls." My impression is that VM has incorrectly assumed that I had ignored the discussion and placed information from newspaper articles etc. into this article, which is something I did not do. VM, please address these points, and retract your accusations against me. Respectfully, Faustian (talk) 18:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC) On the first one, the important sentence is "What is important here is not facts themselves but the way in which they have been seen and remembered" which gives the statement a different context. Furthermore, the very same paragraph explicitly states "But as soon as we have said this that Jews during the last hundred years were not a homogenous group; their views were far from uniform". In other words the speaker is warning against making blanket statements along the lines of "The Jews this" or "The Jews that". Finally, this is an off-hand example given in an interview with Stanislaw Krajewski. Krajewski is certainly reliable but this is an interview and not even the focus of the interview itself. On the last one, since it's just a snippet and the only source you've found, and it's a very strong controversial claim, perhaps it would be better to leave it out. I'll comment on the other two in a little bit. Other than that though, last time I was looking at sources for this article I recall there were some which discussed other details. For example one source talked about how it was mostly foreign-born (particularly American) Haller's troops (of Polish ethnicity) who were responsible for most of the excesses. Another problem in the current article is the discussion of Haller. Here it says that his officers tried to legitimize the violence. Haller himself however was strongly appalled and threatened court martial. Pilsudski was pissed off (he didn't much like Haller either I think). In the article we do have it say that he issued a proclamation but the way it's written is pretty non-neutral - as in "Haller himself..." - as opposed to having someone else do it? Also, you agreed above that it'd be a good idea to remove Hagen. Can we do that?  Volunteer Marek  19:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC) With respect to the first source, I think it's notable that Jewish and Polish impressions of Haller differ. How about if I reword it into "Although Poles traditionally view Haller's army as being heroic, Jewish views are generally negative." I'm not sure how the rest of the paragraph from the first source changes the context. The author summarizes the perception, says that this is only thr perception (without making a judgment about its accuracy) but notes that it is not universal. About the last source - it's not that controversial given that pillaging, throwing off trains, and ritual humiliation by cutting off beards is well-established by other sources. If that were not the case, I would agree with you. Hoqwever, although multiple sources ascribe other crimes to Haller's army, this is the only one specifically mentioning rape so we indeed ought to be cautious with it. I think that the way I changed it, into "Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls." is cautious. It describes what's been written in a reliable source but presents it in a way that lets the reader know that this is not reported widely and it not definitely the Truth. I'm not sure what you find non-neutral about mentioning Haller himself ordering his troops to stop cutting off Jews' beards. The original source states "General Haller publishes a proclamation in Porana, signed by Polish, English and French representatives, ordering his troops to stop the cutting of beards of Jews." This article is about Haller's army not just Haller. From what I've read (but didn't include in this article, since it's about the Blue Army not the man), Haller was affiliated with the Endek movement which was quite antisemitic, and after the war he defended the quota of Jewish students allowed in universities. However he opposed beard cutting by his troops (understandable even for an antisemite, as it was bad PR for Poland). The point is that Haller ordered the troops to stop doing this. About Hagen - here is my thinking. Although he is mistaken, his claim is out there. So, it would be good to note his claim and to then debunk it. I think the Hagen part can be shortened further though, and turned into a single sentence.Faustian (talk) 05:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC) I am vaguely familiar with the above issues. I think the article should certainly mention the controversies surrounding the anti-semitism of the Blue Army, and I think we all agree on that. If I understand the debate here correctly, we are working on the due weight and neutrality wording for this issue, based on sources available, yes? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 05:33, 23 November 2011 (UTC) The IP that got banned posted this to my talk page [8]. Regardless of the fact that this user got banned (and I still think it was a case of certain admins being too eager to jump in with the ban hammer against an unestablished, and hence, "weak" user) I do think he raises some important concerns. Specifically, the "worst" in the Korzec quote, without any context seems to be POV. Likewise the role of German propaganda in exaggerating the reports of the events is completely missing from the article. Volunteer Marek  04:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC) If you find a reliable source describing German propaganda's role about Haller's army's actions (the IP's description was about the Lviv pogrom, not Haller's actions, and the quote about the German propaganda claim was an old newspaper article not a peer-reviewed or scholarly work, and we've agreed not to use such sources haven't we?) then put it in. But be careful to do so in a way that does not imply that the cited facts in this article are such German propaganda. We should not assume that the info cited in this article is the product of German propaganda. Primary sources from 1919 or 1920 might have been, but they aren't cited in this article. The authors cited here on this article certainly aren't German propagandists and it is OR (at best) to suggest without evidence that their work is merely a copy German propaganda and/or the authors were fooled by it. Here is Korzec's quote from the chapter "Polish-Jewish Relations During World War I": "In the martyrology of the Polish Jews during the years 1918-1920 the Haller's boys (Hallerczycy) won sad repute as the worst tortuters of the Jews." Korzec later describes, as facts, numerous bad things that Haller's soldiers did to Jews (pushing them off trains, cutting their beards with bayonets, etc.) that indicate that the "worst torturers" wasn't just a baseless perception. The wikipedia article, citing Korzec's chapter, states "Haller's troops established a reputation as, in the words of scholar Pavel Korzec, 'the worst torturers of Jews.'" Is that an inaccurate description of what the source - clearly a reliable one - states? If it's not inaccurate, then why is there a problem with it? Faustian (talk) 05:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC) On the first issue, I'm not sure what source specifically you're referring to. In regard to the German propaganda, there's a little bit here [9]: "On May 1, 1919, a French source in Copenhagen warned that the Germans were writing anti-Semitic tracts that were to be attributed to Haller's army" and "Paderewski identified Tattenbach, the German consul in Berne, as advocating the increased use of anti-Jewish pogroms in Poland and Galicia to counter Polish claims". The sources given for both statements are "FMAE" - unfortunately the first part of the book is unavailable which makes it hard to figure out what this is exactly. If we could find out then that would make it easier to find further sources. Volunteer Marek  07:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC) Paderweski is himself an extrmely unreliable source (indeed, a propagandist himself) so his claims ought to be viewed with considerable caution. He claimed that the West Ukrainian People's Republic were Bolsheviks after all. The French were also hardly nuetral objective sources. The best thing to do is stick to what reliable sources conclude, which is what the article currently does. Not to go to French reports or claims by Polish officials from 90 years ago.Faustian (talk) 14:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC) All sources have a POV and a bias. As already mentioned, a good part of this stuff comes by the way of post War German propaganda. If reliable sources report what French intelligence and Paderewski said then we can use it. Volunteer Marek  00:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC) There's a difference between a reliable surce basing conclusions on whatever primary sources the reliable source chooses, and simply reprinting those primary sources. So if a source uses Paderweski or the Ferench diplomats, or the German diplomats, that's okay. But finding a quiote from one of the latter in a footnote or an exerpt and presenting it as reliable itself, is another matter (unless, I suppose, the reliable source states something like "Paderweski was correct when he stated..."). At any rate, the stuff you mention does not relate specifically, to what is placed in the article so it would seem to be OR to claim that it debunks it.Faustian (talk) 02:37, 25 November 2011 (UTC) I would like to ask that the following phrase be struck down. After their arrival to Eastern Europe Haller's troops engaged in looting, violence and atrocities against Jews.[11] Haller's troops established a reputation as, in the words of scholar Pavel Korzec, "the worst torturers of Jews." The main reason for this request is the use of the term "worst torturers of Jews." to describe anti-jewish acts attributed to the Blue Army. Per Wikipedia rule found on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch, phrases that include words such as "best", "worst", and "great" are considered Puffery and should not be used. I am aware that this phrase is a quote made by a Pavel Korzec, but it is still a point of view, and not many people would consider the Blue Army as the "worst torturers of Jews" surly they were not worst than the Roman Legions, the Tsarist authorities, Wehrmacht, or even the SS. And, to support this claim I would like to note that such a rule is found on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view which discourages users from posting statements that give undue significance to a personal points of view. Please see the excerpt below: Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field. Finally, the entire statement in question repeats the facts about looting and violence. Than, the next sentence restates those very same facts, but in greater details. So there is no need for the preceding sentence which only clutters the section. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 23:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC) A statement about how Haller's Army is perceived by the Jews is noteworthy, and this comes from a reliable source. We shouldn't exclude perceptions just because they are negative. Faustian (talk) 02:37, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Here on Wikipedia it is the readers job to create his own perceptions, negative or not. Editors provide the facts only, not ready made points of view. And, I think that Wiki rules noted above are clear on that. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 03:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC) What Jews in general think about Haller's Army is a fact. Here on wikipedia our job is to record what reliable sources say about things, including what reliable sources say about perceptions, and to present them in a nuetral manner. So whatever is said about Haller's Army from reliable sources gets reported. If a lot of it happens to be bad, then it gets reported.Faustian (talk) 04:23, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Faustian, you are opening up a can of worms here... again despite what you think. It is not our job to write what the Poles or Jews think of Blue Army. And, you made the article event more out of line by adding this sentence. If what Jews think about Haller's army is notable enought to be mentioned in more than one reliable surce, it deserves mention in this article. Which it is. Faustian (talk) 18:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Although Haller's Army has been highly regarded by Poles, Jews generally see it more negatively. Again, this article needs outside assistance in correcting its neutrality problems. The issues that were created by your editing are very large. If you look at my very first edit (that you had me blocked for), you will notice that the only thing I did was to remove the Pavel Korzec quote and re-named the section "Allegations of atrocities" that gives the section a more balanced perspective to include all civilians, and to show that this was not the doing of the entire Blue Army, but by groups of individual soldiers who did engage in acts of looting, violence and humiliation against Jewish and Ukrainian civilians. And to give you a great example that such unfortunate things do happen in war time, all you have to do is look at the United States Military. Humiliation (Abu Ghraib), Violence (US Army 5th Stryker Brigade thrill killings), and Looting (the whole episode of the US military allowing Iraqi looters to go wild after the fall of Baghdad), Yet I don't see any mention of such human right violations on the US army page whether it happened in Iraq, Afghanistan or even Vietnam for that matter. Also, I don't see any quotes by regional historians that berate the US Millitry to show what many Muslims think. That's because of the Due and undue weight rule. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC) You removed much referenced information and were blocked for edit warring after you kept removing it, even though three other editors restored the information that you removed. For someone who claims to be new to wikipedia you seem to have a strong idea of what wikipedia is about. You do not seem to be very contructive now, either. I hope by this statement you aren't admitting that you don't want to see info about human rights violations mentioned in this article. Because given your statment above, and your behavior, this seems to be what is motivating your actions. Faustian (talk) 18:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC) In terms of outside assistance - most editors here have restored the information that you tried to remove. I would be happy to file an RFC on this topic if you feel this would help resolve the issue.Faustian (talk) 18:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Now you are not even addressing the issue, but trying to divert attention on me. Your accusations that I'm some kind of hidden entity who is so skilled in Wikipedia edits is unfounded, let me tell you... it does not take a genius to type in the phrase: "Wikipedia neutral point of view" on Google and start reading. Not only that, you are accusing me of totally trying to remove the subject of atrocities, which in not the case at all. My primary argument is that the neutrality of the page has been compromised and rules such as Balance, Due and undue weight, Article structure, and Manual of Style/Words to watch have been violated. Below I'm including my earlier statement on how the content of this page is creating a false impression. The Blue Army was a regular military force, whose primary objective was to fight other military entities. And, during the course of regular military operations some groups of soldiers did participate in acts of looting, violence, and humiliation against Ukrainian, Jewish and Russian civilians. But, you would not know this by the way the current page is structured, where undue weight is give only to the Jewish victims as if they were the sole and primary target of the entire Blue Army. Not even the Waffen-SS and the Schutzstaffel pages include such an overwhelming preoccupation with Jewish subject matter. At this point there needs to be an impartial review of the content. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 20:07, 25 November 2011 (UTC) There are entire articles devoted to the crimes of the SS, thus no reason to include many details in the general articles. Do you suggest that an article be created about the crimes of Haller's Army and that a brief summary of his army's crimes be included in this article? In my opinion both subject matters are not significant enough to warrant seperate articles but I am open to the alternative, depending on what others think. The reason why the crimes against Jews are mentioned in the article is because such crimes are mentioned in the literature (that is, in relaible peer-reviewed sources). The fact that crimes against Ukrainians are mentioned less frequently in the literature (and thus in the article) is not an excuse to remove information about Jews.Faustian (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC) I propose a couple of changes that are based on an article that you may be familiar with as a active conributor to pages on Ukrainian hitory, this page being that of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. It includes the same belligerents, but of course from a different time, and with many similar accusations of atrocities. So, if you notice the progression of edits from the first one to the current on the Bohdan Khmelnytsky page, you will notice that there was a very large focus on Jewish victims in the "Pogroms" section, and the examples used were very incendiary. But, over time the section was re-configured and renamed as "Khmelnytsky Remembered", then the section was divided into sub-sections based on ethnicity. There is a Jewish sub-section which details its perspective, and linked with the Khmelnytsky Uprising page to include more details. But, the whole section is more objective since it does not single out anyone ethnic group for its title, and many of the blood curling details, and incendiary quotes have been removed to give it a more academic perspective. So, what I propose is squarely based on the Khmelnytsky model, which was debated far more that the Blue Army page ever was. First, I propose that the phrase "during which they engaged in anti-Jewish violence" be removed from the introductory paragraph, since it was not the defining norm for the entire Blue Army, but was instead the result of undisciplined groups of soldiers who clearly were antisemitic. Also, I propose that the Pavel Korzec quote be removed for the reasons I listed previously. Finally, the "Anti-Jewish actions" section should made part of the entire "History" section and be renamed "Critisism" Detailing Ukrainian and Jewish perspectives (keeping your text) thus creating a neutral perspective, yet at the same time listing the grievances leveled against the army. I would like to go ahead and proceed with the edit. Than after your review we can make adjustments to make the page even more balanced. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 01:45, 27 November 2011 (UTC) (Outdent) Thank you for the constructive approach. The problem with the Khmelytski comparison is that there is enough material on, and the topic is notable enough for, two seperate articles: one about the Blue Army and another one about its actions. With respect to the Khmelnytski article, the one about the uprising does indeed include plenty of unpleasant facts about what happened to Jews and others. This topic is less significant, so it all goes into this one article. The lead of an article summarizes everything in the article. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." The crimes committed against Jews are prominant enough and well-established enough in the literature that they deserve a section or subsection in the article, and therefore a brief mention in the lead is warranted. I agree that the lead must not imply that pogromming was the main activity of the Blue Army - but still, these actions ought to be mentioned and not ignored in the lead. I am quite open in terms of any ideas about how this can be done, but it must be done somehow, and not simply removed (or dismissed as "accusations" or otherwise presented as not having happened). I will try another version. Along those lines, statements by reliable sources, unless evidence proves otherwise (for example, in the case of Hagen's placing the Blue Army in Lviv in 1918) should not be qualified by words such as "accused of" - implying that there is doubt. Doing so is basically an editor's original research. Unless there are doubts in the reliable literature about an action we just describe it, not add "accusations" etc. For example, in the article about the , it is written "With this as their battle-cry, Cossacks and the peasantry massacred a large number of Jewish and Polish-Lithuanian townsfolk, as well as szlachta during the years 1648-1649. " Not "allegedly" or "have been accused of". As for Korzec, it is a fact that the Jews perceive Haller's army very negatively and directly quoting him (he is himself a Polish-Jewish historian) gives the reader an idea of how seriously the Blue army is perceived by Jews. Summarizing him by saying "viewed negatively" somewhat falsifies his conclusion. He wrote that Haller's army were perceived as the worst torturers of Jews. He did not write that they were merely disliekd by Jews, or were seen as not very nice, etc. They were the "worst torturers" in the perception of the Jews, according to this relaible source. I will try to write an acceptable alternative.05:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Follow up Ok, I think it's much better. There are a couple minor issues and ... Hagen: In the first paragraph of the controversies section, it switches abruptly from discussing Ukrainians to discussing Jews. The sentence beginning with "Those officers and soldiers from the Blue Army who..." should be moved to a different part of the section. In the second paragraph it says "against the local populations" - but that's not exactly accurate. It was against *some" local populations. I think, unless they did this to the Poles as well. More importantly, looking at the source [10] I don't see how it supports the text 'After their arrival in Western Ukraine, Haller's troops engaged in acts of looting, violence and humiliation against the local populations'. What it does talk about is how Paderewski ordered an investigation after "reports of a new wave of anti-Jewish violence" by the Blue Army. The rest of the paragraph and the section, in fact are the ones that go on to discuss how these reports were in many cases German propaganda. This needs to be changed, along both directions. Third paragraph "Haller's troops have also been accused of allegedly committing the Lwów Pogrom of 1918. Historian William W. Hagen states that ..." - I thought we were more or less in agreement to remove Hagen since he's just plain wrong here. If we keep this then the first sentence of the para should immediately alert the reader that this charge is false.  Volunteer Marek  22:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC) I changed Hagen and moved the Ukrainian bit. As for claims about Germans, the source makes clear that this is what the Poles claimed, not that this is necessarily true. It furtherrmore quotes Poles as as also claiming that the Jews were grateful to be "liberated" by the Poles. Elsewhere in the same book, the author states that Poles also claimed that Poland was a victim of a "German-Jewish plot" against Poland, that the Lwow pogroms were the Ukrainians' fault, that "Jewish-led Bolshevism" was a menace, etc. etc. In other words, Polish claims are not treated as necessarily truth.Faustian (talk) 08:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC) In addition to MV's comment I would like to continue with my original conversation. And, I think that a couple of minor changes need to be addressed. The First being the statement in the opening paragraph "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." The issue here is again of Non-judgmental language and Due and undue weight. I'm basing my idea of removing this sentence by referring to the Khmelnytsky Uprising, and Bohdan Khmelnytsky pages, where the use of hard language was reverted. The best example being the Khmelnytsky's page where you can see a clear evolution of editing. The very early edits were basically calling him an antisemite, but they were later changed to a more academic and objective description of him simply viewing Poles and Jews as enemies. Hard words were removed, and some of the examples of barbarity were as well taken out like the mention of rapes and killings (which are a common occurrence during war time anywhere). You have to remember that the Blue Army was made up of 100,000 soldiers serving in different units, and to just label the whole army as "antisemitic" is inaccurate and unfair. A similar editing style was adopted by the US Army pages, events like My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse are mentioned in a way that is not representative of the entire fighting force, yet there are numerous examples of American soldiers exhibiting racist view against Arabs, Asians and so on. So, I recommend that the "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." be removed as it unfairly links the entire army with actions of a select few. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC) Antisemitic acts were of a large enough scale that they were mentioned in numerous sources. Thus, the lead needs to mention them while also making sure that antisemitic acts are not portrayed as the main activity of the Blue Army. The current version does not do so. Also, the current version does use "soft" wording. It doesn't mention specific acts of violence in the lead. Violence itself is a nuetral word that summarizes various things that were done. I have not found reliable sources stating that the violence was the work of a small number of soldiers and that it was a very rare event. Have you? The sources seems to indicate that it was common among the Polish-Americsan volunteers, whose numbers were in the tens of thousands. Since the sources do not describe antisemtic violence as a rare event, we must be careful not to make it seem as if it was a rare event for this army. BTW, this article is about Haller's Army, not Haller himself, so a comparison with an article about Khmelnytski himself is not quite appropriate. From Khmelnytsky Uprising, though: "The contemporary 17th century Eyewitness Chronicle (Yeven Mezulah) by Nathan ben Moses Hannover states: Wherever they found the szlachta, royal officials or Jews, they [Cossacks] killed them all, sparing neither women nor children. They pillaged the estates of the Jews and nobles, burned churches and killed their priests, leaving nothing whole. It was a rare individual in those days who had not soaked his hands in blood...[11]" A direct quote! Yet you wanted to remove the direct quote from the scholar Pavel Korzec from this article.Faustian (talk) 07:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Name

