Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance/GA1

GA Review

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Comments by Adam Bishop

Sorry I've been avoiding this article - I probably could have helped out a lot earlier. But it definitely has improved since the last time I looked at it a couple of years ago. The length, details, layout, prose, all that looks fine now. I have a few comments but no major issues. I'll list them by section or subsection:

• Early contacts - The phrase "natural human desire" for a Christian hero sounds odd the way it is written. I'm sure there is a natural desire for a hero, but not necessarily a Christian one, except by other Christians, right?

• Papal overtures - We have an article on the Siege of Jerusalem (1244)

• Antioch - The Principality of Antioch had existed for well over 100 years at this point, more like 170. Also, we could link Allah Akbar, and Tripoli needs to be disambiguated (either to Tripoli, Lebanon, or, better, County of Tripoli.

• Fall of Baghdad - I think this is a remnant of PHG's system of referencing. Why not just quote "never again to dominate civilization" directly? It is not immediately obvious in the text that this is Runciman's opinion, and it is quite a bold statement.

• Incidents - Bekaa should be linked to Beqaa Valley

• Abaqa - I don't know if this incident is normally referred to as an "Aragonese Crusade", but the one we have an article for is something else entirely, a political crusade in Spain later in the thirteenth century.

• Ghazan - More remnants of PHG using French names - Beyrouth is Beirut, Damas is Damascus.

I am still somewhat concerned with the use of Grousset, Runciman, and Maalouf as sources. Grousset and Runciman are very old and out of date. They are often reprinted because they wrote well and are easy for non-specialists to read, but as much as they wrote great literature, they did not write good history that stands up to modern scrutiny. But in cases where their personal opinions are quoted, they are alright, as long as they are indentified as such (like the "never to dominate civilization" quote above). Maalouf is kind of useful, in the sense that some of things he translates may not be available anywhere else. but in general he is certainly no historian and I think we would be wise to use another source. Lastly, Riley-Smith's Atlas of the Crusades is originally an English publication, and since this is the English Wikipedia it would make more sense to use that.

Otherwise, it looks good, and I am sorry I was reluctant to re-read this article for so long and to participate in the FA discussion. If this were for FA, I would suggest more background about where the Mongols, Mamluks, Ayyubids, and Crusaders came from, but that is not so important at the moment.

Reviewer: Adam Bishop (talk) 03:47, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the review! It's a pleasure to deal with a reviewer who really knows about the subject matter. I've gone ahead and fixed all of the bullet points that you mentioned above. As for the sourcing, I got rid of the French Riley-Smith, and have started to replace the Grousset/Runciman refs, but it's going to take some time to find replacements for each one. Are there any in particular which you feel are most egregious, as GA-blockers? --Elonka 08:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a closer look at them. Sometimes I'm sure they're fine...Runciman has an active imagination sometimes, but he's not automatically a problem. The problem is not really that Runciman or Grousset are inherently unreliable on this subject, it's just that pointing a reader to those sources might also introduce them to errors elsewhere in those works. Anything in Runciman or Grousset should also be found in a more up-to-date work like Tyerman or Jean Richard, and then a reader will have the added benefit of reading a modern work with up-to-date research. But in some contexts they are fine - what is currently note 122, for example, is okay because that section lists various opinions on the alliance, Runciman's included. One that does stick out is note 16, "The Real History Behind the Templars", because it is a general statement that doesn't really have anything to do with the Templars, anything that claims to be a "real history" (especially of the Templars) makes me suspicious, and there are more reputable academic sources (like Malcolm Barber who is referenced later on). Also the four refs in note 13, from Wilkinson - who is that guy? It's just a report, just like this article, a tertiary source at best. What are that guy's sources? Adam Bishop (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Good points. I've gone through the remaining citations in detail, pulling out anything that looked questionable, and upgrading all the other citations I could, to modern reputable sources. There's always the possibility I missed something (it's a complex article!), so if you see anything else you'd like changed, let me know? --Elonka 20:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The lead

