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This is a style guide for military history articles. It is intended to provide editors working on such articles with recommendations in relation to article naming conventions, formatting and presentation, template use, and categories. Advice on notability and content in relation to military history articles can be found atWikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide andWikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Content guide.
Many articles may deal extensively, but not exclusively with military-related topics. When in doubt, or when there is no clear consensus, defer toWP:MOS. As a general rule, this guidance should only be used where it is helpful, and should not be used as grounds for extensive disruptive renovations of existing articles.
Consensus to follow this guidance on biographies of living or deceased persons should be based primarily on the prominence of military service in theWP:NOTABILITY of the individual. For example, an article on aMedal of Honor orVictoria Cross recipient, who is notable only for their military service, should most likely follow this guidance. An article on an individual, such asElvis Presley, who would be notable had they never served in the military, most likely should not. Biographies of civilians, such asMarise Payne orAsh Carter, who are notable in large part for military-related reasons, but who themselves did not serve in uniform, should generally not follow this guidance.
Biographies of living people (BLPs) and those of people who have recently diedmust followWikipedia's BLP policy.
An article should generally be placed at the most common name used to refer to the event (such asBattle of Gettysburg,siege of Leningrad,attack on Pearl Harbor, orDoolittle Raid). If there is no common name, the name should be a descriptive geographic term such as "battle of X" or "siege of Y", where X and Y are the locations of the operations; see also thesection on capitalization.Non-neutral terms such as "attack", "slaughter", "massacre", "raid", "liberation", or "fall" should be used with care.
If disambiguation is needed, the year may be added in parentheses (as inBattle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC)). Multiple battles at the same place in the same year should be called "First", "Second", and so forth (as inFirst Battle of Zurich andSecond Battle of Zurich). Alternatively, the month of the battle may be used as a disambiguation (as ininvasion of Tulagi (May 1942)); follow usage inreliable sources.
Titles forstand-alone list articles comprisingorders of battle should generally be formulated as:
For the common case where the orders of battle for a military event are split into separate list articles by belligerent or opposing forces, then thenaming conventions for split lists apply, and the format becomes:
as inInvasion of Yugoslavia order of battle: Axis orBattle of Raymond order of battle: Confederate. The military event should include any necessary disambiguation in the same way as the article about the event does; for exampleRaqqa campaign (2016–2017) order of battle. The parent list name should exist as a{{List of lists}} with links to the split lists.Redirects should also be created to shorter forms of the title that are likely to be searched, such asGettysburg order of battle andGettysburg order of battle: Union.
Operational codenames generally make poor titles, as the codename gives no indication of when or where the action took place and only represents one side's planning (potentially leading writers to focus on that side's point of view). It is better to use an appropriate geographical name for the article, creating a redirect from the operational name, for all but the most well-known operations (such asOperation Barbarossa), or for military actions that were never carried out (such asOperation Green).
References to operations are to be in accordance with the following examples, noting the use of capitals in the examples.
Operation Xyz is a compound proper noun and capitalised accordingly. No emphasis, such as quote marks, boldface (see special case, below) or italics are added even in the case of non-English words such as the following. A distinction is made when the correct non-English name or a translation is being offered.
Links to articles in a campaign box are to be italicised but are not preceded by the word 'Operation' – i.e. "Cartwheel" only. Refer to the example in theSolomon Island campaign box for an actual example.
Boldface is used to highlight the first occurrence of the title word in thelead section in accordance withMOS format of the first sentence (lead). It is also used (almost exclusively in the lead) when the operation name is a redirect to a page about the associated battle or an alternative (synonymous or nearly synonymous) name for the operation as in the examples that follow(see alsoMOS:BOLD, particularly the section onother uses of boldface):
Some tanks are so well-known that they can be identified by just their alphanumeric code (such as theT-34 orAMX-30) or their name (such asMerkava) with or without a model number (such asChallenger 2,Tiger I orM48 Patton).
The natural disambiguation of "tank" should be used where the name is not the primary topic (likeChieftain tank orCenturion tank), and those where their alphanumeric code/type/model is so generic as to be ambiguous, (such asType 74 tank).
An article about a unit, formation, or base should be placed at "Name" or if "Name" is ambiguous at "Name (disambiguating term)" (except for numerical unit designations; see below). The name should generally be either the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit or base belongs; or, in cases where no relevant formal name exists or where a formal name is not commonly employed by historians, the most common name used in historical literature.