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In 2009 this article was moved from Blue Army to Blue Army (Poland) without any discussion ([11]). A quick look at "what links to Blue Army" ([12]) suggests that most links refer to the this Polish unit (and still have not been fixed despite two years passing). I'd suggest moving this back to Blue Army, and moving the current disambiguation to Blue Army (disambiguation). Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 05:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Serious violations of neutrality

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At this point I feel like serious intervention is required on the issue of neutrality for is page. We are running a very long discussion, and there are so many significant problems that still need to be addressed... never mind some of the quotes used, there are still major issues with how things are presented and worded in an overall context. Please see one examples below of what I'm talking about: "After the Great War ended, the units were transferred to Poland, where they took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Bolshevik War, during which they engaged in anti-Jewish violence." The way this opening sentence is phrased in the introductory paragraph, and the prominence of the Anti-Jewish actions section further down page, gives the reader a false impression that the Blue Army's primary role during the war was to deal with Jew only... in a kind of similar fashion as the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), a para-military organization specifically designed for the purpose of dealing with Jewish civilians, who were deemed enemies of the state. I categorical object to such misrepresentations that are thinly veiled in the overall presentation and wording of the text. Not really. The bit about anti-Jewish violence is the third thing mentioned, not the first. Thus, this in no way implies that this was their primary role. Haller's Army's role in anti-Jewish violence was prominant enough that it warrants a brief mention in the lede. IF you would suggest other ways of mentioning it in the lede let's have it.Faustian (talk) 02:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC) If you look at the overall makeup of the page... you see the following sections: Formation and Service on the Western Front, Transport to Poland, Fighting in Galicia and Volhynia and last but not least Anti-Jewish actions as if everything before led to the culmination of this final and ultimate goal. I think the Schutzstaffel has a similar page structure. Even the name of the disputed section "Anti-Jewish actions" comes across as if it was the central goal of all field operations conducted by the entire Blue Army. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 03:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC) So let's get this straight. If we mention the anti-Jewish actions first, it overemphasizes them because they're mentuioned first. If it mentions them last, it overemphasizes them because it makes it look as if everything builds up to them. I guess you'd prefer they not be mentioned at all, even though it's a major part of what they did and what they are known for.Faustian (talk) 04:20, 25 November 2011 (UTC) At this point I really believe that a personal agenda is at play here, due your refusal to compromise in any way. The language that you are using, and some examples you provide are in violation of Due and undue weight rule. Not even the Schutzstaffel page has that kind of salacious details within it's text. The language used is misleading designed to discredit all of the Blue Army. Also, please provide a response for the statement below. It seems that you are omitting the real issue here. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Please avoid personal attacks.Faustian (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC) The Blue Army was a regular military force, whose primary objective was to fight other military entities. And, during the course of regular military operations some groups of soldiers did participate in acts of looting, violence, and humiliation against Ukrainian, Jewish and Russian civilians. But, you would not know this by the way the current page is structured, where undue weight is give only to the Jewish victims as if they were the primary, and only target of the entire Blue Army. Whether intentional or not, the current page structure is creating the wrong idea about what the Blue Army really was. Because of such serious misrepresentations there needs to be a thorough review of this page by neutral, and experienced wiki editors. At this point the current makeup of the page violates a number of wiki neutrality rules, such as: Balance, Due and undue weight, Article structure, and Manual of Style/Words to watch. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 02:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Just because you say it violates these things, doesn't mean it does. Neutrality means that it provides all viewpoints. If I had found reliable sources that contradicted the descriptions of members of the Blue Army's crimes against Jews, I certainly would have include them in the article, in order to insure neutrality. I have not. Neither, apparently, have you; otherwise you would have included them in the article, rather than try to have reliably sourced information removed instead.Faustian (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute tag

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I would like to retain the Neutrality Dispute tag... due to end of the year breaks, some of the contributors including myself took a pause from editing, but I don't think that a final consensus was reached. During this time, I had a chance to look at other Wiki pages, and how they address sensitive issues such as this one. And, I still believe that the language, and format used on the Blue Army page is bias. A perfect example is that of the Cossack page, and how it was edited over time... Throughout their history Cossacks have engaged in numerous pogroms, most recently the Kiev Pogroms (1919). But, nowhere on their page is there any mention of their violence against the Jews, instead, their participation is mentioned on specific pages related to individual events... not to mentioned that the language used to describe their actions is much more subdued and academic. Also, I would like to address and research the issue of just how many of such incidents took place... same as with the Cossacks... just because some of them participated in the Kiev Pogrom, the blame is not passed on to the entire group. I think that the same standard should be applied to the Blue Army, lets not forget that it had over 100,000 men in its ranks. Finally, I would like to supplement this point by providing an example based on the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan... Again, around 130,000 US military personnel served in Iraq at the height of the war, and there were some very highly publicized incidents of racist misconduct (thrill killings, rapes, and Abu Gharib). But, we are not passing on the blame to all US service members (The US military is not labeled as "racist", but the Blue army is called "anti-Semitic"). Same standard should be applied here. So, at the end I would like to continue the discussion. --76.118.227.161 (talk) 03:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC) The US army has millions of servicemen stationed around the world. The Cossacks have a 4000 year history. The Blue Army had 100,000 people and its principal actions were in eastern Europe after World War II where many of its members (particularly, the 20,000 or so Amerian volunteers) engaged in antisemitic actions. This article as written does not "blame the entire group." It states what the sources say, that many of its members engaged in antisemtic actions. If you would like, I can file an RFC on this issue to resolve the nuetrality issue. I'm waiting for Marek's opinion.Faustian (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC) I will look over this again in more detail later. Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication.VolunteerMarek 05:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Changed!Faustian (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks. Other than that the only thing that bothers me is the Arnon Rubin sourced claim of incidence of rape, which I mentioned before. Looking at the source again, it appears this is a self-published (possibly books-on-demand) source, which would make it unreliable in this instance. Part of the reason why I was concerned before is because the quote you gave above has some pretty bad grammar/English mistakes: "Polish army and gangs of maruaders were wreaking havoc on the Jewish population, excelled in that mater the Polish soldiers from Gen. Haller's army". Looking around what's available through the sneak preview on google books there's more mistakes like this. This is a pretty good indication that the book was in fact self published - no editor or reviewer to pick these things out. Other than that I think the article's pretty neutral. One could argue that the controversy section is too large relative to the article as a whole but that's more of an issue of expanding the rest of the article.VolunteerMarek 06:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Okay. So I'll remove the reference to rape and the nuetrality tag.Faustian (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Wait - the sourse for the rape claim is a book published by the University of Michigan - clearly reliable. If it's in a reliable source, it's probably a notable claim. The current wording "Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls" seems appropriately tentative about this isolated claim included in a relaible source. I'd be willing to remove it if you can exlain why, given these facts.Faustian (talk) 14:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC) I'm not 100% sure but on gbooks when it says UoM that's usually who digitized or reprinted it, not the publisher. As far as I can tell the publisher is listed as Arnon Rubin.VolunteerMarek 14:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks for clearing this up! I will go ahead and remove the rape reference and nuetrality tag. If someone can can demonstrate the reliability of Arnold Rubin I will reinstate it, but I couldn't find any info on the publisher. I also could't find info confirming who the author was, although one of his other books was published by University of Tel Aviv Press: [13]. Given the controversial nature of the claim, if the author is not a historian and it's not a reliable source it ought not be here.Faustian (talk) 15:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Ok thanks. In my opinion the neutrality tag can be removed. As I stated above, if someone feels that the negative stuff takes up too much space, then what needs to be done is an expansion of the other parts of the article.16:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Re-adding text that was collectively agreed upon as inaccurate

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Someone is re-adding sections of the text, that through previous discussions on the "Talk" were agreed upon as being inaccurate, and collectivity removed. I will thus delete the following sections listed below. While fighting in the east, some Blue Army soldiers engaged in antisemitic violence. Discussed on the "Talk" page: I will look over this again in more detail later. Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication.VolunteerMarek 05:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Changed!Faustian (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Isolated reports also accuse Haller's soldiers of engaging in the rape of Jewish women and girls. Discussed on the "Talk" page: Thanks. Other than that the only thing that bothers me is the Arnon Rubin sourced claim of incidence of rape, which I mentioned before. Looking at the source again, it appears this is a self-published (possibly books-on-demand) source, which would make it unreliable in this instance. Part of the reason why I was concerned before is because the quote you gave above has some pretty bad grammar/English mistakes: "Polish army and gangs of maruaders were wreaking havoc on the Jewish population, excelled in that mater the Polish soldiers from Gen. Haller's army". Looking around what's available through the sneak preview on google books there's more mistakes like this. This is a pretty good indication that the book was in fact self published - no editor or reviewer to pick these things out. Okay. So I'll remove the reference to rape and the neutrality tag.Faustian (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC) It appears that someone has an agenda, and is more interested in a smear campaign, rather that maintaining Wikipedia's neutrality. I will also remove William W. Hagen's claims regarding the 1918 Lwów pogrom, as it is a "minority view" that has been solidly discredited by other historians. --91.150.222.61 (talk) 10:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC) I restored the version prior to the re-adition of tinformation that I had removed. The Hagen claim is clearly described as a mistake; it's notable to include it, as long as it's described as a mistake.Faustian (talk) 11:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC) The artuicle now is identical to how it had been on January 9th when we reached this version after a lengthy discussion. Please do not make more changes without discussing them first.Faustian (talk) 19:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC) At this point I recommend that the article be taken up for arbitration... I have no faith that users Faustian or Malik Shabazz are editing this article in an un-bias way... every subsequent edit proves that both of them are bias. As an example, user Faustian noted above noted that he reverted the inaccurate edits, but the phrase "Some soldiers from the Blue army were involved in antisemitic actions during the struggle in the east" is still up... despite the fact that it was agreed in an earlier discussion that the statement was inaccurate! The fact that those very same phrases are being put back after they were deemed to be inaccurate and removed, shows a deep and malicious bias. I will recommend that users Faustian and Malik Shabazz be blocked, I understand that they both have a long history of Wikipedia contributions, but the evidence here is indisputable that on this subject they hold a bias, and consistently act to undermine the article's neutrality. I will revert the edit, and ask that it remain that way until arbitration is completed. --91.150.222.61 (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC) Please get consensus for your changes before you make them again. You have not responded to the points raised by Faustian above. Instead, you're removing content and adding "alleged" in too many places. If you can't discuss it calmly, like a rational human being, maybe Wikipedia isn't the place for you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 19:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC) Please advise on how you keep missing the phrase: "Some soldiers from the Blue army were involved in antisemitic actions during the struggle in the east"... Let me remind you this: Discussed on the "Talk" page: I will look over this again in more detail later. Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication.VolunteerMarek 05:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Changed!Faustian (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Pleae note that I changed the sentence in the lede, per Marek's comment, to read that "Some" soldiers engaged in antisemitic violence. I adequately addressed Marek's legitimate concern that the sentence not imply that all of the soldiers in Haller's army did this. After I made the change in January, Marek did not complian about the article.Faustian (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Somehow that does not bother you? As for the word "alleged" the article shows evidence that many of the allegations of anti-semitism were generated by German government sources, so the word "alleged" is appropriate in this case, is it not? --91.150.222.61 (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC) You can't have it both ways. If the "alleged" incidents were falsehoods generated by the German government, why do you need to explain why the "alleged" incidents took place (the victims "were seen by the troops as collaborating with either the West Ukrainian military forces, Bolsheviks, or Lithuanian nationalists"). A sentence like "Among some of the worst alleged offenders within Haller's army were the 23,000 Polish-American volunteers, who were relatively late in joining the formation, and thus poorly disciplined" makes no sense with the word "alleged" in it. And if there were no such acts (that is, if they were just allegations), why did Haller issue a proclamation "in an effort to curb the abuses"? (I think you forgot to slip the word "alleged" in there.) Equally disturbing is your deletion of material. Why delete the sentence "As a result of such actions, Jews perceived Haller's Army as particularly harmful"? Because it doesn't fit with your narrative that these were all figments of the German government's imagination? As I wrote, you need to discuss your proposed changes and get consensus instead of edit-warring. If we're not able to reach consensus, we can try dispute resolution. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC) We can argue about the language used, and I can understand that. But, to keep a "minority view" like that of William W. Hagen on the 1918 Lwów pogroms is preposterous, and against Wiki rules. Also, regarding the removal of the phrase "As a result of such actions, Jews perceived Haller's Army as particularly harmful"... Again, that statement reinforces a "point of view". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and you don't use such phrases. You can write something like that in a history/opinion book, that blurs the like between opinion and actual events. --91.150.222.61 (talk) 20:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC) With respect to Hagen, the paragraph starts by saying "Haller's troops have been mistakenly accused of committing the Lwów Pogrom of 1918", and it questions Hagen's account right afterward. Hagen is a serious historian, and I don't think we can ignore him altogether. (He may represent, as you wrote, a minority viewpoint, but I don't think it's a fringe theory.) Instead, we all but tell readers that he's wrong. I don't agree that saying how Jews perceived the Blue Army "reinforces" a POV. It is merely stating a fact. It may have been a misperception, but that is the way Jews of the time felt. Likewise, the article describes the way Ukrainians of the time felt. Would we remove the sentence that says the army was "highly regarded by the Poles"? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nuetrality Tag

