Talk:William Siborne

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Military history: Biography / Historiography / British / European / Napoleonic era

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Untitled

This article is okay for a first attempt, but is full or errors and needs extensive revisions. For instance, the subject's name is spelt incorrectly in several places.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.14.252.195 (talk • contribs)

The original article was so full of errors of fact, there was little point in trying to correct it, so I have replaced it with an article that has been almost entirely rewritten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.14.252.195 (talk • contribs)

Note: First comment above was blanked by someone and had to be recovered, and the second was made on a subpage for some reason, I moved it here. Equendil Talk 04:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

use of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as if they are facts

This article has a huge over reliance on Hofshroer and treats his unsourced claims as undisputed facts..

For example, for: Quotes from "welling tons smallest victory" p.269/l.28 Wellington…removed the Prussians from the field of Waterloo. and 139/3 "The Duke was simply not giving the Prussians the credit." Evidence of Wellington removing the Prussians: date, time, contemporary sources? References?

264/2 Had the Duke given the Prussians full credit for their role in the battle… Why has the specific and generous praise in the Dispatch been deliberately ignored? Justify.

241/5 Wellington's mistreatment of Sibourne Evidence of any specific mistreatment? Book or letter references? In fact any contemporary sources at all?

5/i Wellington turned against him (Sibourne) Evidence? References?

30/5 "gloat" Evidence? Contemporary quote – where? References?

240/28 their relationship Any evidence, contemporary or otherwise, that Sibourne and Wellington ever had any 'relationship'?

257/24 "Duke's determination to damage Sibourne's credibility". Evidence? References?

265/26 "Apsley House treated Sibourne most unfairly. He never got the promotion he was promised" (Apsley House is Wellington) Is there any documented evidence whatsoever that Wellington ever tried to block Sibourne's promotion?

And many more.

Either he has evidence, or he's invented it.

Actually just about all these quotes I listed can be independantly justified by the narrative build up, many of them just about fit into the narrative thread – few of them are 'wild' or out of context (except the final conclusions). All of them are some kind of personal 'conclusion'. But none of them are 'facts'. They are Hofshroer's personal 'conclusions' and exaggerations. And many of these 'conclusions' and exaggerations are based upon others of Hofshroer's 'conclusions' and exaggerations -they just go around in a circle with no strict facts to pin them down, leaving the historical record far behind. And upon these non-facts, Hofshroer damns Wellington for covering up evidence, blocking promotion, conspiricy and for ruining a man. All to sell a few books. ____________ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.27.180 (talk) 13:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a battle of the Anonymous :-) I'll sign my contribution. I think the article should mention not only the criticisms of Hofschroer (and not only in a dismissive sense) but also those of Hamilton-Williams who goes into the way Siborne maligned the Belgian and Dutch troops and the attempts at rebuttal of Dutch and Belgian historians of repute. (see David Hamilton-Williams, Waterloo. New Perspectives. The Great Battle Reappraised. (1993), esp. pp. 19-30 which speaks about the fraud allegedly perpetrated by Siborne). As the article now stands I think it suffers severely from bias and POV. Before slamming the POV-template on the article, however, I'd like to discuss this in an amicable way as per Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:54, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]