Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Artik

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎. This was a lot of discussion to parse through. But I believe there is a consensus to Delete this article. Liz Read! Talk! 02:16, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Artik[edit]

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Battle of Artik (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Could find no sources online. It is not clearly in the single reference in the article. The quote is in the reference but not clearly related to Artik. gidonb (talk) 02:51, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of a hoax. For example, an "artik" is a popsicle in Hebrew. The links to the article may have been created by the article creator. And even if not a hoax, why couldn't I find sources? Then still nonnotable. gidonb (talk) 05:38, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw: this is not a covert sollictiation for a !vote. Rather, it is an open (!) sollicitation for an expert opinion. I remember providing input once to your AfD on Turkic history and dynasties. Could you assess the authenticity of this battle? gidonb (talk) 05:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for calling this to my attention. I'll have to do some searching and reading first. It is indeed unlikely that "Artik" refers to Artik in present-day Armenia if the location of the battle was the Transcaspian Oblast in present-day Turkmenistan. There is literally a sea between them, and no direct land connection. However, no other "Artik" located in Turkmenistan is listed at Artik (disambiguation) either. Incidentally, the connected article Malleson mission is also poorly sourced, relying heavily on the same source (Sargent 2004), although it does have at least 3 other sources going for it. I'll tag that as more citations needed as well. Okay, now the searching and reading... NLeeuw (talk) 08:43, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We need to get time and place clear. A lot of toponymic spellings are outdated. "On 28 June General Malleson left Simla for Meshed." (Sargent 2004 p. 8). My guess is that these mean Shimla (in present-day Himachal Pradesh, northern India) and Mashhad (in present-day Central Khorasan, northeastern Iran). On 12 July 1918 a Menshevik (anti-Bolshevik) coup happened in Ashkhabad, modern Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan. Malleson arrived in Meshed/Mashhad on 16 July. 'On 19 July the military detachment, some 200 strong, left Meshed for Muhammabad, which it reached on 2 August and a platoon moved to Kuchan.' I'm not sure which Muhammabad it is, but it surely isn't Mohammadabad, Ghazipur in India as linked; we're somewhere on the modern Iran-Turkmenistan border between Mashhad and Ashgabat. Most likely it's a village in Central Khorasan, one of these: Mohammadabad#Razavi Khorasan Province. More importantly, I think I've already found our "Artik": Artyk, Turkmenistan (Coordinates: 37°33′17.28″N 59°19′32.5″E), right on the border. NLeeuw (talk) 09:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This 2019 research paper by Rakhmtova & Dzhamalova at least confirms the border crossing at Artyk on the given date, although they report no battle: "On August 12, 1918, the column of English military equipment led by General Wilfrid Malleson crossed the Persian-Russian border near Artyk station." NLeeuw (talk) 09:40, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a suggestion that the battle didn't actually take place in Artyk itself, but that the British-Indian force (apparently consisting of some 19th Punjabis troops and 2 machine guns) merely boarded a train at the train station in Artyk, and went somewhere else where the actual battle took place. crossed the border to Artik and there entrained for Bairam Ali to help the Transcaspian forces meet a new Bolshevik attack. "Bairam Ali" (or "Bahram Ali" on p. 19) would be Baýramaly, a city 300 km to the east of Artyk. The railway was the means of transportation for both the British-Indian troops and Transcaspian Menshevik rebels; p. 12: The Transcaspian force, completely demoralised, retreated back along the railway line to Dushak, while the machine gun detachment returned to Muhammadabad “hors de combat from influenza and casualties”. p. 19: We finally return to the campaign itself. Following the retreat from Bahram Ali on 12 August Malleson moved some 500 men of the 19th Punjabis under Lieut-Colonel Knollys across the border, where they joined the Transcaspian force at Kaahka on 26 August. On satellite imagery today, I do see a railway line running from Artyk along Kaahka (Kaka, Turkmenistan, Kaahkha) and Dushak, turning several times and going all the way to Baýramaly. The speed of trains at the time would have made it possible to traverse the 300 km distance between Artyk and Baýramaly within just a few short hours, as well as retreating back to Dushak within the same day. I think we should be looking for sources indicating a battle at Baýramaly on 12 August 1918, because that seems to have happened. NLeeuw (talk) 10:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, here we go: it's the Trans-Caspian railway! NLeeuw (talk) 10:43, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much for all your expert input, NLeeuw! gidonb (talk) 10:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Damien Wright, Churchill's Secret War With Lenin (2017), p. 431: Through a series of events Malleson's men were soon in action against the Bolshevik-sponsored German-Austro-Hungarian troops near the ruins of the ancient city of Merv, 350 kilometres down the line from Ashkhabat. On 15 August at Bairam Ali, a section of machine guns under Lieutenant Walter Gipps, 19th Punjabis with her Havildars Ilam Din and Nand Singh, were left to face an overwhelming enemy attack and defend an Anglo-Indian armoured train without support after the local defenders abandoned their trenches. During a difficult withdrawal in which Singh was wounded, and with no rest and little food and water, the gallant Punjabis finally reached safety at Dushak three days later.