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The version of the article now is the consensus version from January, with the addition of a little bit from anew source I just added. Are the objections of one anon editor sufficient to justify the tag?Faustian (talk) 03:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC) No, it's not the same version you keep sneaking in that same sentence "Some soldiers from the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence during the struggle in the east." that you yourself deemed as out of place during the January discussion. So, stop edit warring. I will make every effort to get you blocked... there is ample evidence of a bias on your part! At this point arbitration is the only way to resolve the neutrality issue. The whole sections is written as if the only thing that the Blue Army did was pogroming, not even the Waffen-SS page uses such strong language! --91.150.222.61 (talk) 06:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Please be honest. I never agreed to remove the sentence "Some soldiers from the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence during the struggle in the east" from the lede. Here is VM's comment: [14] "Taking a quick glance for now, it does seem like the sentence in the lede "While fighting in the East, soldiers from the Blue Army also engaged in antisemitic violence." implies that this characterized the entire formation and all the soldiers of the army. Given that Haller and others condemned whatever excesses happened and made efforts to stop them this does not appear to be an accurate implication." Taking into account his legitimate concern, I added the word 'some to that sentence:[15] and then stated that it was changed. To which VM replied [16], "Thanks. Other than that the only thing that bothers me is the Arnon Rubin sourced claim of incidence of rape, which I mentioned before..." (I later removed that rape claim). So, both VM and I agreed that the statement "Some soldiers from the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence during the struggle in the east" was fine. You have clearly been caught behaving dishonestly here. You have also violated the 3R rule with your last reversion [17], despite having been warned:[18].Faustian (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Additional information I found a history dissertation from Georgia State University that provided detailed infromation about what Haller himself said in an attempt to excuse his troops' antisemitic violence. The dissertation is available online, here:[19]. I added the following to the article: In July 1919 Haller attempted to justify his soldiers' attacks on Jews by claiming that Jewish "“money-exchangers and merchants” who were simultaneously Bolsheviks had attempted to spread Bolshevik propaganda within the military but that the Polish soldiers, immune to what Haller described as "Bolshevik infection" horsewhipped them. Haller claimed that every Bolshevik was a Jew and that all of the Jewish victims were Bolsheviks or swindlers. The reference was to: David Thomas Ruskoski. (2006). The Polish Army in France: Immigrants in America, World War I Volunteers in France, Defenders of the Recreated State in Poland. History Dissertation, Georgia State University. pp.81-86. There was also a quote from Haller, which I placed in a footnote: "The men often made it a point during the short stops at the stations to invite the propagandists in the wagons, and then to horsewhip them, or punish them in some other way. At those occasions many a Jew – for all these bolshevist propagandists were Jews – got a good beating; as also many a money-exchanger, who offered a Polish Mark for a French franc, and many a merchant who cheated the soldiers horribly...got a thorough horsewhipping . . ." Is there a reason why this info ought to be excluded from the article? BTW, that source has a lot of interesting information about Haller's Blue Army and its American volunteers. Editors interested in fleshing out the article by addiing additional information, rather than removing sourced info about the army members' antisemitic activities, now have a great source to use.Faustian (talk) 13:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC) So, you actually prove my point, that the way this section is bias. Haller himself and his army was not "anti-semetic" in a way that you are trying to describe them. They resented Jews and Ukrainians which they viewed as Bolshevik collaborators, mistakenly or not. But, the fact that Polish-Jews loyal to Poland served in the Blue Army, further proves that the situation was not as black and white as you want it to be. So, their violent outbursts were more politically driven, than based on some religious or racial ideology. So, in this case, to call the Blue Army anti-semitic is disingenuous, and malicious. They did not lash out against the Jews or Ukrainians because they were ethnically different, but because of perceived political collaboration, and national loyalties. --91.150.222.225 (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2012 (UTC) "Antisemitic violence" means violence against Jews. Nothing more and nothing less. Parts of the army engaged in antisemitic violence. Of that there is no question. Nobody is trying to "call the Blue Army anti-semitic". — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 18:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Unfortunately no, anti-semitsm refers to a racial bigotry... Semites are a racial group, and anti-semitsm is hatred based on race. Also, if you are threatening to block me, why not ask an administrator to look at this issue instead. As I noted earlier you are trying to hide your own bias by ending this discussion. --91.150.222.225 (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Neutrality dispute (explained) I would like to restate my case that the Blue Army "Controversies" section is bias, and holds a specific POV that carries undue weight, and thus unfairly misrepresents the subject matter in question. I would like to make clear that incidents of violence against civilians did occur, and they can not be denied. Many Ukrainians and Jews were mistakenly accused of collaboration with the enemy, but at the same time many did aid the Bolshevik, and Ukrainian forces. So, the issue here, is that the disputed section is written in such a blunt way that it paints the subject in black and white only, labeling the Blue Army simply as anti-semetic, a claim that is deeply unfair especially given the fact that Polish Jews loyal to the new Polish state served, and died within its ranks, and many Jews in Western Ukraine welcomed the Blue Army since they themselves were abused by the Ukrainians who deeply resented their Jewish neighbors. Also, I'd like to make clear that obvious incidents of blunt anti-semitsm did occur within the ranks of the Blue Army, most notably among the Polish-American unit that was poorly disciplined, and lacked a deeper understanding of just how complex the ethnic, and political divisions were in the region. Also, I'd like to point out that in an effort to curb these abuses Haller himself ordered that Orthodox Jews not be targeted for retribution, since their religious beliefs prevented them from holding any political allegiances, and it was clear that they did not aid the enemy. Another issue is that of historian William W. Hagen's claim that the Blue Army took part in the Lwów Pogrom of 1918, a claim that was solidly disproved by other notable historians, since the army was still on the Western Front in France, when the pogrom actually took place. Thus, such a claim can be considered a fringe theory and has no place in a serious discussion. Finally, the last major issue with the article is with the type of language used to describe some of the abuses that took place. In my opinion, some examples and phrases can be viewed as loaded connotations, intended to sensationalize the subject matter, instead of trying to objectively describe the setting in which such incidents took place. To back this claim, I'd like to site examples of the US military in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Since the start of the two US wars, there were hundreds of cases where civilians were abused or even murdered, and many of these incidents can be viewed as racist, or anti-Islamic (burning of the Quran, outright murder of Afghan civilian by US soldiers, rape of Iraqi civilians by US troops, taking pictures and posing with civilian corpse, and so on...). Yet, such sensational language is missing from the Wiki pages devoted to US military operations in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and most certainly, nowhere is it suggested that the US military is anti-Islamic or racist. But, the the way the "Controversies" section is presented on the Blue Army page, one would come to a conclusion that the entire Blue Army was anti-semetic, and pogroming was the only thing they did. That's why the Blue Army article is bias, and has serious issues of neutrality. --BKUP1911 (talk) 22:07, 23 April 2012 (UTC) "many Jews in Western Ukraine welcomed the Blue Army since they themselves were abused by the Ukrainians who deeply resented their Jewish neighbors. " No reliable source says anything remotely like this (but reliable sources say the opposite). This is what Polish propaganda said, along with the claim by Haller that the Jews being persecuted, were Bolsheviks. Rather than waste time trying to remove information from reliable sources I suggest you work on fleshing out other parts of the article. I earlier posted links to a good source that can help you do that.Faustian (talk) 22:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC) Here, again, is the link to a lot of info about the Blue Army. Feel free to improve the article: [20].Faustian (talk) 22:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC) BTW, you are the only person objecting to the nuetrality of this article. The current version is the one that we worked on and agreed to, with Volunteer Marek.Faustian (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC) That's why I ask that we bring in several outside parties that have expertise in resolving such disputes, in reality it's just you and me, VM is taking a more passive and silent stand. So, I would not conciser this an overwhelming consensus on anyone side. --BKUP1911 (talk) 22:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC) Let's start with a vote here.Faustian (talk) 22:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC) Before a vote, why not just ask a couple senior contributors, and administrators to look at this issue first, why be afraid of outside assistance? --BKUP1911 (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC) We can file an rfc later, if there is no consensus. Let's see what people involved and knowledgable here think, first, before we start spending even more time on this issue.Faustian (talk) 23:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC) Is nuetrality tag justified currently? (informal poll) No. All information is reliably sourced, nothing from reliable sources is ignored or left out. Just because information is not positive, does not mean that the article is not nuetral.Faustian (talk) 22:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC) Neutrality Tag The neutrality tag should be re-added until the "Controversies" section is re-edited, and reviewed by neutral contributors. The tag was recently removed by one person's action, and without gaining a general concensus... Yet, any attempts by anonymous users to try and modify the section are quickly reverted under a dubious excuse of "vandalism", and the page subsequently blocked. To augment my point that the "Controversies" section is deeply flawed and bias, I would like to include a short exerpt regarding the former US Envoy to Poland Hugh S. Gibson's investigation of the issue: In due course, Gibson and his team concluded that many of the newspaper reports had been inflated or even based on hearsay and confabulation. As it turned out, certain stories reported in the American press appeared to have been planted by a soviet agency working out of Sweden, while others had been picked up from German newspapers. This was entirely plausible, since both Russians and Germans feared the rise of a new and potentially powerful state on their border and were eager to discredit it. Still, as it would appear, a significant number of acts of violence against Jews had indeed occurred (280 confirmed cases, according to Henry Morgenthau’s subsequent report).[12] In Gibson’s view, however not all of these could be construed as anti-Semitic in intent, since some had occurred on the volatile front line of the Soviet-Polish war where a number of Jews were (rightly or wrongly) perceived as snipers or sympathizers of the Bolsheviks [13] while other incidents occurred in the course of food riots (as in Częstochowa) during which, he found, an even larger number of Christian shops had also been ransacked. Finally, a number of the more blatantly anti-Semitic acts were imputable to soldiers of the Haller Army, over which the government had no direct control though the military authorities in due course meted out punishment on the soldiers concerned. In conclusion the section needs to be changes... as noted above anti-semitism incidents did occur, but the way the "Controversies" section is written, in a sensational language omitting any objective assessment of the events in question, and including accounts that are based on hearsay can be interpreted as POV. Any Wikipedia "Administrator" who continues to lock the page or revert changes made is clearly holding a bias, at this point there is no other explanation as to why any attempt to re-edit the page was promptly shot down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.79.36 (talk) 05:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC) Took out the following items: the note stating that Haller's troops looted Jewish houses, this statement is very misleading since the looting incidents were not just limited to Jewish property, so to single out Jewish victims, and lable that action as purely antisemetic is bias. Same can be said of pushing Jews of trains, as may other civilians who were viewed as enemy symathizers were mistreated in a similar way. Also, the comment about the Blue Army committing several pogroms is dubious and most likely passed down not as solid fact, but hearsay. Despite this, some historians trie to include these reports as solid proof of the events in question. --68.191.79.36 (talk) 06:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC) Removal of referenced information is considered vandalism. Please stop doing this.Faustian (talk) 21:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC) Re-submitted a revised version that does not have any of the referenced information removed, but did include text related to the US envoy Hugh S. Gibson, and cleaned up the overall format. Again, with out removing sourced material. --68.191.79.36 (talk) 06:13, 7 May 2013 (UTC) This is better. However, you still removed information from the referenced sources (such as locations of antisemitic violence and brief descriptions of the nature of that violence)and added qualifiers ("based on newspaper reports") creating a false impression. Gibson is a primary source and his opinions are to be treated and labeled this way. His opinions, unlike the conclusions by secondary sources, are to be described simply as his opinions. Wikipedia articles are based on secondary sources rather than primary ones. Faustian (talk) 11:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC) The "Neutrality Tag" needs to stay in place, the issues is not resolved as clearly evident by the recent revisions which occured. Also, since user Faustian is the only person that continues to remove the tag it is not sufficient to warrant a concesus by all sides involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.79.36 (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC) Actually, two veteran users, me and Volunteer Marek, agreed that this tag doesn't belong here after several mutual revisions to the article: [21]. You are the one who wants the tag. You, an anon editor with a history of falsifying sources.Faustian (talk) 19:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC) Blatant source falsification and antisemitism Here, pg. 230: [22]. It's stated ""In Czestochowa, on May 27, after an unknown assailant wounded one of their comrades, Haller's troops joined a furious crowd in a three hour rampage..." An anon editor changed the wording to "In Czestochowa, after one of their comrades was wounded by a Jewsih (sic) extrimist supporting the Bolshevik cause: [23] from the original "In Czestochowa, after one of their comrades was wounded, Haller's troops..." This is an obvious falsification of what was written in the original source, not to mention the usual excuse for antisemtici violence being the Jews' fault for being Communists. This falsification ios the work of an anon editor with a single purpose (could be a blocked sockpuppet, who knows?), as seen by the edit history: [24].Faustian (talk) 19:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC) Faustian you are purposely perpetuating false accusations of antisemitism Who are those "historians" you are quoting, are they the same Clowns like Jan Gross? Also, why are you changing words to diminish the importance of some text that disproves your version of the events. It was proven by a US envoy no less that some of the newspaper reports were false and came for the Soviet Embassy in Sweden... or lied about the food riots... when the same US diplomat stated as a that they were also looting Christian shops. The sources you are using are as good as William W. Hagen or Jan Gross, two fools who are only interested in perpetuating a false POV to fit their agenda. Not the truth... it's strange that your "book" states that the assailant was unknown... Unknown because he was Jewish. Well, here is confirmation that you are only interested in pushing a POV.Faustian (talk) 01:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC) Faustian do not remove the Neutrality Tag the issue is NOT settled! You keep removing the tag despite the fact that this issue is not settled. And, you also remove text form a primary source that disproves your POV. --68.191.79.36 (talk) 23:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC) It's not settled because an anon who adds proven falsehoods makes claims that it is not settled.Faustian (talk) 01:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC) No it not settled, because you keep pushing your POV. It's a bit funny, how you keep dismissing or changing the text associated with the United States envoy to Poland Hugh S. Gibson, and it's very interesting how his accounts of the situation as a primary source are making you nervous, and that his reports of the situation go against you toxic POV. In the end you call things "Falsehoods" because they don't fit you version of the events Faustian— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.79.36 (talk) 09:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC) When a book describes someone as an "unknown assailant" and you change this to "Jewish Bolshevik extremist", you are writing a falsehood. You are claiming that the source states something that it does not state. With respect to primary sources, I simply follow wikipedia guidelines. Find a reliable secondary source that agrees with what you claim to be Gibson's assessment, and we'll include it.Faustian (talk) 12:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC) Here is proof Faustian that you are wrong Here is a Google books link that sheds additional light on the issues, and calls the person captured for shooting the Blue Army soldier a Jewish Traitor. I will get more information on the issue, but here is the initial research. http://books.google.com/books?id=5e5w8T1DNWwC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=jews+attacked+polish+soldiers+in+czestochowa&source=bl&ots=jHJji1qUy6&sig=elEs70mhH__QxL8nbhVYnyGpAr4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uh6KUaOLMfOp4APdzIGQCA&ved=0CFsQ6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q=jews%20attacked%20polish%20soldiers%20in%20czestochowa&f=false --68.191.79.36 (talk) 09:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC) The book referred to the shooter of the Polish soldier as a Jewish tailor, and not a Bolshevik extremist. A tailor and a traitor are two different things. Nowhere in that source does it state that the shooter was a Jewish Bolshevik extremist, as you falsely placed in the article. It also describes how some Poles falsely accused Jews of Bolshevism before killing them. From the book: "In a number of towns pogroms had started after the Poles captured the towns from the Bolsheviks. A Zionist meeting in Pinsk discussing food distribution was the starting point for a pogrom by the Polish Army starting 5 April 1919. Poles claimed it to be a secret meeting of Jewish Bolsheviks planning an attack on the Polish army. In fact, some of the Bolshevik commissars in Pinsk came from a Jewish background , but had left town earlier together with the Red Army. Polish soldiers under the command of Major Aleksander Narbut-Luczynski broke up the meeting. The attendants including women and children were arrested and mistreated, 34 persons were shot." This book states the very opposite of what you claim it states.Faustian (talk) 12:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC) Piotrus review of the neutrality issues Regarding mainspace edits ([25]) I have to support Faustian's version, as the anon's main chances are unreferenced (thus failing WP:V). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:55, 12 May 2013 (UTC) Purpose of the POV tag The tag is not a 'badge of shame'. Arguing about whether it should be present, rather than substantive content issues is lame. See Template:POV. As it explains there: "the neutral point of view is determined by the prevalence of a perspective in high-quality, independent, reliable secondary sources." William Avery (talk) 21:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Where Did the Blue Army Disappear To?

