Talk:Left Bank of the Rhine

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times and terms[edit]

i changed "The Bavarian Circle of Rhine (Rheinkreis or Rheinpfalz) and the Hessian ..."

to

"The Bavarian district Rheinkreis, later renamed in Pfalz (Palatinate) and the Hessian ....."

with the explanation: "rheinkreis was a district and rheinpfalz is wrong anyway".

the so-called discussion bermicourt refers to was about the english name of the rheinkreis, which he insisted was "circle of the rhine". this does not change the fact, that this territory was one of 8 bavarian districts. as to "rheinpfalz", it is simply wrong, that the name was changed to rheinpfalz, it was changed to "pfalz". "rheinpfalz" was used inofficially for "pfalz", not for "rheinkreis", as well as e. g. "rheinbayern" or "bayrische pfalz" ect. so times and terms are being mixed up.Sundar1 (talk) 08:21, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The original text on German Wikipedia says "Aus einem Teil des Territoriums wurden 1816 der bayerische Rheinkreis (Rheinpfalz) und die hessische Provinz Rheinhessen gebildet,..." which clearly means "From a part of the territory the Bavarian Circle of the Rhine (Rheinpfalz) and the Hessian province of Rhenish Hesse were formed in 1816." I'm afraid your text does not reflect this, nor the outcome of the discussion at Talk:Circle of the Rhine where the English name was preferred. I will re-insert the faithful rendition of the text that respects the discussion outcome. If you have historical evidence that this is not correct, please would you present this in discussion either here or on German Wikipedia and get a consensus before you change the words again. --Bermicourt (talk) 10:55, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

in the german wikipedia (rheinpfalz) is not meant as a translation; in the english wikipedia it's a translation - and the german term is "rheinkreis", not "rheinpfalz". therefore the rendition of the german text is perhaps "faithful" but not correct.Sundar1 (talk) 12:24, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Basic political facts[edit]

To answer to the user Bermicourt, even if he tends to forget that the subject has already been discussed in an another article, and that he agreed to it, a territory can't be returned to a political identity that did not exist before. In the matter of Alsace, as Germany has been constituted through several wars of unification culminating in 1871, and knowing that Alsace-Moselle has never been part of this itentity prior to this date, it is juridically impossible to restitute/return a territory that never belonged to it. I would add that most of Alsace was a possession of the Hasbourgs Austria that sold the region to France during the treaty of Westphalia. Holy Roman Empire encompassed several modern states, including Netherlands, flanders, Wallonia, Savoy, Franche Comté, most part northern Italy, Poland, etc. HRE was decentralised, with differents languages, jurisdictions, etc. In all the articles about the many regions of present day Germany, the term joined is used to describe the unification of the different districts following the Germans unification wars. Is there a will to introduce personal convictions with the choice of those words? Wikipedia is based on political and historical facts, it is not a place for trying to redo history or transform articles in German toponymy articles. If the user does not agree he is welcome to confront his point of view with facts and proper arguments in this discussion page. --Gabriel HM (talk) 21:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am disappointed that an experienced editor such as yourself hasn't followed the normal WP:BRD rule, but has chosen to revert the reversions instead. Nevertheless, I think some of the your subsequent edits are an improvement and add useful detail. It's probably helpful if I summarise my comments in a short list:

Changing "a departement along French lines" to "several departements among the French first republic" is an improvement. I will just Anglicise it slightly and link the republic.
Adding detail about the Sarre province and Landau is fine - can we reference that - but the statement that "they were previously French" seems misleading. In fact it was a Free Imperial City under the HRE until 1680 when the French occupied it for 135 years before it was granted to Bavaria. Rather than arguing about its "Frenchness", I suggest we leave that bit out until consensus is reached as to suitable wording. The rest is okay, but again I would tweak the style slightly so it reads better e.g. "annexations done under the first republic" should be something like "territories annexed by the First Republic".
Changing "returned to German rule" to "annexed to the new German empire" seems unnecessarily pedantic IMHO. Whilst there was no formal Kingdom or Empire of Germany prior to 1871 (although some would dispute that - see Talk:Kingdom of Germany) it is entirely reasonable to say that the HRE was under German rule as most, if not all, of its emperors were German as were all the Electors who chose them. However, I'm not hard over about this one. German Empire should probably be capitalised and linked though.
Changing "ceded to France" to "restituted to France" sounds slightly "French Imperialist" to me! "Ceded" is correct, whereas "restituted" implies it was always part of some Greater France and doesn't convey the nature of the transaction. I'm not even sure that "restituted" is correct English in this context. So I'd appreciate it being reversed for now and leaving out any implication about whose territory it rightfully was.
Deleting "Franz-Josef" and leaving "Francois-Joseph"; changing "Straßburg" to "Strasbourg". Well I know you hate German names, but in these cases I think the changes are justifiable. F-J was a Frenchman, so the French version seems better and "Strasbourg" in this context was under French rule. I'd probably add "Straßburg" in brackets though, since that was the name used under HRE/German Empire rule either side of the French period of rule/occupation. That's also consistent with the rest of the article.

So I think there's room for a compromise, with most of the text staying, some more controversial stuff removed, links added, proper nouns capitalised and some tweaking of the English. Hope you can meet me half-way. Salut! Bermicourt (talk) 07:49, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]