Talk:Douaumont

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Douaumont was a very significant fort taken by the Germans on Feb. 1916 in their assault on Verdun.

Contents 1 Pictures 2 Comment moved from article 3 Big problems 4 Other photos 5 WikiProject class rating

[edit] Pictures

I have some before and after aerial photographs of the fort in a book somewhere. I'll check on copyright, and see if I can get them scanned. g026r 16:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment moved from article

The above is a rather long explanation which attempts to somehow explain the unexplicable. How and/or why the French amazingly abandoned the Fortress without a fight (not a single shot was fired). It should be noted that more than 100,000 allied soldiers died in the subsequent re-taking of the Fort which had become a German stronghold - which proved to be nearly invincible, provided of course that it was not abandoned? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.8.49.29 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Big problems

This article has big problems: 1) No sourcing 2) Internal contradictions. "Without a shot being fired" doesn't really mesh well with "pounding by 420mm shells" in my book. The French position was clearly being suppressed -- that was the whole point. This suggests perhaps a non-neutral point of view. 3) Lack of balance. "Without a shot being fired" gets nearly the bulk of the article, but the tens of thousands of lives being lost to recapture it merits a single short paragraph. I would assume that the heavy human cost here was spent only because the fort occupied such a useful position, which means perhaps the lines had to be brought up around it (e.g., it remained in a German salient), or it was deemed necessary for a French advance. There's nothing hinting at the context for the context for the recapture, which isn't detailed at all. Anyone want to adopt it?--Thatnewguy 14:00, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other photos

Wikimedia Commons, as promised, has some modern-day photography and several diagrams that could be useful. I saw a good photo of a church service at The Library of Congress that appears to be clear of copyright restrictions, but it simply doesn't fit in the current context. Library of Congress has a thumbnail of a New York Times page showing the counterattack in progress, but not the original photo. --Thatnewguy 14:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 03:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)