As someone trying to research the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920-21, I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to these formations between the time they arrived in Poland, and the start of that conflict.

As far as I can determine, these units disappear from the order of battle in late 1919 or early 1920. The mystery is why? These units, with their air and armored assets, would have been of the most up-to-date, modern (for the time) type. Given the hodge-podge and improvised nature of the rest of the Polish and Red armies, these units would also have been the most powerful units in Easter Europe as well. I cannot conceive of a good MILITARY reason why these formations would have been broken up, and their power diluted.

Reasons that have been advanced include 1. Having broken their promise not to use the “Blue Army” in offensive operations, the Poles needed to appease the angry Allied Powers. The “Blue Army” needed to disappear, and was broken up for this reason. The veterans of the Army were salted throughout newly raised formations to provide a stiff backbone for unleavened recruits. 2. The Blue Army was formed in France under the authority of Dombrowski, Pilsudski’s rival. Concerned about the political allegiance of these troops, Pilsudski had the army broken up and salted with native Poles, who were likely to be more favorable to the man who had remained in Poland, (Pilsudski), then to the one living out the war in Paris, (Dombrowski.) 3. The majority of American Poles in the Army decided to go home at the end of the Great War. (The US Congress would eventually appropriate funds for ships to bring thes troops home.) This, and the impact of influenza at the end of 1919, left so many holes in the roster of these units, it was thought better to distribute the remaining troops into newly forming units.

I would rather this question be given more importance, in the discussion, as well as more detail of the battles and maneuvers the Blue Army participated in.

I must also add my opinion that the emphasis of the first sentence, and devoting a full quarter of the text to “controversies” and pogroms, makes it seem the most important contribution “Blue Army” was suppression of the Jews, not military defense of Poland. While an important question, I don’t think it should be the major emphasis of the article.

Unencyclopedic tone

I would like to add two templates to the Blue Army page. After reading the text, and comparing the tone of the article to other pages covering similar controversial topics. It is clear that the page is displaying unencyclopedic tone, confusing statements, and source links that are blank. I would like to, in the coming days to after looking at the issue in greater detail. --89.64.208.222 (talk) 03:29, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't add a template because it will not tell anyone what your specific complaints are. which sentences need changing? Rjensen (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• The most notable issue is related to the text about the United States envoy to Poland Hugh S. Gibson. The problem starts with the fact that on the Blue Army page he is called: "a man who stood out for his antisemitism". Yet, on the page devoted to his bio, he is praised for his work regarding the very same issue (using sourced material). Now, I understand that you don't base one Wiki article on the other, but when you have such differing interpretations about a topic, you have to suspect a bias POV. Also, I had a chance to read the "sourced" text on Google Books, and found that nowhere is Gibson called an anti-semite, or that he held a personal hostility towards jews.
• Another issue is the text related to "food riots". Nowhere, in the sourced material does it imply that "food riots" were caused by the Blue Army. So, the statement was inserted as a "red herring", implying that Blue Army was responsible for the riots. Yet, upon further investigation of the materials used as source, this is just not the case. The statements simply create confusion; and just as the allegations about Gibson, are unencyclopedic, and questionable in their tone.
• Finally, in the introductory section, the final paragraph about the individual cases of anti-semitism carries undue weight. It directly states that there were "individual soldiers" who committed those acts. If that is the case, such a statement should not be made in the opening paragraph as it focuses its POV on just one issue. As an example of the bias: you could add a similar statement to the US Army page, saying US soldiers committed racist acts against Iraqi civilians (they did, but that should not be representative of the whole army). Also, there were cases of civilian abuse against the Ukrainians but, that fact was omitted.
• Finally, I would like to propose that a new "Controversies page" about the Blue Army should be created, as there are some contributors who clearly would like to add very specific details of individual cases of civilian abuse by the soldiers of the army, also in many cases the interpretation of such accounts are also very much disputed. So, a page that can address those issues in detail would be an honest solution. To back this point, I would like to quote one source: "When a Christian Pole suffers harm it is a called a food riot, but when a Jew was the victim in similar circumstances it's called a Pogrom" --89.64.208.222 (talk) 15:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

This useful info re: the complaint. I recommend you remove the offending unsourced text. WP:BRD is the policy here. As for a separate controversies page, that is overkill and not wise. Rjensen (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed most references to "food riots", and Hugh S. Gibson; as they do not pertain directly to the subject matter. Also, I added a passage about the Jewish recruits joining the Ukrainian Galician Army. This passage is very important since it shows that some of the Jewish communities did indeed support armed factions in the conflict, and it creates a more balanced view of the circumstances; this material is sourced and can be found on p.100 of Nationalizing A Borderland: War, Ethnicity, And Anti-Jewish Violence In East Galicia, 1914-1920. Finally, I cleaned up some of the language making it more encyclopedic, and neutral in tone. --89.64.208.222 (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The anon is clearly biased and dishonest. He claims point 1 "The most notable issue is related to the text about the United States envoy to Poland Hugh S. Gibson. The problem starts with the fact that on the Blue Army page he is called: "a man who stood out for his antisemitism". Yet, on the page devoted to his bio, he is praised for his work regarding the very same issue (using sourced material). Now, I understand that you don't base one Wiki article on the other, but when you have such differing interpretations about a topic, you have to suspect a bias POV. Also, I had a chance to read the "sourced" text on Google Books, and found that nowhere is Gibson called an anti-semite, or that he held a personal hostility towards jews."

Here is the source: Ideology, Politics, and Diplomacy in East Central Europe Mieczysław B. Biskupski, Piotr Stefan Wandycz University Rochester Press, 2003 [26] Direct quote from the book: "He [Gibson] stood out for his antisemitism even in an era when genteel disdain for things Jewish pervaded the clublike atmosphere of the foreign service. Upon their arrival in Warsaw, the Yankee diplomats [including,. of course, Gibson] found their prejudices confirmed by an almost physical repugnance towards the city's exotic Orthodox Jewry...to Gibson and his colleagues, the Jews represented antagonists and also a source of sport, and ridicule of Jewish traits, customs, and appearance became the favorite expression of camaderie within the legation." Page 67. The anon is clearly dishonest when he claims " I had a chance to read the "sourced" text on Google Books, and found that nowhere is Gibson called an anti-semite, or that he held a personal hostility towards jews".

Also, his arguments above mirror those of a user who has caused disruptions in this article in the past and who was blocked [27] around that time. Just scroll up. This may be a return of this same user, with a different IP.Faustian (talk) 05:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• I will go issue by issue; individually, not in group answers... This does not change the fact that, the article is written with a bias. No, serious Wiki article uses the type of unencyclopedic language and phrases that are included in this text. I had a chance to look at other articles and their discussions pages; and the Blue Army page is full of disproportionate statements. Other Wiki articles control size of content as not to have some clown come in and dump a ton of BS about one issue, and blow the whole proportionality of an article.

• The intro paragraph that notes "individual soldiers of the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence" carries undue weight. It states that "individual soldiers" were responsible for antisemitic incidents. No "real" Wiki editor would allow a statement which so prominently displays and describes the actions of a minority. Key words here are "individual soldiers"! Also, the only way such a statement can be warranted, is to highlight the actions of people if they were officially supported by the leadership. In this case, both General Józef Haller commander of the Blue Army, and Chief of State Gen. Piłsudski forbade and punished soldiers who disobeyed the directive (noted in the article and source provided). So, what you are including in the header are the lawless actions of a few undisciplined troops. That is bias! That paragraph needs to be removed. The Blue Army was not in the east to do Pogroming, and this statement carries undue weight. Only fulfilling a need to satisfy the editor's perverse porn like "victim" mentality.

• Also, despite what you quote as proof of Gibson's antisemitism. I have say this, since there is a major discrepancy between how these "secondary sources" illustrate the envoy; I would question the validity of these charges, what direct examples does the book provide "letters" or "first hand account by witnesses"? Any "historian" can make unfounded generalizations about a topic, as we have an excellent example in William W. Hagen who is also mentioned on this page. --89.64.208.222 (talk) 12:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

So, you dismiss the proof that you blatantly wrote a falsehood about a source. Since you can't deny it, you attack the source. Sorry, that source about Gibson is reliable, in a per-reviewed worked published by a university.

As for undue weight, Haller's army's participation in pogroms is well known and a major aspect of that army's reputation, as attesting to in numerous sources. Mentioning this in the lede is quite appropriate. You have tried and failed to push your POV before, and have returned after a year to engage in the same activity.Faustian (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and the Jewish unit of the Ukrainian Galician Army was formed in June 1919, while Haller's army were persecuting Jews from May 1919. In addition to being original research, writing about the Jewish unit here (presumably in order to excuse anti-Jewish violence by Haller's troops) is chronologically incorrect.Faustian (talk) 14:59, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• Duoh, ok Faustian… In May the Blue Army was still in Western Poland, Czestochowa, getting sniped at by Bolshevik collaborators; not in the east. Anyway, it's still sourced material from the book you actually used to back up your POV. Oh, and William W. Hagen is also a very "reliable" source and mainstream "historian", that's why he was too stupid or bias to check first hand French and British document on when the Blue Army was sent to Poland, before making his asinine claims. --89.64.208.222 (talk) 15:04, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

We are not discussing Hagen so this statement is irrelevant. We are discussing Ideology, Politics, and Diplomacy in East Central Europe Mieczysław B. Biskupski, Piotr Stefan Wandycz University Rochester Press, 2003 and your falsehood concerning this sourse. Faustian (talk) 15:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

That's why I asked on what first hand sources does the author base his statement on regarding Gibson? Did he cite "correspondence" or "first hand witness accounts". There are two very different pictures of Gibson, that's why I ask for more detail. Also, anyone can be called an anti-semite like Barak Obama, Jimmy Carter, Kanye West or even Pink Floyd! So, I want to get a bit more detail on Gibson. --89.64.208.222 (talk) 15:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Remove unencyclopedic statement

I would like to remove an unencyclopedic statement in the phrase "all Ukrainians were Bolsheviks or something close to it"; the ending "or something close to it" is a paraphrase, and not a direct quote. Not to mention has a crude tone, is should be removed. Also, I would like to go section by section to improve the quality of the article, if anyone has any issues they are more then welcome to review the changes --COD T 3 (talk) 17:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Introduction

Previously there had been a balanced version that included the crimes and afterwards mentioned Jewish support for Poland's enemies. This in itself is somewhat questionable - we don't include Jewish behavior when discussing other crimes against Jews. Or Polish behavior win the lede to the article Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. But now User:COD T 3 is adding this info first - essentially, making excuses for the crimes.Faustian (talk) 00:35, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I have an issue with your interpretation, because the new version follows the rules of "CAUSE AND EFFECT" it is a fact that the Jewish population did support elements hostile to Poland, for what ever reason; economic, or political (Cause), and there were subsequent retributions and antisemetic violence (Effect). This is strictly chronological and encyclopedic. Your version is based on emotions and POV; looking at it from the victims point of view, which is not in line with proper editing rules. --COD T 3 (talk) 00:42, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I reverted back the edit, not including the disputed section. Though I will submit my text in the Info Section for peer review. --COD T 3 (talk) 00:48, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

So now you state that Jews were persecuted because they were pro-communists. Sorry, but such "Cause and effect" is not mentioned in the intro to the article about The Holocaust, about Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia about Armenian Genocide, or My Lai Massacre or Huta Pieniacka massacre and these articles are all sufficiently encyclopedic. You are trying to make excuses for the Blue Army's behavior. Quite frankly, including this communism support in the intro at all is questionable - none of the articles I listed has this in the intro - but in the interests of preventing edit warring it was left in place. But now we see that even this is not enough.Faustian (talk) 00:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I will add that presenting the info about Jewish support for communism before presenting the violence is an example of synthesis [28]. Jews were attacked because Jews supported communism (implying that the victims were to blame).Faustian (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Like I said I will submit my text for peer review, but when sourced text confirms that some Jews were supporting armed factions, and foreign governments, you can't just say that they all were neutral. --COD T 3 (talk) 01:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I just read it too quickly but aside of the order being different I don't see how the contents different. "they were involved in anti-semitic killings, as jews supported communists" "jews supported communists, and anti-semitic killings took place" I'm just not seeing one as overwhelmingly better or worse than the other.--Львівське (говорити) 01:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I think any excuse is probably unnecessary but placing the excuse first seems worse than placing it later.Faustian (talk) 01:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

You continually think that it's an excuse; like the Poles just hated jews for no reason at all. I'm not justifying their actions, but they were the result of mistrust and fear, because some Jewish communities did support foreign elements against Poland. I also included SOURCED material to prove that fact. It's only fair to acknowledge the reality of the circumstances on both sides. --COD T 3 (talk) 01:47, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure Germans, Ukrainians, Russians and others who persecuted (robbed, raped, killed etc.) Jews also had their "reasons"; we don't put those reasons in the intro to articles.Faustian (talk) 01:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Are they well known for antisemitism that it should stand on its own? --Львівське (говорити) 06:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Well I guess the logic should follow: what was the main goal? Antisemitic killings or anti-bolshevik force? Cause and effect. I don't know anything about this group or its history, just saying this based solely on the intro i read very quickly. --Львівське (говорити) 06:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

User Lvivske you are correct in asking this question. The Blue Army was sent to western Ukraine to fight the Bolsheviks, and Ukrainian Galician Army; not to pogrom the Jews. But, as with any war, there are civilian abuses; based an real or perceived threats. In fact, Gen. Haller ordered court-martials for anyone involved in antisemitic attacks. So, you have to put that fact into perspective. Also, please note my last comment on the page were I address several issues regarding neutrality of the text, and un-due weight, I thing that it would be a good idea for a third user to review the disputed text. --COD T 3 (talk) 14:46, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed text change for the Intro section

I propose a text change to the third paragraph in the Introduction section. In my view the previous statement is not encyclopedic, and does not follow the chronological rules of "Cause and Effect". Instead concentrating on a POV. Also, the new text includes links to topics directly related to the section in order to augment the subject matter more clearly.