A name originally in a language other than English should be adapted by translating common terms (such as designations of size and type) and transliterating the remainder of the name. The choice of which components of the name are to be translated (and how) should follow the conventions employed by reputable historical works on the topic; some collected recommendations for specific terms are maintained by the relevantnational task forces. The original name should be provided in the first sentence of the article, following the translated name; for example:The 3rd Mountain Division (3. Gebirgs-Division) was... orBoden Fortress (Swedish:Bodens fästning) is....
Names should generally follow the stylistic conventions used by the service or country of origin. For example, while US and British usage has spelled-out numerals for army-level formations and Roman numerals for corps, editors writing about different countries should follow those countries' normal usages; thus, "3. Panzer Armee" becomes "3rd Panzer Army", and "18-ya Armiya" becomes "18th Army".
For units the names of which are ambiguous on Wikipedia, the disambiguating term should be the common name of the country the unit belongs to (as in4th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)), or, if such usage is still ambiguous (or where the unit does not serve a country), the name of the service branch to which the unit belongs (as in1st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)). The disambiguating term is not necessary in cases where the name is unambiguous (as inThe Queen's Own Rifles of Canada orPreobrazhensky regiment).
For bases the names of which are ambiguous on Wikipedia, the disambiguating term should be the region, province, state, or territory in which the base or fortress is located; for example, "Fort Lyon (Virginia)" and "Fort Lyon (Colorado)". The disambiguating is not necessary in cases where the name is unique to a single fortress or base.
When a unit or base has had multiple names over the course of its existence, the title should generally be the last name used; however, exceptions can be made in cases where the subject is clearly more commonly known by one of the previous names.
Root pages for the armed forces of a state are named, if the official name is known, by the official name's English translation (for example, "Australian Defence Force"). If the native language name is most commonly used, this should be kept (for example, "Bundeswehr"). Other national armed forces are only provisionally located at "Military of X", and should be renamed to the translation of the official name when available. Alternately, articles can be renamed if there is consensus over how the armed forces in question are normally referred to in common usage (for example, "United States Armed Forces").
A number of naming conventions exist specifically for category names; most of these are used to ensure consistent naming among all the sub-categories of a particular category.
The general rule fromMOS:CAPS is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper name, as evidenced by consistent capitalization in reliable sources, it should be capitalized in Wikipedia. Where there is uncertainty as to whether a term is a proper name, consensus should be reached on the talk page; the MOS:CAPS default is to use lower case, unless and until evidence of consistent capitalization in the sources is presented.
When using a numerical model designation, the words following the designation should be left uncapitalized (for example, "M16 rifle" or "M6 bomb service truck") unless it is a proper noun (for example,M1Abrams
).
Existing articles related to military history should followMOS:DATERET as a default, and extensive efforts should not be undertaken to comply with this guidance for its own sake, unless there is strong consensus for the change.
PerMOS:DATETIES, articles on subjects predominately related to militaries or military history should use the standard format adopted by theUnited Nations:[1] DD Month YYYY (or D Month YYYY). This includes spaces and excludes hyphens or commas. In cases where the day is a single digit, a leading 0 should be omitted. For example:
All articles should followMOS:DATEUNIFY, and should not mix date formats.
TheManual of Style specifies that an en dash rather than a hyphen should be used. Where there are internal spaces within one or both items, the en dash should be spaced on both sides. Examples:
Consider expressing date ranges without repetition; thus:
It is preferred that the closing year in a year range be four digits rather than two, perMOS:DATERANGE:
In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended but the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags) acknowledges that it may be appropriate to use flags when summarizing military conflicts in an infobox. Nonetheless, flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:
When flag icons are used, they should be historically accurate ones. In particular:
When dealing with biographical infobox templates, the most common practice is to use flag icons to indicate allegiance or branch of service, but not place of birth or death. However, there remains considerable disagreement regarding the appropriateness of flags in such cases, so editors should not regard this as a universal rule.
In general, articles should strive to be precise. Where the names of specific operations, formations, or commanders are available, for example, it is usually better to use them instead of more general terms; "TheNinth United States Army would launch an offensive, codenamedOperation Grenade, across the Roer" is likely to be more helpful to the reader than "The United States would launch an offensive across the Roer".
It is important to note, however, that the level of precision in an article should be appropriate for its scope. Articles dealing with narrower and more specialized topics can use more specific terminology than may be feasible in articles dealing with broad overviews or very general topics; and general terminology is often appropriate in an introductory section even where more specific terms are used in the body of the article. Precision should not be pursued to such an extent that it impairs the average reader's understanding of the topic.
For use of "it/its" or "she/her" in reference to ships, seeWP:Manual of Style § Third-person pronouns.