I found this article on GAN, and have no expertise in the subject matter, but it seems to this lay reader that it does not conform to WP:LEAD. Instead of beginning with a definition of the article title, the opening paragraph launches into a lengthy discussion of how such an alliance might have been a possibility, before finally telling us that it never got off the ground. I don't think the lead adequately summarizes the article, an account of complex and varied relations between the Christian kingdoms and the Ilkhanate. The article seems to be mis-titled, skewing the lead. (Yes, I know the article has a troubled history.) Kanguole 00:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helping! That's a good point about the lead, and I went ahead and reworked it. Please take another look if you have an opportunity? --Elonka 04:53, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Good comment User:Kanguole. The Franco-Mongol alliance [1], or Frank-Mongol alliance [2], is a subject of academic inquiry, with a huge quantity of works commenting on it. The Mongols and the Franks made numerous agreements between each other over a period of 40 years to fight the Mamluks (what defines an alliance: "an agreement between two or more parties, made in order to advance common goals and to secure common interests" [3]]) with actual combined operations taking place despite the difficulties and distances, as when Samagar under Abaqa Khan moved to the support of Edward I at his own request, [4] or when the Cypriots and Templars went to the Island of Ruad to join with the forces of Ghazan in 1299-1300 [5], all quite amazing rapprochements in themselves. Granted, the alliance was not perfect, it was fledgling, sporadic, difficult, sometimes half-hearted etc... and ultimately the Mamluks won, so it is clear that the difficult alliance ended in military defeat. Now, this article has been the subject of lots of polemics, and therefore sometimes sounds editorial and argumentative rather than factual, trying to deny the alliance rather than explain its modalities. I do think we could be more matter-of-factly in just reporting the instances of interactions and agreements, as well as the tactical and strategic movements that actually occurred to cooperate militarily. Cheers Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 05:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both for the gracious welcome. I think the opening paragraph still approaches its subject obliquely. WP:LEAD suggests that an article like this begin with a sentence like "The Franco-Mongol alliance was ...", which would briefly say who, when and to what purpose. Is there a scholarly consensus for such a definition? PHG gives a possible definition above: "numerous agreements between [the Mongols and Franks] over a period of 40 years to fight the Mamluks", but that implies that "alliance" in the singular is inappropriate, especially as these agreements involved different Christian kingdoms at different times. Kanguole 14:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the consensus of modern historians is that there really wasn't an alliance... It was best described as a series of attempts, that never came to fruition. To see exactly who said what, you may wish to check here: User:Elonka/Mongol historians. If you have any ideas on how best to word the opening sentence, we're listening!  :) --Elonka 15:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the area, but I think it would be easier to complete the sentence "X was ..." if X were something that modern historians agree existed. Kanguole 18:18, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree that it is better to start by describing what the Franco-Mongol alliance is, rather than what it is not. I also fully agree that starting with "The Franco-Mongol alliance is...." is the proper way to comply with WP:LEAD. Let me try a few attempts: :-)

• A Franco-Mongol alliance, or at least attempts towards such an alliance, took place between the mid-13th and early 14th centuries, starting around the time of the Seventh Crusade.
• A Franco-Mongol alliance was attempted, and only achieved to a limited extent, between the mid-13th and early 14th centuries, starting around the time of the Seventh Crusade.
• The Franco-Mongol alliance consisted in a diplomatic and military rapprochement between the Crusader Franks and the Mongols, against the Muslim Mamluks, between the mid-13th and early 14th centuries, starting around the time of the Seventh Crusade.

I kind of like solution 3) as hopefully nobody is going to dispute the existence of the diplomatic and military rapprochement between the Franks and the Mongols at the very least. We can then describe the authors who say the alliance was full-fledged, and those who say it was minimal to non-existent. Cheers Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 17:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Well only the third of those is a definition, but is this definition supported by the scholarly consensus? Kanguole 18:18, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

It's easy to play on the ambiguity of the word "alliance", and to mix-up the existence of an alliance with the nature of its outcome, but fundamentally I think all historians agree that there was "an agreement between two or more parties, made in order to advance common goals and to secure common interests" (Definition of "alliance"), that is, that the Crusaders and the Mongols passed agreements and moved troops to coordinate their actions for the fight against the Mamluks: this belongs to undisputable historical facts, proved by letters, embassies and historical military records. But I also think that all historians agree that this amazing adventure ended in failure, defeat, was fruitless etc... Saying that an alliance was "fruitless" or "failed" certainly does not mean that there was no alliance, just that the alliance ended in failure, just as the German-Japanese Pact existed, but ended in failure. To me, this is most sensibly explained by historian Andrew Jotischky who describes "an uneasy series of temporary alliances with the Mongols [which] followed in the second half of the thirteenth century, but it was always an unequal relationship, and nothing substancial came of any of them." Crusading and the crusader states p.239. Now, a few historians use the word rapprochement, so it might be fair to explicit the term "alliance" by saying it was rapprochement between the Mongols and the Crusaders (hence proposal 3), but that, clearly, it ended in failure. Cheers Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 18:53, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I've reworked the lead (which is definitely supported by scholarly consensus, see User:Elonka/Mongol historians and the various discussions at the talkpage). If you'd like any other changes, let me know? --Elonka 20:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation to comment. That's much better! I DID think that your threat to pursue me if I contributed was unreasonnable (if not unethical). By the way, your " Done" reminds me of our first encounter three years ago when you slapped me with a "Please don't reply to me with "Done"" [6] Double standards ? :-)

• I think User:Kanguole's question about the intro phrase is not addressed: the intro should be "The Franco-Mongol alliance was..." per WP:LEAD. I made a few proposals above, which I think are reasonnable.
• I think the intro (and the article) focuses too much on what the alliance was not, rather than what it was: so many specifics of the alliance, actual instances of collaboration have been wiped out, such as the Demurger quote about the Templars and Hospitallers collaborating to Ghazan's offensive, which you erased today. Rather than just keep saying that the alliance bore little fruit, we should highlight what these little fruits actually were, rather than delete them.
• There are some quite meaningless rethoretical phrases ("weasel phrases"?) in the intro such as The most successful points of both collaboration and non-collaboration between the Mongols and the Christians: I don't know what a successful point of non-collaboration is...

Cheers Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 21:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)