During the subsequent military campaigns in Galicia, where Jewish and Ukrainian political organizations actively supported foreign interests hostile to Poland—including Bolshevik Russia, and Marxist elements in Western Ukraine, along with post-war revolutionary Germany in the west—sporadic incidents of antisemitic violence and civilian abuse occurred, that did include elements of the Blue Army.

--COD T 3 (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Sources show that the incidents were not sporadic events but widespread. Also, it is synthesis to use different sources in order to claim that all of these events were caused by Jews being pro-Communist.Faustian (talk) 01:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Here is the direct text form Nationalizing A Borderland: War, Ethnicity, And Anti-Jewish Violence In East Galicia, 1914-1920 regarding the support of German interests.

• The anti-Jewish zeal of those soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict of in the winter of 1919.

--COD T 3 (talk) 01:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

You've been caught dishonestly presenting the source. The quote above refers to the antisemitic violence of the Poznan regiments. The section begins Two Polish units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters and staged brutal pogroms...The anti-Jewish zeal of those soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict of in the winter of 1919" Read the next sentence: "Similarly, the actions of Haller's Army, which had arrived from France, might be explained by the fact that some contingents came from the United States, where Jewish-Polish relations went from bad to worse." You are using explanation for Poznan regiment violence to excuse violence by Haller's Army. This is the second time you have been dishonest about a source. There ought to be no tolerance for this.Faustian (talk) 01:58, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, here is the sentence just before the one I earlier quoted… it related directly to the Blue Army; as only General Jozef Haller was the commander of the Blue Army.

• General Jozef Haller's army - especially earned a reputation as notorious Jews baiters… The anti-Jewish zeal of those soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict of in the winter of 1919.

You keep accusing people of dishonesty Faustian. --COD T 3 (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Because you are falsely describing sources. Here is the full text: "Two Polish units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski. The anti-Jewish zeal of those soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict of in the winter of 1919. Similarly, the actions of Haller's Army, which had arrived from France, might be explained by the fact that some contingents came from the United States, where Jewish-Polish relations went from bad to worse." So there is one reason for Poznan regiment crimes (Polish-German conflict in Poznan) and a different reason for Haller army crimes (deteriorating Jewish-Polish relations in the USA). COD T 3 is falsely using the explanation for the Poznan regiment violence to excuse violence by Haller's Army. How many times can he continue to falsely claim what sources say?Faustian (talk) 03:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

It states "two Polish units" they obviously fought alongside, and the text makes no other distinction between the two. The knowledge of the events in Poznan 1919 were widely known among the ranks of the Polish military, you are now trying to use arguments that are subject to your interpretation of the text. --COD T 3 (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Revised text for the Introduction section

Revised text, excluding the mention of Jews supporting German government as this pertained to the Jewsih community in Western Poland, and did not carry over into the east.

During the subsequent military campaigns in Galicia—where Jewish and Ukrainian political organizations actively supported foreign interests hostile to Poland; including Bolshevik Russia, and nationalist elements in Western Ukraine,—incidents of antisemitic violence and civilian abuse occurred, that did include elements of the Blue Army.

--COD T 3 (talk) 06:28, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Your quote still implies that Jews were to blame for the pogroms because some of them supported enemies of the Polish state. Blaming the victims shouldn't be in the intro at all, and placing it at the beginning of the sentence overemphasizes this.Faustian (talk) 06:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I still would like other user input on this issue. I'm very well aware of you POV on this subject, Faustian. In fact, it's so prevalent in you editing that there are redundant statements in the Controversies section just a sentence apart; here is the example:

• many ethnic Ukrainians and Jews generally see its conduct during the war in a negative light.
• As a result, Jews perceived Haller's Army as particularly harmful to their interests.

How many times in one section are you gonna keep repeating that Jews did not care for Haller's army? Also, you continue to keep the paragraph about Hagen's wrongful claim regarding the Blue Army? Historian Edward Goldstein noted [29], the Blue Army has on numerous occasion been accused of pogroms that they had nothing to do with. So, why should we include this wrongful claim when in fact there were many like it, and why is the event described in detail in the article, when it has nothing to do with the Blue Army? Also, in the past you and other editors agreed that it was not relevant, but decided to kept the text anyway.

• Also, you agreed above that it'd be a good idea to remove Hagen. Can we do that? Volunteer Marek 19:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, why do we have a mention of the "food riots" as stated by Gibson? This statement was about civilian lawlessness and not the actions of the Blue Army. In short, your only goal is to dump as much negative text in this article as you can, and create a unbalanced discussion of the topic. --COD T 3 (talk) 13:31, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Hagen's description was kept in because it was deemed notable that he was wrong. Otherwise in the future some editor could come across Hagen's mistaken attribution and try to put the false info in here again. So, we describe what Hagen said and state that he was wrong. If there is consensus to remove Hagen, that's fine.Faustian (talk) 15:37, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this statement should be removed, again as noted by historian Edward Goldstein, the Blue Army was accused several times of pogroms they did not commit. So, Hagen's claims are not that unusual or noteworthy to warrant an entire paragraph. It should just be removed. --COD T 3 (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

If we can get some others who agree with you, then remove the section.Faustian (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Example of reinterpreting a source to present a biased POV

Original source states: "Two Polish units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski. The anti-Jewish zeal of those soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict of in the winter of 1919. Similarly, the actions of Haller's Army, which had arrived from France, might be explained by the fact that some contingents came from the United States, where Jewish-Polish relations went from bad to worse."

talk wants the article to state: "During the subsequent military campaigns in Galicia—where Jewish and Ukrainian political organizations actively supported foreign interests hostile to Poland; including Bolshevik Russia, and nationalist elements in Western Ukraine, —incidents of antisemitic violence and civilian abuse occurred, that did include elements of the Blue Army.

Source: Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press"

Seems like a textbook example of whitewashing. It places the emphasis on the Jews' activities that allegedly provoked atrocities rather than on the fact of the atrocities (by placing the excuses first), and it minimizes the atrocities and the Blue Army's role in them. The original source stated that the Blue Army was one of two units who "earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters", COD T writes "did include elements of the Blue Army"; the original stated "brutal pogroms", CODE T states "incidents of antisemitic violence and civilian abuse." Faustian (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

In regards to the Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army; you are the editor that first included, any mention the Poznan regiments, in this statement.

• Haller's army, along with the Poznań regiments, committed pogroms in Sambir, the area around Lviv, and Grodek Jagiellonski.[19]

But, now when tried to expand on this topic you call me dishonest, and that I carry a POV. In fact the Controversies section has grown so large because you keep adding stuff to it, and no one questions the validity of the text you include, or its objectivity. Just like you wrote an entire paragraph about Hugh S. Gibson, and his views on Jews, yet his actual connection to the Blue Army is very limited at best. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Since Gibson was used as "evidence" involving Jews it is relevant to show what kind of man Gibson was.Faustian (talk) 20:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Then get rid of Gibson all together, just note that Haller complained about polish-american volunteers to him, and that's it. That' section has gotten way out of control, with irrelevant stuff. --COD T 3 (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

William W. Hagen's erroneous claimed (compromise solution)

We all agree that Hagen's claim that the Blue Army's participation in the Lwów pogrom was erroneous. At this point, user Faustian continues to stall on the removal of the entire paragraph, by suggesting that more editors should decide if it's worth keeping (despite the fact that it has been suggested in the past that the statement should be completely removed). His argument states that it would be a good idea to keep the text just in case some other editor (in the future) might make the mistake of re-adding Hagen's views on the issue.

In this case to strike a balance between the indecisiveness of user Faustian, and my own view (as well as that of other past user's) to removed the text all together; I will keep the mention of the erroneous claim itself, in order to highlight the false allegations, but remove the details of the pogrom as it is completely irrelevant to the Blue Army, as the contingent was nowhere near the events in question. Thus, keeping the article neutral, and free from un-due weight of describing events not directly linked to the Blue Army, or implying guilt through association, by including the description of unrelated events together. --COD T 3 (talk) 05:44, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard edit continuation

I'd like to go ahead and continue with the edits in the disputed Controversies section. The dispute was not fully resolved on the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard [30] due to the fact that user Faustian, who was opposed to most of the proposed changes, dropped out of the discussion. At this point, I still would like to address the issue regarding the length of the article (which was also questioned by the dispute resolution mediator), and would like to remove two additional paragraph from the page. The first paragraph in the section is redundant, and unencyclopedic; as it holds an opinion narrative, the readers can for themselves figure out that the Poles held the BA in high esteem, and the Jews along with the Ukrainians viewed the army as detrimental to their interests. Also, the last paragraph does not address a controversial issue, and is not sourced. In this case, the BA success on the battle field, and the defeat of the Ukrainian forces is not a disputed issue, and not particularly controversial. --COD T 3 (talk) 13:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I was not on WP and indeed will be on a ski trip this weekend so will again disappear from WP. That being said, I don't object to full removal of Gibson. Details of Gibson's antisemitism were necessary if he was used as a source to "exonerate" Blue Army's anti-Jewish violence, but if he is removed altogether than obviously details of his antisemitism are unnecessary here. Now, removal of sources info about Blue Army being seen negatively by both Jews and Ukrainians is unecessary.Faustian (talk) 14:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The issue that I have with the first paragraph is that it's an opinion narrative; also it's redundant since, in the next paragraph you have this phrase "As a result, Jews perceived Haller's Army as particularly harmful to their interests". How many times are we gonna restate the fact that the Jews or the Ukrainians did not like the BA. Also, this comes back to the length of the article, that's being made worse by repetition of similar statements. Again, I'm for the removal of this paragraph, it's just a F.Y.I. statement... The Poles liked the BA, Jews and Ukrainians did not; that's neither here or there, any reader can come to the same conclusion just by reading further into the section. Can you provide a concrete explanation why the first paragraph should stay? --COD T 3 (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

It's a summary. Nothing wrong with a summary.Faustian (talk) 16:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I understand that you would like to keep this statement, but you provided no real explanation for why it should stay, other than "it's a summary"… I get that, and this summary is redundant, does not provide specific examples of the issue, and it expresses an opinion. Also, we already have a similar statement in the next paragraph. So, to try and shorten the section which is still too long and creates issue of undue weight, I would like to go ahead and remove the phrase. --COD T 3 (talk) 05:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Faustian be prepared to go back to dispute resolution, and if you are not able to contribute than maybe you should not get involved in editing this article. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I wrote more of this article than you did. You simply have been trying to remove info in order to whitewash Blue Army crimes. The section has already been shorted considerably and undue weight is no longer an issue. Given the central role of the notorious Blue Army in terms of anti-Jewish atrocities the section shouldn't be any smaller. Also, it is a fact not opinion that Jews and Ukrainians had negative views of the Blue Army.Faustian (talk) 17:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Intro paragraph

The third paragraph in the Intro section, should be removed since the anti-semitic violence that did occur, was not an act that was officially sanctioned by the BA's commanders. In fact Gen. Haller sent a proclamation demanding an immediate halt to any abuse of jewish civilians. Also, the BA's main purpose in the east was not pogroming, and the soldiers accused of anti-semitic acts were punish by a court-martial. I would like to highlight the phrase "individual soldiers" in the paragraph, this is very significant. If the acts were committed by undisciplined, and insubordinate troops this in no way should reflect on the entire army, and the statement does point out that these were individual soldiers. Thus, the statement created an issue of undue weight, highlighting the acts of the few. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Antisemitic violence according to numerous sources, was very common among BA soldiers and officers. It was so bad and pervasive that the army itself gained a reputation as pogromists: Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, pg. 103. "Two Polish units - Poznań regiments and General Jozef Haller's Army - especially earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski." Pavel Korzec. (1993). Polish-Jewish Relations During World War I. In Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism, 1870-1933/39, Volume 2 Herbert Strauss, Ed. Walter de Gruyter: pp.1034-1035 "In the martyrology of the Jews during the years 1918-1920, the 'Haller's Boys' (Hallerczycy) won sad repute as the worst torturers of the Jews.'" A mention in the intro is quite appropriate. It shouldn't be whitewashed.Faustian (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

This issue might have to go to dispute resolution because we have very different interpretations, of the events in question. I'm not trying to whitewash the events, but I'm fully aware that many of the accounts were exaggerated, and many historian based their research on old news articles, that were purposely inflated. Great example of this can be found on the Talk:Lwów pogrom (1918) in a discussion, where troops were accused of pasturing their horses in a Jewish cemetery. Anyone who seen jewish cemeteries knows just how tightly packed they are, and have little grass anywhere (just google the images old and new); you can barely walk between the grave stones. Yet, the article stated that and entire army was grazing their war horses there. That simply did not, and could not have happened. But, it makes great propaganda, and some poorly informed historians based their entire research on such statements… to back this up historians like Norman Davies do question the validity of many of those reports as being false, so I don't think that the BA was as bad as you propose, and the intro statement is unwarranted. --COD T 3 (talk) 06:14, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

What you, or I think is irrelevant, we base these articles on what sources conclude. And the quotes I provided above are very clear.Faustian (talk) 14:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Controversies section

I'd like to go ahead and remove the last sentence form the fourth paragraph in the Controversies section, as it appears that this sentence which talks about "food riots" and "german agents" pertains more to civilian lawlessness, and not the actions of the BA. Thus, making this statement irrelevant to our subject.

• In cases when Polish sources couldn't deny the existence of anti-Jewish violence, the authorities alluded that Jews charged too much for food during food shortages, or claimed that the violence was a result of "food riots" rather than pogroms, and blamed "German agents" for inciting the violence.

--COD T 3 (talk) 16:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, this referenced specifically to Haller's army's actions, per the source: [31]. Once again you are dishonest.Faustian (talk) 17:21, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Controversies section is basically about the Blue Army's antisemitic atrocities and ought to be renamed to reflect this.Faustian (talk) 17:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, we can all discuss these issues in the upcoming dispute resolution claim... and as the last one showed, your arguments and the text you added was way out of balance for this article, pointing to a clear bias on your part. In fact all the claims of anti-semitism in this section were added by yourself almost exclusively, with much of it criticized by other past editors like MV, as being unbalanced, opinion based, and pure puffery. So, be prepared to state your arguments. Also, the link to the book you provided does not show page 230, so how can we confirm your claim that this statement is being made against the BA. Dishonest... no, but indeed skeptical of what you propose. --COD T 3 (talk) 17:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

More dishonesty from you. However when you wrote "I'd like to go ahead and remove the last sentence form the fourth paragraph in the Controversies section, as it appears that this sentence which talks about "food riots" and "german agents" pertains more to civilian lawlessness, and not the actions of the BA. " you were also clearly dishonest because the source on pg. 230 referred to Haller's army. I suggest that rather than try to whitewash and remove referenced information, you add to other sections of the article if you want to avoid undue weight issues. Faustian (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused about your source, because civilians would "riot" and soldiers would "loot" that tends to be the standard terminology in most historical descriptions of similar events. In this case you are saying that soldiers rioted? Not sure if that sounds correct. Sorry, if I question your source, can you prove a copy of that page? --COD T 3 (talk) 18:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Look it up on google books. You are the one who has been caught multiple times being dishonest about what a source says: [32].Faustian (talk) 18:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, Google books don't show that page 230, so where are you getting you material since you provided the alleged link to the text, with no results showing? Also, you keep calling me dishonest because I question your motives, and editing? --COD T 3 (talk) 18:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I call your claims dishonest but you've been caught being dishonest about a source:

COD T 3 wrote: " Also, I had a chance to read the "sourced" text on Google Books, and found that nowhere is Gibson called an anti-semite, or that he held a personal hostility towards jews." Diff: [33]. He admits being this IP: [34].