Overly lengthy continuous blocks of text should be avoided; sections which are so long as to impede reader understanding should be broken down into subsections. There remains some disagreement regarding the precise point at which a section becomes too long, so editors are encouraged to use their own judgment on the matter.
Policy requires that articles reference onlyreliable sources; however, this is a minimal condition, rather than a final goal. With the exception of certain recent topics that have not yet become the subject of extensive secondary analysis, and for which a lower standard may be temporarily permitted, articles on military history should aim to be based primarily on published secondary works by reputable historians. The use of high-quality primary sources is also appropriate, but care should be taken to use them correctly, without straying into original research. Editors are encouraged to extensively survey the available literature—and, in particular, any available historiographic commentary—regarding an article's topic in order to identify every source considered to be authoritative or significant; these sources should, if possible, be directly consulted when writing the article.
Articles that report on "black projects" and other classified topics are required to fully conform to Wikipedia's policies governingverifiability,original research, andfringe theories. All information presented in such articles must be appropriately cited to reliable sources as outlined above. The inadequacy of public sources may not be used to justify the inclusion of unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article or to relax normal standards of sourcing and citation.
The nature of historical material requires that articles be thoroughly—even exhaustively—cited. At a minimum, the following all require direct citation:
In general, any statement for which a citation has been explicitly requested by another editor should be provided with one as well.
Beyond this, editors are encouraged to cite any statement that is obscure or difficult to find in the available sources, as well as any significant statement in general. There is no numerical requirement for a particular density of citations or for some predetermined number of citations in an article; editors are expected to use their best judgment as to how much citation is appropriate. When in doubt, cite; additional citations are harmless at worst, and will prove invaluable in the long term as one moves toward featured article status.
In general, articles should usefootnotes. A number of different formatting styles are available; so long as an article is internally consistent, the choice of which to use is left to the discretion of the major editors. Discursive notes are usually separated from reference citations (ashere andhere), but the two types are sometimes combined (ashere). A single footnote may be used to provide citations for any amount of material; while they typically apply to one or a few sentences, they may also cover entire paragraphs or sections of text. In cases where the connection between the citations and the material cited is not obvious, it is helpful to describe it explicitly (for example, "For the details of the operation, see Smith,First Book, 143–188, and Jones,Another Book, chapters 2–7; for the international reaction, see Thomas,Yet Another Book, 122–191").
Editors should take a reasonable approach when requesting citations. Unless the accuracy of a statement is in significant doubt, it is generally better to start with a request for citations on the article's talk page, rather than by inserting{{fact}} tags—particularly large numbers of such tags—into the article. Over-tagging should be avoided; if a large portion of the article is uncited, adding an{{unreferenced}} or{{citation style}} tag to an entire section is usually more helpful than simply placing{{fact}} tags on every sentence. Note that some articles contain per-paragraph citations, so checking the citations at the end of a paragraph may yield information about facts or figures in the paragraph as a whole.
The various primary and auxiliary infobox templates and navigation templates maintained by the Military history WikiProject are all coded to use acommon set of styling characteristics. This is needed primarily because a number of the templates are designed to be stacked together to present the appearance of a continuous block; it is also beneficial for providing a consistent appearance to the entire set of articles within our scope.
A few general guidelines apply to all military history infoboxes:
A primary infobox is intended to provide a summary table for some topic. It should generally be placed at the top of an article, before the lead section; this will cause it to be displayed in the top right corner. Documentation may give advice on the appropriate way to populate parameters and should be followed.
Several infobox templates that are not specifically designed for military topics are also commonly used on military-related articles:
An auxiliary infobox is a supplementary template intended to be used in conjunction with one of the primary infoboxes; it is usually placed directly below the primary infobox, but other layouts are possile. It is common for multiple auxiliary infoboxes to be used on a single article.
The variousnavigation templates maintained by the Military history WikiProject are all intended to be implemented through a single base template, which combines the project'scommon template style with thestandard navigation box format. This is needed primarily to allow multiple such templates to be stacked together—with each other, or withinfobox templates—to present the appearance of a continuous block; it is also beneficial for providing a consistent appearance to the entire set of articles within our scope.