This is beginning to look more like what happened. Sargent 2004 is just not a very readable text, switching between time and place a lot without providing a coherent narrative of the battle in question, focusing more on the politics than on the logistics and military movements. This does leave us with several questions, namely whether the battle took 3 days (from 12 to 15 August), or whether either one of the sources got their dates wrong. I think they are irreconcilable, since Sargent claims the British-Indians both crossed the border, fought at Bairam Ali and retreated (or started retreating) therefrom all on the same day of 12 August, while Wright claims a battle took place in Bairam Ali on 15 August between the British-Indian machine guns and Punjabis against the G-A-H Bosheviks (before or during which the Transcaspian rebels fled), and it took them 3 more days to retreat to Dushak (which they would then have reached on 18 August).
My guess would be... that Wright is wrong (no pun intended), the battle took place on 12 August, the British-Indians were unable to use the train to return to Dushak, and instead had to march over land for 3 days. That would explain the "difficult withdrawal (...) with no rest and little food and water". If you can use the train to get an entire army from Artyk to Bairam Ali within a day, why would you need 3 days to get back from Bairam Ali half-way to Dushak while you're on the run from an enemy who has defeated you at Bairam Ali with overwhelming numbers? The logistics of getting an army on the train don't work well when you're under attack and trying to flee. I think they never managed to board the train and had to walk back to Dushak. But that's speculation; I'd have to read more. But I think we can conclude by now that the battle happened at Bairam Ali (Baýramaly) and not at Artyk/Artik. NLeeuw (talk) 11:12, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Mohammadabad, Mashhad is most likely our "Muhammabad" or "Muhammedabad". It's a village in Mashhad County, northwest very close to Mashhad (Meshed), the British-Indian based of operations in East Persia throughout the campaign. NLeeuw (talk) 16:53, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe that no such event occurred and want to delete it on that basis, that's fine. But just for the record, I got everything on that article from that source, which does in fact talk about the battle on pages 11 and 12. As was cited.
But if as is said later that Artik doesn't exist, then that's fine and would mean the source is wrong.
Not saying keep or delete though, since these concerns seem reasonable enough. With Juhor al-Dik at least there was *someone* on one side making the claim Genabab (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad that you as the creator of the article have also responded now. The information does seem to be somewhat accurate and historical, although in need of correction and clarification. I'm currently considering whether it is just better to merge it into Malleson mission, because it does not appear to be notable enough for a standalone article. But I'll try to find more reliable sources and see whether it is relevant enough. NLeeuw (talk) 09:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Genabab, in both cases, you have made up historical events out of -at best- little more than thin air. We do not find stuff in one source (at the other page the source is Hamas), then start fantasizing around that, and invent new histories, misleading our readers. It's not how a serious encyclopedia works. Wikipedia is not some kind of historical fantasy blog. Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia where people write about topics basing themselves on a multitude of reliable sources that wrote clearly and in depth about events, people, places, phenomena, objects, organisms, etc before we summarize! gidonb (talk) 10:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well @Gidonb, I think Genabab has just made several mistakes in reading a text that is not very clear, especially if one's English reading and writing skills limited, and one has not been educated as a historian (as I have been). I've been trying to understand what did happen for the past 3.5 hours, and even I still don't know what happened exactly. Some of these mistakes are beginner's errors, but I could have made them as well. Genabab has indicated that they could have made mistakes and that those should be corrected, which is a good thing. It doesn't mean things have been made up on purpose. NLeeuw (talk) 11:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:Nederlandse Leeuw I reread the relevant parts of the article and found something I missed:
"The crucial date for the invasion was 11 August when two machine guns of the 19th Punjabis left Muhammadabad, crossed the border to Artik and there entrained for Bairam Ali to help the Transcaspian forces meet a new Bolshevik attack."
When I was reading the paper I must have missed that it said entrained, and thought the battle occured at Artik. That was my mistake.
Perhaps we should change the name of the article to 'Battle of Bairam Ali'? The other source that was shared also seems to say this Genabab (talk) 11:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Genabab Yeah, I also read that sentence wrong at least 5 times until realising what it meant, haha! Renaming sounds like a good idea, I was thinking the same. But maybe we should first come to a consensus whether to
  1. keep and improve this article (including renaming it), or
  2. merge it into Malleson mission, or
  3. delete it?