Here was from the source: Ideology, Politics, and Diplomacy in East Central Europe Mieczysław B. Biskupski, Piotr Stefan Wandycz University Rochester Press, 2003 [35] Direct quote from the book: "He [Gibson] stood out for his antisemitism even in an era when genteel disdain for things Jewish pervaded the clublike atmosphere of the foreign service. Upon their arrival in Warsaw, the Yankee diplomats [including,. of course, Gibson] found their prejudices confirmed by an almost physical repugnance towards the city's exotic Orthodox Jewry...to Gibson and his colleagues, the Jews represented antagonists and also a source of sport, and ridicule of Jewish traits, customs, and appearance became the favorite expression of camaderie within the legation." Page 67.

So your dishonesty is quite clear.Faustian (talk) 19:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused, just cause I questioned your version and you corrected my initial observation, how is that dishonest? --COD T 3 (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Your words: "I had a chance to read the "sourced" text on Google Books, and found that nowhere is Gibson called an anti-semite, or that he held a personal hostility towards jews." The source you claimed to read stated ""He [Gibson] stood out for his antisemitism and to Gibson and his colleagues, the Jews represented antagonists and also a source of sport, and ridicule of Jewish traits, customs, and appearance became the favorite expression of camaderie within the legation. So either you were dishonest when you claimed to have read the sourced test (which included the page number) or you read it but were dishonest about what you had read. Which was it? Faustian (talk) 19:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and filed for a second Dispute Resolution claim. Also, as I noted before regarding your accusations of "dishonesty" or "whitewashing"… Google Books scan did not show the page in question, as Gibson's name is not used on that page; in fact you added his name in above statement using brackets. So, after further review on my part I dropped the argument. So, please stop trying to demonize me, or my interpretation of the issue. --COD T 3 (talk) 18:17, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

It's good that after you were caught red-handed, you stopped being dishonest. There is no interpretation or demonization here - it is reality. And of course Gibson's name was used on that page - I provided the quotes, above: "to Gibson and his colleagues, the Jews represented antagonists and also a source of sport, and ridicule of Jewish traits, customs, and appearance became the favorite expression of camaderie within the legation." So you are dishonest yet again. This demonstrated pattern of behavior is important but it enables us editors to draw conclusions about your objectivity and "good faith" (or lack thereof) Faustian (talk) 13:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, your editing on this subject and your POV has been put into question by several other well established contributors in the past, like Piotrus and Volunteer Marek, yet you accuse me of bias. In any case the issue is now at a dispute resolution board, so we'll address the case there. --COD T 3 (talk) 14:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Please don't use my name to back up your argument in the case I have not taken a stance yet. In the past sometimes I have agreed and sometimes I've disagreed with Faustian, and I haven't yet reviewed this particular case. It is just as likely I may take his side this time as it is not. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

On this issue, VM stated "One could argue that the controversy section is too large relative to the article as a whole but that's more of an issue of expanding the rest of the article." and "Ok thanks. In my opinion the neutrality tag can be removed. As I stated above, if someone feels that the negative stuff takes up too much space, then what needs to be done is an expansion of the other parts of the article." This is my position also.Faustian (talk) 18:23, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Faustain, because you repeatedly accuse me of a bias, and trying to demonize me; I would like to again comment on your behavior towards me. Included below is a quote from a past Talk Page discussion (posted by another editor, not myself, or user Piotrus for that matter) that criticizes your neutrality regarding the BA article.

• Ok Faustian… You've started going out there trying to find anything negative you can find and stuffing it all into the article. It looks like you've even given up on trying to actually approach the subject neutrally. 08:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

So, before you accuse me of a bias, call me dishonest, or say that I'm trying to whitewash the topic, you should perhaps re-evaluate your approach to the subject.--COD T 3 (talk) 09:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Later, the same editor you quoted, User:Volunteer Marek, wrote "Thank you for the constructive approach." He also wrote: "The crimes committed against Jews are prominant enough and well-established enough in the literature that they deserve a section or subsection in the article, and therefore a brief mention in the lead is warranted. I agree that the lead must not imply that pogromming was the main activity of the Blue Army - but still, these actions ought to be mentioned and not ignored in the lead. I am quite open in terms of any ideas about how this can be done, but it must be done somehow, and not simply removed (or dismissed as "accusations" or otherwise presented as not having happened)." We then worked collaboratively on the article until we achieved a stable version that remained intact until you decided to disrupt it.

Oh - he also stated that "One could argue that the controversy section is too large relative to the article as a whole but that's more of an issue of expanding the rest of the article. He also wrote: "Ok thanks. In my opinion the neutrality tag can be removed. As I stated above, if someone feels that the negative stuff takes up too much space, then what needs to be done is an expansion of the other parts of the article." This is actually my position. So, you are outvoted. Two editors here who have worked on the article agree that info shouldn't be removed but rather than other parts of the article ought to be expanded. You are the disruptive minority. One who, btw, hasn't added any info to this article but who have only removed info. If the dispute resolution doesn't produce results, I will go ahead and add some more relevant, referenced from reliable sources, info into the controversies section. You can feel free to expand the rest of the article.Faustian (talk) 18:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Blue Army Wikipedia:Mediation

The dispute regarding the neutrality of the Controversies section will have to go to Wikipedia:Mediation; this ongoing issue will have to receive in-depth opinions and reviews, regarding problems rerated to undue weight. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I wanted to thank both COD T3 and Faustian for their good faith, and civil participation at WP:DRN. I think that both of you are good editors and both have a good intentions for this article. The problem is arising because a) you have different approaches, b)NPOV and UNDUE are sometimes nuanced guidelines and c) there is only two of you on the talk page. I say these things not to discourage you but rather to encourage you to be open to compromise and collaboration as you proceed through the mediation process. Thanks again and good luck! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:40, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Removing source and text used as WP:OR justifying attacks on Jewish population

In this edit, I removed text that appeared to explain or even justify violence against Jewish populations on the Ukrainian Front. The text stated,

"During the fighting on the Ukrainian front, elements of the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence, where political Jewish organizations found themselves sharing ideological platforms with Bolshevik Russia, as well as communist elements in Western Ukraine, and post-war revolutionary Germany." [36]

The removed text implied that Jews were targeted where and because Jewish organizations were ideologically linked to communism or postwar Germany. But if you follow the source, you see that it doesn't mention Haller, the Blue Army, or Ukraine at all. Instead it states

"In the last section of the book on the interwar period, she expands the scope of her analysis to include other minority rights advocates as well, examining tensions and alliances between various advocacy groups and their critics (Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Jews, Romanians, etc.). This section highlights another challenge to minority rights advocacy; namely the problem of alliances and strange bedfellows. During the interwar period, for example, Jewish rights groups found themselves sharing platforms with revisionist Germany and Bolshevik Russia, which did not serve to enhance the credibility of their claims in the eyes of the Great Powers of the West."

Maybe the original book explains that Jews were targeted because they had communist sympathies, but for that we'll need the cite and text to back it up. -Darouet (talk) 21:05, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• The reasons for incidents of violence in times of war are usually varied. In this particular instance they were chiefly political. This is what the source supported. Robery was not the reason for violence, and neither was ethnic dispersal at that particular point in time. When people die, the readers need to know why. Poeticbent talk 23:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Poeticbent, I do agree with you that readers should know why violence occurs, and not simply that it happened. However, as I explain above, the source used in this instance isn't about the subject in question, and so the source's statement about Jewish rights groups sharing platforms with Germany or Russia has no relationship to the violence, except in this article. Can you please remove the text until you find a proper reference? -Darouet (talk) 12:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add a few things regarding this issue; and note that the overall BA dispute has been picked up by the mediation board, so perhaps please follow the proceedings. Also, regarding the nature of the violence; in Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces we have a mention of the Morgenthau Report, headed by the prominent Jewish-American diplomat Henry Morgenthau, Sr who concluded that indeed most of the violence was political, and questioned whether the use of the term "pogrom" was indeed appropriate. Also, noted in the report was the fact that in places like Wilno ethnic Poles were killed by Jewish snipers, sympathizing with the Bolshevik cause. --COD T 3 (talk) 17:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Unless a source actually directly states that because of some Jewish involvement with Bolsheviks Jews were being killed, a statement making this claim ought to be removed. Claiming that Jews were killed due to Jewish involvement in Bolshevism and having a source that only claims that Jews were involved in Bolshevism is original research. That being said, I'm inclined to leave the statement in for awhile until a source is found rather than just removing the statement right away. There should be a source for this - please put it in, someone.Faustian (talk) 03:33, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Again, I would recommend we leave this argument for the Mediation Board, and not make any changes to the disputed sections until they can be discussed with the help of a mediator. Also, please note that the statement about Bolshevik support among jews is not "original research". In the source quoted earlier, it's noted that the majority of members in the Polish communist party were Jews. BUT, only about 5% of jews in Poland supported socialist causes. One demonstration in Czenstochowa (that preceded the shooting of a Blue Army soldier) a group of Jewish demonstrators chanted anti-polish slogans, and those in support of Lenin, and Trotsky. So, as noted in the past; there was a significant mistrust among the communities, and as with any war a there were accusations of collaboration real and unfounded. --COD T 3 (talk) 18:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay. But a source needs to state that because some Jews supported Bolsheviks, the Blue Army attacked Jews. The mere fact that a source states that some Jews in the area of the violence supported Bolsheviks does not allow us editors to make a claim that Jews were attacked because of some Jewish support for Bolshevism. The source has to actually say that alleged Jewish support for Bolshevism was a cause of the attacks on Jews. If you can't find a source saying this, the statement must be removed. Although, as I stated, there is nothing wrong with waiting before removing it - it shouldn't be removed immediately.Faustian (talk) 22:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Undue Weight tag

As discussed on the Mediation page, I would like to go ahead and include an undue weight tag at the top of the BA page. During the mediation debate no consensus was reached in regards to the overall structure of the Controversies section. Because of this impasse, the parties involved did not object to placing a tag as a way to note the difference in interpretation. Please do not remove the tag until a thorough discussion is conducted, and a compromise is reached. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Why did you remove the tag?Faustian (talk) 13:57, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I did not change the tags from undue weight to neutrality. Check the history. --COD T 3 (talk) 15:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Blue Army

Please do not remove referenced information. Page 103, Nationalizing a Borderland. "Looting and robbery, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues. The congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults. Two units - Pozna regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski." So, rape was a common feature of Polish anti-Jewish violence in general, and the Blue Army (as well as Poznan regiments) was the worst of the rapists. The paragraph describes what Polish forces did and singles out the Blue Army as among the worst offenders. Clearly the source claims that the Blue Army committed acts of rape. Faustian (talk) 04:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The level of bias in your approach to editing the page is very obvious, and very unfortunate. Also, how the heck do you have the audacity to call the Blue Army "rapists" when the book you are quoting from does not even use the term Blue Army even once! Apparently whatever they did was not that significant to warrant using their unit's actual name in the entire book! A fact that was noticed by the mediator at the last Mediation Board session. Look at what he wrote:

• Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. p. 103. ISBN 0817314598. "Note: the exact phrase 'Blue Army' is not being used inside this book."

The source only vaguely mentioned "Haller's army" in one sentence in the whole book, and it's not the one about rape. What you are doing is combining separate statements, and making personal judgments. The authors does not say "BA raped anyone" In fact, I think based on this example and a few others, in which you distort the actual statement from a source to fit your POV, I should proceed with an Arbitration Request, as you clearly have a disregard for accuracy. --COD T 3 (talk) 15:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

It mentions it specifically not vaguely, and highlights it as the one of the two units who were the worst in terms of violence, that included rape. The passage is quoted above - I posted it, because I would like others to see for themselves. Here is the quote again: "Looting and robbery, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues. The congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults. Two units - Pozna regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski." Also, please do not try to pretend that Haller's Army is not the Blue Army. Your uncivil approach is noted.Faustian (talk) 15:46, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, another editor can go into the book and look at the section for themselves; the statement does not say what you propose it does, or think it does… you are simply confusing separate ideas, and that over the top section name is not helping to convince anyone that neutrality is your main objective. In a controversial debate you need more than just personal generalizations of the subject matter. --COD T 3 (talk) 15:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I posted the section because I'm not afraid of other editors looking at it. Heading section reflects the subject matter of this particular topic - rape was a common feature of anti-Jewish violence of Polish military forces and the Blue Army stood out for such behavior. If it were "separate ideas" it would be described in separate paragraphs. Instead, it is placed together, in a progression. Polish forces did X, and Blue Army and Poznan regiments stood out as being the worst. You really have to twist things in order to interpret it any other way. Faustian (talk) 16:14, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, where in the book does it say "Blue Army rapists" after all, this is what you named the section? --COD T 3 (talk) 16:34, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The excerpt I posted is form a paragraph that described the types of violence committed against Jews, stated that rape was common, and right in the same paragraph singles out the Blue Army and the Poznan regiment as the two unit that particularly engaged in anti-Jewish violence (which, as had been written, consistently involved rape). Faustian (talk) 04:33, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Addressing bias POV statements

Soldier of the Landwehr-Regiment Nr. 6 in Battledress

The only thing the book links the BA specifically is to a couple of pogroms in Sambor and Grodek Jagiellonski, (where local Jews sided with the Ukrainians) and based on your method of generalizing, I could add more statements from historian Norman Davies, and the Morgenthau Report, that describe why the use of the word pogrom is questionable in such cases, and add that just after the BA arrival in Częstochowa around 300 jews protested and shouted pro bolshevik slogans "Down with Poland", "Long live Lennin and Trotsky". Also, as noted by the Morgenthau Report, most of the abuse against Jews occurred by deserters form all the armies that collapsed after the end of WWI, so because of the complexity of the situation, you can't use vague generalizations, and apply them at will to everyone and everything. BTW, Here is a picture of a Austro-Hungarian Army uniform notice how it's also powder blue just like the BA. That's why the BA gets accused of so many abuses, and of being everywhere at the same time.

BTW, by trying to add more text regarding "Jewish perceptions" you are only adding more proof that indeed an issue of "undue-weight" exists within the section, especially that in terms of casualties the jews suffered in significantly smaller proportion that Poles or Ukrainians. --COD T 3 (talk) 06:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

If you have evidence that the Blue Army specifically murdered more Ukrainian civilians than Jewish ones please post that. Whether other groups also murdered Jews is irrelevant: this article is about the Blue Army. Hitler also murdered more Jews - we wouldn't mention him here, either. Your other claims above are simply original research. If a source states that people in Austrian blue uniforms were mistaken for the Blue Army put it in; otherwise it's just your private speculation. As I have stated, the BA is specifically singled out as pogrom-perpetrators in a paragraph describing methods of violence.Faustian (talk) 13:33, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, you yourself wrote that the Ukrainians protested Haller's visit to the US… obviously they were upset about something, and felt a sense of victimhood? Also, I'm not debating if other groups murdered Jews, what I'm saying that a lot of the reports of looting and rapes were a result of confabulation, (that's why I provided a useful picture to illustrate for you how that would have happened).