Any military-related navigational template should be created using the{{military navigation}} base template, as shown below:
{{Military navigation| name = | raw_name =| state = | style = | title = | image = | imageleft = | odd_color = | even_color = | above = | listclass = | group1 = | list1 = | group2 = | list2 = | group3 = | list3 = ...| group30 = | list30 = | below = }}hlist, to format content ashorizontal lists. In the case of hlists in above or below fields, set bodyclass=hlist, instead.style=wide is shown below:[[File:Example.jpg|100px]]. This parameter should be used sparingly, and typically only in conjunction with the full-width template style.[[File:Example.jpg|100px]]. This parameter should be used sparingly, and typically only in conjunction with the full-width template style.There are several known issues with the current navigation template design that editors should be aware of:
<br /> tag between the words where the wrapping is to occur. This should be done to separate link-text to the right of the 'pipe' (|), as follows:[[Article title|Article <br /> title]]. An alternative method is to use{{wrap}} for the link-text as follows:[[A very long article title|{{wrap|A very long article title}}]], which allows the browser to break as-needed.A "campaignbox" is a type of navigation template that contains links to articles about the battles in a particular campaign, front, theater or war. See thetemplate documentation for details.
There are a number of stub classes available for military history articles. The generic military history stubs are{{mil-stub}} and{{mil-hist-stub}}. For military people, seeCategory:Military personnel stubs. For a complete list of stubs, seethe list of military history stubs andthe list of military and weaponry stubs.
The category scheme originates in two root categories—Category:War andCategory:Military—and can be thought of as twotree structures that intersect at several points. A guide to the top-level sub-categories of these two root categories is presented below; for brevity, a number of categories that are rarely used or lie outside the scope of this project have been omitted.
In general, articles and categories should be placed in themost specific applicable categories, and should not be placed directly in a "parent" category if they are already present in one of its sub-categories. In other words, if an article is placed inCategory:Wars involving the United States, there is no need to place it inCategory:Military history of the United States as well.
Note, however, that this applies only todirect placement into a "parent" category; it is normal for a category to have multipleindirect paths up to some other category higher in the tree. For example,Category:Naval battles of the Spanish-American War is both a sub-category ofCategory:Battles of the Spanish-American War (which is a sub-category ofCategory:Battles involving Spain) and a sub-category ofCategory:Naval battles involving Spain (which isalso a sub-categoryCategory:Battles involving Spain); thus, there are two distinct paths fromCategory:Naval battles of the Spanish-American War up toCategory:Battles involving Spain. This is especially common when dealing withintersection categories.
One important aspect of the "most specific" principle is that ifevery article in a category belongs to another category, it is sufficient to nest the categories directly, rather than double-categorizing each individual article. For example,Battle of Bosworth Field does not need to be added toCategory:Battles involving England directly becauseCategory:Battles of the Wars of the Roses is already a sub-category of it. Similarly, the articles inCategory:Military units and formations of the United States Marine Corps do not need to be added toCategory:Military units and formations of the United States directly.
In some cases, entire category trees will nest as above. For example, all "by war" categories should be sub-categories of the applicable "by period" category, and that a redundant "by period" label should not be applied to articles where a "by war" one is given (for example,Category:Military units and formations of the Crusades should be a sub-category ofCategory:Military units and formations of the Middle Ages, so an article already in the first need not be added to the second).
Note that this strategy should be appliedonly whenevery article in one category belongs in the other. For example, it is inappropriate to makeCategory:Battles of the Napoleonic Wars a sub-category ofCategory:Battles involving the United Kingdom, because there are many battles in the first category in which the United Kingdom was not a participant; thus,Battle of Waterloo must include both categories separately.
In many cases, articles can be categorized through several parallel classification schemes, associating them with the related countries, wars, periods, and other topics. There are two general ways of applying multiple categories from these classification schemes to a particular article. The simplest, which can be sufficient for unusual combinations or small categories, is to apply each category separately. For example, a medieval French unit could be placed in bothCategory:Military units and formations of the Middle Ages andCategory:Military units and formations of France. However, this system is unwieldy as category sizes increase; thus, common combinations of multiple categories can be made explicit by creating an "intersection" sub-category for them; for example,Category:Military units and formations of France in the Middle Ages.
The intersection category can potentially combine an arbitrary number of elements from the overall category structure, but categories that combine two or three are more common. For example,Category:Regiments of France in the Napoleonic Wars (units by size, by country, and by war),Category:Airborne units and formations of the United States Army in World War II (units by type, by branch, and by war), andCategory:Naval battles of the American Civil War (battles by type and by war) are all potential intersection categories. It is recommended that intermediate "holder" categories (such asCategory:Military units and formations of France by size orCategory:Regiments by country) be liberally created in order to keep the overall category system navigable.
Note that the simpler system can still be used in conjunction with intersection categories to avoid the proliferation of extremely small and narrow sub-categories. For example, it may be better to place an article in bothCategory:Cavalry units and formations andCategory:Military units and formations of France in the Middle Ages than to create an additionalCategory:Cavalry units and formations of France in the Middle Ages. A similar approach should be taken if there is no reasonable way to name a potential intersection category; for example, rather than creating the grammatically atrociousCategory:Prisoner-of-war pilot generals of World War II, it is better to leave separate categories (Category:Pilots of World War II,Category:Generals of World War II, and so forth).