I think deletion is off the table by now, because although the information needs to be corrected, it is based on historical events which do appear to be relevant enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia. The question for me is mostly whether it has WP:SIGCOV for a stand-alone article (in which case we should definitely rename it), or should be merged into Malleson mission if it is not notable enough for its own page. What do you think? And what does @Gidonb think? NLeeuw (talk) 11:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well that would depend. What is the criteria for 'notability'. The sources used in the article and the sources mentioned here both appear to be reliable, and questions about multiple reliable sources backing something up were the first things I saw on the WP page you linked.
Personally I'm ambivalent, even if I wrote the page. But, I would lean towards renaming it to be the Battle of Bayram Ali with a brief mention of the army disembarking from Artik. Genabab (talk) 11:43, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SIGCOV would be necessary but insufficient to keep as a seperate article under another name. Important is that both the Malleson mission and Battle of "Artik" articles are short. If the cleaned up text would fit into Malleson mission without a clear situation of UNDUE it would sill need to be merged there as a premature SPINOFF. In addition, if a battle of Artik never happened, it would be better if Genabab would copy his text into Malleson mission, NLeeuw would clean it up there, and we'd go ahead and not create a redirect at a non-event. I.e. still delete gidonb (talk) 11:50, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your feedback, both of you! I'm inclined to agree with gidonb's suggestion, namely that we move the text of this article into Malleson mission and clean it up there; both pages are relatively short. It does not make sense to keep a redirect named "Battle of Artik/Artyk", which didn't happen.
What we could do is rename this article to "Battle of Bairam Ali" and then redirect it to Malleson mission, so that Genabab keeps "credit" for creating it and the edit history is preserved, and then deleting the current title as it would be a double-redirect. But that seems overly complicated and unnecessary. This AfD will be kept, and the edit history of Malleson mission will be kept, so it's okay if we just move the relevant text there and delete this page. NLeeuw (talk) 12:05, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
NLeeuw, via my route we will refrain from redirects of events that haven't happened at the location indicated. (Note that as a geographer I will always have this spatial accent in any historical discussion.) Genabab is ready to move, it is his own text, and then we can close as delete. gidonb (talk) 12:14, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. @Genabab Do you also agree? If so, you are free to merge the text of this page into Malleson mission. NLeeuw (talk) 12:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
should I just copy paste it into Malleson and make the more detailed edits afterwards? Again, I'm impartial. somewhere inbetween keeping it seperate and merging. But I have no strong feelings either way. Genabab (talk) 12:49, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Genabab Yeah you can copypaste it and make some more edits afterwards. I can also do the edits afterwards if you'd like me to. NLeeuw (talk) 13:02, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ok Genabab (talk) 13:23, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw ok done. Please do correct any possible mistakes I may have made on the merger at Malleson Mission Genabab (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Genabab Thank you! Glad we all agree. It's a piece of history I knew nothing about, and now a whole lot more. Hopefully the rest of the world will be better informed as well once we are done. :) NLeeuw (talk) 14:15, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Genabab @Gidonb  Done for now. Any additional edits or corrections can always be done later, but the merger into Malleson mission is now essentially complete, and we can proceed to Delete this article. NLeeuw (talk) 15:23, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:Gidonb What has been made up? I provided a citation with page references too. If you want to claim that the source made a mistake, then that's different. But it doesn't mean I made anything up. I'd understand your point if what I wrote was something that the source doesn't say, but it does on both accounts.
Do keep in mind that Artik is an actual city in Turkmenistan, as Nleeuw was able to find. I don't see what is being made up here.. Genabab (talk) 11:27, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very well but that is not how articles should be created. gidonb (talk) 11:28, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Genabab made a mistake, and should provide several reliable sources (instead of just 1) and read them carefully when creating a new article, but they also admitted the mistake and are open to correcting it. I think we shouldn't be too harsh, and help them develop their Wikipedia skills, especially since they are a relative newcomer. Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. :) NLeeuw (talk) 11:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's exteremely amateuristic and brings WP quality down. Elsewhere he uses a Hamas movie as his source. Even the Hamas movie did not clearly support the story he inserted in WP. Neverthless, I have suggested a route forward. See above. gidonb (talk) 11:53, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did see other issues at Genabab's talk page, but those are not at issue here. I think we all agree Sargent 2004 is a reliable source, but one that is easily misinterpreted, even by an experienced Wikipedian and historian like me. I think Genabab has shown good faith here, and we should encourage that. Your route forward also sounds good, I'll reply above. NLeeuw (talk) 11:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, NLeeuw! It's another current debate. gidonb (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename and then redirect per the consensus outcome of this. Malleson Mission now seems a satisfactory article. It is unsatisfactory to have a battle article for every minor skirmish. It is often good for a new editor to gain experience by improving existing articles, rather than creating new ones where the available information only permits the existence of a stub. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:26, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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