Does a reliable source specifically state this? Your personal research can't be used in the article. Ukrainians protesting Haller is not proof that his army killed more Ukrainians than Jews. Faustian (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

That's why you had morons like Hagen blame the BA for everything under the sun, even when the army was not even in the region! Finally, perhaps I should go ahead and add a quote by Norman Davies, explaining why the term pogrom is ill suited for what happened. Also, the "throwing jews off moving trains" is a dubious statement, since the author based that statement on an incident described in the Robotnik, (which can be found in the foot note of the book itself) and somehow... getting kicked off the train at a train station, got turned into "throwing Jews off moving train" a perfect example of how some historians sensationalize history. FYI it's footnote number 20… and it states…

• "In the socialist newspaper Robotnik of June 8, 1919 a writer reported about the ordeal of Jewish passengers who were brutally dragged off the trains at Łuków railway station by the famous Haller boys."

Unfortunately, this coming form a "Socialist newspaper" we don't know the details of the entire story, and who else got thrown off that train (like the reports of the Lviv pogrom where more Ukrainians got killed then Jews, yet the press reported the events as a "pogrom" in a strict sense) for all we know, everyone got removed because the railway carts were commandeered for use by the military. But, that would get in the way of propaganda. My point is that you have to be very critical with "examples" for this article. --COD T 3 (talk) 14:19, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Editors are not allowed to be critical: they report what sources say. Wikipedia is not the place for original research about sources. Have your critique published in a peer-reviewed journal and then we can use it here.Faustian (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I checked the page and the footnote. You are misinterpreting it. There is no proof that the statement about Jews being pushed off trains was taken exclusively from the article in Robotnik. That article was only one example. In fact, the footnote states "much factual material on atrocities committed by Polish troops was presented in reports from foreign missions to Poland, in the foreign press, and despite severe censorship in the Jewish and Socialist press in Poland. :[37] pg. 1035. SO a lot of evidence exists, and the author highlighted one piece of evidence. The author in his peer-reviewed work believed the claim to be accurate. We as wikipedia editors have no right to reject this source based on our personal opinions.Faustian (talk) 17:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes, the foreign mission... like the those of Germany and Bolshevik Russia. I think there is a couple sources that comment on the accuracy of those "sources" and the somewhat malevolent intent behind their "concerns" about the situation. Again, that is why some of these examples are controversial and disputed. You actually provided another reason why that statement deserves a tag! --COD T 3 (talk) 17:54, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

So according to you foreign sources are not good, and local Jewish or Socialist sources are not good either. So, only Polish government sources are good? And based on this, you place a dubious tag on a statement taken from a reliable source? Unless you find a reliable source that directly disputes what is written, the dubious tag is unacceptable.Faustian (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Is this a dubious claim=

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The article reads "As the army traveled further east, some of Haller's soldiers as a way to exact retribution looted Jewish houses, pushed local Jews off moving trains." Source is here, pg. 1035: [38]. Book says "The Polish troops, in particular Haller's Boys and the regiments from Great Poland (the western province of Poland) engaged in violence, looting and other atrocities against Jews. At every railway station on their way further east, the soldiers harassed each passing Jew and sacked the nearby houses. Very often Jews were pushed off moving trains." A footnote reads: "much factual material on atrocities committed by Polish troops was presented in reports from foreign missions to Poland, in the foreign press, and despite severe censorship in the Jewish and Socialist press in Poland."

An editor claims this is dubious because he states that foreign press and foreign missions to Poland, as well as Jewish or Socialist sources, are not objective and thus the reliable source writes something dubious. I claim that we don't second-guess reliable sources and their work and simply report what those sources say.

So is the statement dubious or not?Faustian (talk) 19:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• No User:COD T 3 is engaging in original research and Jew-baiting. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 21:30, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• I wish it was that easy. This debate is an extension of the Controversies of the Polish–Soviet War article. I don't believe it can be resolved because of how much of the material originates from wp:primary sources about Poland at the exact time of the ongoing war with Russia in 1919. Most claims are made by the Stockholm based commentator Leon Chasanowitsch who is quoted by Pawel Korzec as one of the voices of la Conférence de la Paix, Paris 1919 or the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 imposing the Little Treaty of Versailles on the newly-reborn Poland. Due to highly controversial nature of this material, you need to limit yourself to the real subject: which is who said what and why. Stop stating everything like some kind of final court verdict. Poeticbent talk 22:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
  • You're right, Poeticbent. The controversies section should probably focus more on "who said what" rather than trying to state things as facts in Wikipedia's editorial voice. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 23:58, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I would like to address Malik Shabazz statement that I'm involved in Jew-baiting. This kind of approach is completely uncalled for in a Wikipedia project. What I'm doing is protecting the neutrality of the article from a clearly bias approach of Faustian, who's anti-Polish POV is clearly displayed for all to see. Please note the title of an earlier Talk Page section called Blue Army rapists named so by Faustian. In conclusion, before you accuse others of bias and jump to the defense of someone who openly displays a POV, please familiarize yourself with the situation. --COD T 3 (talk) 01:04, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Re: Poeticbent's statement: Primary sources aren't used as references in this section. There are: Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. p. 103.; Pavel Korzec. (1993). Polish-Jewish Relations During World War I. In Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism, 1870-1933/39, Volume 2 Herbert Strauss, Ed. Walter de Gruyter: pp.1034-1035; Heiko Haumann. (2002). A history of East European Jews Central European University Press, pg. 215; Justyna Wozniakowska. (2002). Master's Thesis, Central European University Nationalism Studios Program CONFRONTING HISTORY, RESHAPING MEMORY: THE DEBATE ABOUT JEDWABNE IN THE POLISH PRESS pg. 22; Joanna B. Michlic. (2006). Poland's threatening other: the image of the Jew from 1880 to the present . University of Nebraska Press, pg. 117; Feigue Cieplinski. "Poles and Jews: The Quest For Self-Determination 1919-1934" Binghampton Journal of History, University of Binghamptom, 6 May 2012; Carole Fink. (2006).Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878-1938. Cambridge University Press, pg. 227. These are all reliable secondary sources, the exact type of sources that wikipedia articles ought to be built on.Faustian (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

As for bias, User:COD T 3 had added text claiming that civilians were killed "rightly or wrongly" and that Jews "openly collaborated" with Ukrainians as a way of explaining pogroms. My text "Blue Army rapists" was simply based on a reliable source, Prusin's book published by University of Alabama Press. His persistent removal of information about rapes taken from that book ought to be another RfC.Faustian (talk) 03:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• No, the statement does not appear dubious. I don't edit here and only came here because of a bot notice, but reading Faustian's comment above, I'd recommend another RfC for that information about the rapes. If it is reliably sourced and due weight, it shouldn't be getting removed. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, as a compromise solution I would recommend that the statement is changed from "pushed local Jews off moving trains" to "harassed Jews at local railway stations and trains". The original statement is the most extreme example of abuse that's being used as a blanket statement, (with beard cutting there are actual examples-several-provided to back up the statement) the author does NOT provide an account of Jews getting thrown off moving trains in the footnote, but he does provide an example of Jews getting kicked off the train at a railway station. But, that's not the same at getting thrown off a moving train, that's why a more objective example should be used. --COD T 3 (talk) 08:29, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

The author specifically and clearly wrote "very often Jews were pushed off moving trains." The author doesn't have to reproduce everything in the footnotes. Please don't whitewash what authors actually write. BTW it appears that consensus leans in favor of keeping the rape information in.Faustian (talk) 22:30, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

My concern is the issue of fact checking. Yes, this is a reliable source... a reliable sources has fact checking done by the editor. But, in the case of the BA some of the "reliable" sources that allege crimes committed by the army, were completely unfounded and the discrepancies were very obvious. So, to back-up this rather controversial statement, I referred to the footnote, and the author does not provide an example of Jews getting "thrown off moving train" but of jews getting kicked off the train at a train station (was the entire train commandeered? were there non-jewish passengers also removed?). The problem is that the sources does not provide any detailed descriptions. That's why a compromise would be appropriate, to perhaps use the earlier statement I suggested, or say that "jews were forcibly removed from trains". The other option as suggested in the earlier thread by user Poeticbent, and confirmed by user Malik Shabazz is to state:

• As the army traveled further east, some of Haller's soldiers to as a way to exact retribution—according to historian Pavel Korzec; looted Jewish houses, pushed local Jews off moving trains and with their bayonets cut off the beards of Orthodox Jews.

--COD T 3 (talk) 11:52, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Reliable sources don't need to cater to the whims of wikipedia editors. It's not our business where reliable sources got their info and you have no proof that the reliable source only got his info from the footnote. That footnote was probably just one example. Second-guessing reliable sources, personally interpreting what they said, etc. is original research. Wikipedia articles simply reflect what the reliable sources state, and nothing more. If you think it's mistaken, publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal and then and only then should the article be based on such claims. Until then, simply summarize what the reliable source says without editorialization which is what the article currently does.Faustian (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, in any case… I vote for the approach that was recommended by the two other editors, so my recommendation is to use this statement, and then remove the tag. As the army traveled further east, some of Haller's soldiers to as a way to exact retribution—according to historian Pavel Korzec; looted Jewish houses, pushed local Jews off moving trains and with their bayonets cut off the beards of Orthodox Jews. Faustian, do object to this approach? --COD T 3 (talk) 13:58, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that adding Korzec's name into the article is unnecessary (it takes up space and its referenced already) but I don't object strongly to it. However if we add Korzec's name we might as well add "according to "sociologist Piotrowski" for info sourced to him.Faustian (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with that... I think the important point here, is to highlight the varying research on the issue. I'll go ahead and make the change to both statements. --COD T 3 (talk) 08:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Original Research Tab (no justification provided)

I would like to go ahead and remove the Origianl Research Tab, the reason for this is because legitimate sources are used to back up each claim. Historian William W. Hagen claimed in his book (Murder in the East: German-Jewish Liberal Reactions to Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland and Other East European Lands) that the Blue Army took part in Lviv pogrom on November 21–23, 1918. That claim is disproven by noting several reliable sources that confirm that the Blue Army was still in France during this time. Such as historian Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen (The Polish Problem at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of the Policies of the Great Powers and the Poles, 1918-1919) provides a date of the Blue Army's departure from Frrance as 15 April 1919, and Kronika Polski, lists 14 April 1919 as the start of the transport... five months after the pogrom happened! This is not original research... to simply look at dates and describe a clear discrepancy. Unfortunately, Malik Shabazz inserted the tag as a "red herring" tactic to divert attention from other issues with the article, and by not providing a clear explanation behind the decision to include the tag in the Wrongful accusations section, only heightened the suspicion that the tag servers other purposes. --COD T 3 (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I plainly wrote that the section contains WP:SYNTHESIS. You have demonstrated above why this section is synthesis. Find a reliable source that reports the problem with Hagen and you can remove the Original Research banner. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 01:31, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, to use the formula found on WP:SYNTHESIS page… A and B, therefore C... yes this is synthesis, but what the disputed section does is list... A and B… and the reader can draw the conclusion form themselves as to what happened by simply looking at the dates, If you would like I can tweak the language to avoid leading to a conclusion or "C". No conclusion on synthesis. Also, here is a source that talks about the Lida pogrom. (Goldstein, Edward. Jews in Haller's Army. The Galitzianer, the quarterly journal of Gesher Galicia, May 2002.)

The Pogrom at Lida

Lost Jewish Worlds—Lida, published by Yad Vashem reports the following incident:

On Passover eve in 1919, the Polish army entered Lida and the soldiers of General Haller mounted a pogrom in which thirty-nine Jews were murdered.

In 1921, Passover eve occurred on 14 April. But Stanley R. Pliska, in an authoritative account of the history of Haller’s Army (The “Polish-American Army” 1917-1921), states:

…it was not till April 1919, that this army … was finally moved [from France] to Poland.

It is legitimate to speculate whether, after its long journey, Haller’s Army would have been ready to commit this atrocity or whether perhaps someone else bore responsibility for it.

I cite this incident only to provide some support for my earlier speculation that Hallerczyki might at times have been blamed for crimes carried out by others. When recalling the horrific facts of a pogrom, ::perhaps years after the fact, a narrator might be excused not accurately recalling the specific military affiliation of its perpetrators.

--COD T 3 (talk) 01:52, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

You can speculate all you'd like... but not on Wikipedia. We are supposed to rely on reliable sources.

And please re-read WP:SYNTHESIS. "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." (emphasis added) If you can't find a reliable source that says Hagen is wrong, you can't say Hagen is wrong, nor can you imply it. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:15, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring: user Faustian

Faustian, please stop adding disputed text, the discussion regarding the "rape claim" was not settled; in fact more senior editors such as Poeticbent and Malik Shabazz stated that a new approach to how the section is presented should be used, because of the controversial nature of the subject matter. See try to reach a consensus for details. If you decide to add a controversial statement another editor has the right to remove it, at that point a consensus on the Talk Page needs to be reached before the text can be again re-added. Not as you propose, keep the statement, and debate if it should stay. --COD T 3 (talk) 17:24, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

You are the one removing referenced information,, not me. There is no consensus to remove the info. So, you are removing info without consensus.Faustian (talk) 03:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Does this statement reflect its source?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Is the following statement true to the source it is referenced from. Statement to be placed in the article Blue Army (Poland), about Haller's troops: "They also committed acts of rape and destroyed prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues." Original source reads: "Looting and robbery, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues. The congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults. Two units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski."

Does the statement reflect the source accurately?

It appears to me, that because the information was in one paragraph, the author describes the nature of anti-Jewish violence and singles out Haller's Army as one of two units particularly engaged in such violence. Therefore it is not original research or synthesis but a description of what that author wrote. Author described types of violence, and named a perpetrator. So details about the type of violence are applicable to an article about the perpetrator.

Another editor states that because the author did not state "Haller's Army committed rape" this passage cannot be used as a reference for describing details of violence such as rape, and therefore the statement "They also committed acts of rape and destroyed prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues." should be removed.