The category tree for all conflicts and operations derives from the top-levelCategory:Military operations, as follows:
A particular country will thus have a tree of categories containing every operation in which it participated. At its greatest extent, the tree will take a form similar to this:
Note that, particularly for countries the military histories of which do not include the modern period, many of these categories may be omitted. In particular, it is common for the "Battles involving Foo" and "Wars involving Foo" categories to be placed in the corresponding "Military history of Foo" category directly, without a separate "Military operations involving Foo" category between them.
For historical states, categories below the "Military history of ..." level should be kept distinct from those of their successor states. For example,Category:Wars involving England is a sub-category ofCategory:Military history of the United Kingdom, butnot ofCategory:Wars involving the United Kingdom.
A large war will have a similar tree of categories for every component operation; at its greatest extent, the tree will take the following form:
The full tree is unnecessary for the vast majority of wars; the most common configuration is to have a simple two-level scheme:
Specific conflicts are typically classified as battles, campaigns, or wars for the purposes of categorization. In this context, the terms are generally understood to mean the following:
In general, articles should be classified according to what the topic actually is, regardless of the name used. For example, a series of engagements generally regarded by historians as a campaign should be categorized as one even if it's referred to as the "Battle of X".
Some operations and conflicts may need to be classified into more than one of the above levels; however, this should generally be done only when it substantially adds to a reader's understanding of the events. The possible double-classification scenarios are outlined below:
Articles about wars are usually placed in three sets of categories nested underCategory:Wars:
Some larger wars have dedicated categories (such asCategory:Hundred Years' War). In this case, it is sufficient to categorize the warcategory as above; the wararticle (Hundred Years' War, in this example) need only be placed in the associated war category.
Articles about campaigns are usually placed in three sets of categories nested underCategory:Military campaigns:
Articles about battles are usually placed in four sets of categories nested underCategory:Battles:
One frequently asked question about this category scheme is why battles are categorized by participants, rather than by location; why are there no "Battles in ..." categories, in other words? The answer is that, unlike categorizing by participants, which is relatively intuitive and extremely useful, categorizing by location produces a scheme that is unintuitive and difficult to work with, at best, and completely meaningless and impossible to maintain, at worst.
There are two basic options when categorizing battles by location: using the modern countries, or using the historical countries that existed at the time of the battle. The first option—using modern countries—results in a category scheme that makes meaningless connections based on changes in geography centuries after the events discussed in the articles in question. TheSiege of Königsberg in 1262, for example, would be classified as a siege in Russia, despite Russia not being involved in any way at the time. Similarly, the campaigns of individuals such asAlexander the Great would be scattered among dozens of countries in a fairly arbitrary manner. This is, at best, a less intuitive approach than categorizing by participants.
Categorizing by the historical location is even more problematic. The chief difficulty is that, unlike the participants in a battle (which are almost always uncontroversial), the ownership of the land where a battle was fought is often a matter of significant historical controversy—having, at times, been the cause of the battle itself! In cases where the territory was historically a disputed one, arbitrarily assigning it to one of the countries involved is highly problematic, due toour policy on maintaining a neutral point of view. Even in cases where ownershipcan be determined, however, doing so is quite often neither obvious nor intuitive, and requires an unreasonably detailed knowledge of the various diplomatic events of the surrounding period; this is particularly problematic in medieval and early modern Europe, where cities and territories regularly changed hands. For example, the various sieges of Milan in the early 16th century took place—fairly unpredictably—within the territory of either the Duchy of Milan, France, or Spain, depending on which country had been the last to receive the city in one of the myriad treaties during the period. Unlike categorizing by historical participants, which can be done from almost any description of the battle itself, categorizing by historical location thus requires an exhaustive knowledge of obscure diplomatic concerns, and is at times simply impossible due to underlying territorial disputes.
Articles about units and formations are typically placed into five sets of categories nested underCategory:Military units and formations:
A particular article need not be categorized with all of the possible category types; for some topics, certain of the category options are inapplicable or inconvenient labels.
The category tree for all topics related to people involved in warfare derives from the top-levelCategory:People associated with war:
A large war will have a tree of categories for all people involved in it in some way; the tree will typically take the following form:
For guidance about categorization of articles about military vehicles seeWikipedia:Categorization of military vehicles.Military aircraft are categorized as per other aircraft – seeWikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Categories.