Comments, please - there are only two people involved.Faustian (talk) 04:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Faustian, for everyones benefit do you have a link to the full page, I myself would like to read the entire page to review the entire context in which the sentence appears. By looking at a snippet of the text, it is difficult to determine what's actually being said about who, for all you know an earlier statement could say be talking about another unit, then the topic switches to the Poznan regiments, and Haller's troops. Again, this is due diligence, not to take things out of context, but review the entire context. --COD T 3 (talk) 05:03, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I own the book. Please assume good faith - I have been on wikipedia for a long time and have never lied about what sources say. There is no mention of other units in that paragraph - just Poznan regiments and Haller's Army. I hope that it isn't a rule, that if anything negative exists about Haller's Army it has to be online. Anyways, I am really hoping that someone else takes a look at this. The source is: Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. p. 103. ISBN 0817314598. Third paragraph.Faustian (talk) 12:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not questioning your honesty, but because of the highly sensitive nature of the discussion it would be a good idea if we all had a bit more context to work with. As I read the statement right now, I do not see a direct correlation between the "rape statement" and "Haller's troops". The first sentence describes the anarchy and lawlessness that occurred during that time, and the other sentence addresses the issue of pogroms stages by the Poznan Regiments and Haller's army. --COD T 3 (talk) 17:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• Are there other sources confirming both rapes and scrolls? It looks like the entire very controversial statement is based on a single source. Faustian, if you feel that this statement is that important for the integrity of the article, you should be able to provide more sources. Personally, I do not see why it is so important, as most armies commit similar crimes.--Truther2012 (talk) 13:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

There was a primary source but this is an obscure topic so there aren't a lot of sources in general. The issue is, should this info from a reliable source get excluded because some editor happens to dislike it? The editor is trying to exclude it based on the claim that the source doesn't indicate the BA committed rapes.Faustian (talk) 13:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Question: What's the relationship between Blue Army, Haller's army and Pozner's regiments? RfC's draw in people who are not already subject-matter experts. Please help us get up to speed on precisely what is being disputed here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

They are different units, both fighting for the Polish side. According to the source, both of these stood out for their anti-Semitic violence.Faustian (talk) 14:16, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

No, the BA did not stand out for anti-Semitism. There were incidents of anti-jewish violence that were the result of (real or perceived) collaboration, with no more then 400-500 jewish casualties during the entire 2 years of war, in fact historian Norman Davies stated that Jewish casualties were minimal in comparison to the Poles and Ukrainians killed in the war, and questioned whether the term "pogrom" was being properly applied in this case. (Tadeusz Piotrowski. (1998). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947, McFarland: page 43.) User Faustian has on several occasions been criticized for using a bias (POV). In fact, user Faustian titled a section on the Talk Page as Blue Army rapists, dated 13 June 2014. That is not neutral or objective language! I myself was called a Jew baiter, by User:Malik Shabazz who sided with Faustian, for objecting to this type of editing:

• No User:COD T 3 is engaging in original research and Jew-baiting. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:30, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

These two editors should be disciplined for this kind of abusive behavior, as their goal is to skew the tone of the article, with material that carries undue weight, and demonize the subject matter. The phrase user Faustian has presented is a combination of two separate statement, a SYNTHESIS [39]. It does not say what is proposed. Two other editors in the past have already rejected this claim, but user Faustian just keeps brining it up, until someone finally agrees with it. --COD T 3 (talk) 19:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

That really wasn't helpful, and didn't even answer my question, which is "What's the relationship between Blue Army, Haller's army and Pozner's regiments?" I'm asking about three military entities, and your response was "They are different units, both fighting for the Polish side", i.e. addressing two military entities. It was already very clear that you and some other parties here have a personal dispute in which you're questioning each others' ethics, so more material about that isn't helpful to RfC respondents (nor, of course, to resolution of your dispute).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello SMcCandlish ☺. Haller's Army is another name for Blue Army (Haller was the commander of the Blue Army). Their own "fan page" admits this: [40]. Sorry for not having paid attention to you mentioning 3 names! Poznan regiments were different. According to a reliable source (Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. p. 103.), "Looting and robbery, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues. The congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults. Two units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski." I apologize for the other person's outbursts here. This is what I've been putting up with on this page. The other user has objected to negative info about the Blue Army, and without an RFC I'm afraid its largely a two person dispute which is not conducive to resolution.Faustian (talk) 03:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok Faustian, again for everyone's benefit (including the new editors reviewing the material); can you also include the sentences just before the statement you provided as "proof"? This was something that was asked of you several times, it would be very helpful if you could provide more context to this very controversial statement? As the sentences are written now, one addresses war time lawlessness in general, and the other "pogroms" specifically committed by the Poznan Regiments and the BA. At this point you are providing an incomplete statement to back up your case, that does not directly address the BA in regards to "rapes", you can't just apply a statement like that across everything you see fit. The Blue Army was just one of several Polish armies fighting on the Ukrainian front. and as sources state many of the attacks against Jews were were committed by marauding deserters form the collapsed Austrian armies in the region. --COD T 3 (talk) 04:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• I agree that this quotation (without getting into how we determine whether this source is reliable) says that both the Blue/Haller forces and the Poznan forces engaged in "Jew-bating" and "pogroms", but it doesn't indicate to whom it ascribes "looting, robbery...beatings, rapes and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls". It's attractive to assume that this catalogue of crimes is a description of the pogroms mentioned later, but we cannot actually come to such a conclusion from the material we have. I agree that having more textual context is necessary to evaluate this material, because of this problem. And others, e.g. the "therefore" in "Looting and robber, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings..." has no referent without it, and we cannot tell who is being talked about on either side in "[t]he congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults". What ethnicities and ideologies, and assaults by whom upon whom? We can't tell if all of this material is intended to describe both of these military forces and them alone, both of them and others on the same side, both of them and others on both sides, only one of them until both are mentioned, neither of them until they are mentioned, etc., etc. The only sourceable factoids we can derive from the quotation as it stands are:

• Prusin accuses both units of "Jew-baiting", whatever that means, and pogroms, whatever that means in this exact context, and even that is not actually clear at all, as noted above.
• He indicates that these are examples of "ethnic and ideological animosities" (upon which he does not elaborate here) that "also precipitated assaults", but this doesn't seem like encyclopedically useful commentary. It's also unclear what the "also" refers to, again because of missing earlier material.
• He further indicates that "Looting and robbery ... were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues", but does not indicate in any way whom the perpetrators were (cf. earlier discussion of Austrian armies in the region, too). As noted, his observations here are tied by a "therefore" to material that we don't have, but which we need to evaluate.

I have to agree with Truther2012 that "most armies commit similar crimes", and thus insisting on levying a mass rape charge against the Blue Army is not really pertinent, as well as not actually feasible under WP:SYNTH with this particular sourcing. Please see also my how-to, WP:How to mine a source for a tutorial on how to get more information out of source material in a step-wise fashion. Regardless, you're going to need more of it than this very short, confusing partial quotation.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay. The full paragraph: "The situation in Kresy Wshodnie and Galiica also reflected the psychological imprint of the four years of continuous warfare, for World War I and the frontier wars made the residents of these areas inured to brutalities and suffering. The violence not only served the immediate needs of personal enrichment but also provided a legitimate and relatively easy target - Jews - upon which to unleash personal frustrations. Looting and robbery, therefore, were consistently accompanied by beatings, rapes, and wanton destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls in the synagogues. The congruence of ethnic and ideological animosities also precipitated assaults. Two units - Poznan regiments and General Josef Haller's army - especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski. The anti-Jewish zeal of these soldiers derived from the situation in the Poznan province, where Jews sided with the Germans during the Polish-German conflict in the winter of 1919. Similarly, the actions of Haller's army, which had arrived from France, might be explained by the fact that some contingents came from the United States, where Jewish-Polish relations went from bad to worse during World War I."

Although most armies do indeed commit similar crimes, this source singles out the Blue Army (and the Poznan regiments) as being particularly brutal - "especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters" - which makes it a noteworthy fact. Austrians weren't mentioned anywhere near this text in this book. Earlier text mentions various Polish crimes but doesn't explicitly mention the Blue Army/Haller's Army so I didn't include facts from that text here as that would be original research or synthesis. But this paragraph only mentions the Blue Army and Poznan regiments. While it doesn't explicitly state that the Blue Army committed rape and vandalized sacred scrolls, it states that these were common consistent activities in general, and singles out the Blue Army in particular as one of two units engaging in such activities. Would this wording be better for the article? - "The Blue Army was one of two units (the other being the Poznan regiments) that was particularly noteworthy for engaging in brutal antisemitic violence, that consistently included rape and destruction of prayer books and sacred scrolls."Faustian (talk) 14:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. It is clearer within this larger-context quotation that the "laundry list" is in fact describing the "Jew-bating and pogroms".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@ SMcCandlish ☺, But, committed by who? The first sentence is key here: "The situation in Kresy Wshodnie and Galiica also reflected the psychological imprint of the four years of continuous warfare, for World War I and the frontier wars made the residents of these areas inured to brutalities and suffering." "RESIDENTS" is the word, the section is describing the lawlessness of the locals, NOT the army. This source is of poor quality, lumping a lot of different entities into one blanket category, to post a controversial statement like this you need a second more accurate source as proposed by Truther2012. --COD T 3 (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't read it that way. That "residents of these areas [were] inured to brutalities and suffering" means they were getting resigned to their suffering and being brutalized, not that they were the brutalizers and bringers of suffering. The latter wouldn't make sense, since: both Jews and non-Jews were residents; we know that Jews were not the only victims; bringers of suffering and brutality would already be inured as perpetrators; and the laundry list of crimes is immediately followed by naming two (no local) military forces as chief antagonists in this regard. Of course, it would be nice to have a more clearly written additional or replacement source. With the longer quotation, what does Truther2012 say? What about others? An RfC like this could run for a while.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Truther2012 noted briefly that if this is such an significant issue there should be a second source that back it up in detail. This is a fair point… Haller's Troops (Blue Army) is only mentioned once in this entire "source" and in passing. This is also an issue of undue weight. What standard is used when the author said that the BA "especially earned the reputation of notorious Jew-baiters" . Because another source states: But, the ordeal of Jewish victims at the hands of the Poles could not be equated with the raw genocide committed by Denikin's and Petlura's troops in eastern "integral" Ukraine. (Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... McFarland & Company. pp. p. 41–43. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3.) , another source provides numbers: During the same war the White Russians and Ukrainians were responsible for over 30,000 -50,000 Jewish casualties, and Poles for less than 1,000. (Howard M. Sachar. (2007). Dreamland: Europeans and Jews in the Aftermath of the Great War, Random House LLC: page 25.). It is a matter of proportionality, the BA is being demonized here. --COD T 3 (talk) 04:23, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Eastern Ukraine and Galicia/Eastern Poland are completely different regions. The Blue Army stood out for its anti-Jewish brutality in the area where it operated, Galicia and Eastern Poland. What occurred in other areas is irrelevant. Crimes committed by Petliura's or Denikin's forces pale in comparison to what Hitler did...does that mean they aren't notable? It seems that you are using original research to refute what this source says by pointing out other sources. As for more rape references, I think that multiple reliable sources rather than one reliable source is not a standard for inclusions of facts into wikipedia articles. This is a rather obscure topic in general, there aren't a huge number of sources. Faustian (talk) 04:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It's the SAME war! Faustian, anyone can slice and dice the facts to paint the Blue Army in the worst possible light, not even all of Galicia just eastern Galicia.. ok. In fact, more Ukrainians and Poles died in Galicia then Jews, yet your only goal is to blow-up the section with as much stuff about Jewish issues as possible. This is not Encyclopedia Judaica, we are not going write this article from only the Jewish perspective, and just keep adding text based on vague or blanket statements. --COD T 3 (talk) 05:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Your comment is beyond the scope of this RfC, which is about whether the statement reflects the source (and you are wrong btw, its not the same war. Petliura and Denikin forces atrocities occurred during Russian Civil War and Ukrainian–Soviet War, Blue Army was killing Jews during the Polish–Ukrainian War and Polish–Soviet War).Faustian (talk) 13:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

BTW, Faustian all those wars started out separate, but merged into a regional conflict, if you actually read other sections of the Blue Army article instead of only focusing on adding negative material about the Jews you would know that the BA originally was sent to fight the Bolshevics, not the Ukrainians but it all turned into one big melee. --COD T 3 (talk) 16:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Again, such opinions are irrelevant to the topic here.Faustian (talk) 19:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Original research tag

Malik Shabazz, please note the below excerpt form the Edward Goldstein's article, that is used as reference source in the section:

Lida is located in Belaruss. In 1921 it had a population of 13,400 individuals, of whom 5,419 were Jews. Lost Jewish Worlds—Lida, [author Shmuel Spector] published by Yad Vashem reports the following incident: On Passover eve in 1919, the Polish army entered Lida and the soldiers of General Haller mounted a pogrom in which thirty-nine Jews were murdered. In 1921, Passover eve occurred on 14 April. But Stanley R. Pliska, in an authoritative account of the history of Haller’s Army (The “Polish-American Army” 1917-1921), states: …it was not till April 1919, that this army … was finally moved [from France] to Poland.

So, at this point this is not original research, there are other academics that raise the issue or wrongful accusations, and conflicting dates. At this point can you justify the tag? --COD T 3 (talk) 19:20, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Please see the second paragraph of the section, which is wholly original research. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:26, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok Malik Shabazz, can you elaborate? The second paragraph only confirm the transfer dates, and does not directly address or dispute, the first paragraph's claims; in other words it does not say... the Lida pogrom happened on such date, and the Cambridge History of Poland, states the BA was still in France. Those are two separate and exclusive paragraphs, to try and claim it's original research is a stretch in this case. --COD T 3 (talk) 19:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Please refer to the section above where we discussed this. If the source doesn't discuss the allegations made against Haller's Army, it can't be used to refute them. That's synthesis. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:51, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

If you referring to the second paragraph in the disputed section, I'll go ahead and make proper adjustments to ensure that it has a separate identity. --COD T 3 (talk) 19:56, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

@Malik Shabazz: I haven't read the sources in question and am not taking either side in your dispute, but I have to observe that your claim that "If the source doesn't discuss the allegations made against Haller's Army, it can't be used to refute them" is patently false as a matter of basic reasoning. If a source says "SMcCandlish drank 15 beers the night of September 16, 2013 in Paris", but other sources demonstrate irrefutably that I was actually on a yacht in Greece at that time, they clearly do refute the allegation, even if they never themselves mention that allegation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

That's not my understanding of WP:NOR, particularly WP:SYNTH. Maybe seeing the material in context would help.[41] — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

After the clarification of the WP:SYNTH rule was posted, I would like to go ahead and re-add the text that was removed in the disputed section, including sources that list the transfer dates. --COD T 3 (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Removed problematic passage

I removed this passage: "When describing the general scope of abuse, historian Norman Davies characterized Jewish losses as minimal in comparison to the number of Poles and Ukrainians killed in the region, and noted that during the war it was impossible to disentangle gratuitous antisemitism from commonplace looting and brutality of the troops. Also, the application of the term "pogrom" in the accepted sense of the deliberate lynching of Jewish civilians cannot be applied to the great majority of the the incidents which occurred, and the violence directed against elements of the Jewish population was of political rather than antisemitic nature, rooted primarily in domestic competition." The original source, pg. 43 is visible on googlebooks: [42].

It does not mention Blue Army anywhere. Moreover, it is an inaccurate representation of what the source states. For example, the removed passage states "the violence directed against elements of the Jewish population was of political rather than antisemitic nature, rooted primarily in domestic competition" while the original source states "in a wartime situation it was impossible to disentangle acts of gratuitous antisemitism from the commonplace looting and brutality of the soldiery"

It is odd that someone who objects to one sentence of info taken from a paragraph in which the Blue Army is mentioned in the same paragraph would add an entire paragraph of information taken from a source that doesn't mention the Blue Army at all. Neither Haller nor the Blue Army are mentioned in the book at all, per search! I know this sin't part of the RfC, but since you've been active here, any opinion User:SMcCandlish?Faustian (talk)

The statement "and the violence directed against elements of the Jewish population was of political rather than antisemitic nature, rooted primarily in domestic competition." comes from this source (Andrzej Kapiszewski, Controversial Reports on the Situation of the Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War) it has a broken link but I will try to find a working copy and re-add the statement. --COD T 3 (talk) 20:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

400-500 Casualties

See page 25: [43]. First parapgraph described assaults on Jews in November 1918 and claims 400-500 Jews were killed in the early violence. In a later paragraph, "Survivers recall that the worst excesses were committed by General Jozef Haller's Blue Army...it was the Blue Army that doubled the number of casualties suffered by Jews throughout the earlier year and a half." So per the source, prior to the Blue Army there were no more than 400-500 Jewish casualties but the Blue Army doubled that number. Essentially, half the Jews killed by Polish forces were killed by the Blue Army.Faustian (talk) 20:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)