Talk:Marshal of the Empire

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Military history: European / French / Napoleonic era Start‑class

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Was it a military rank[edit]

The lead of the article currently reads in part Although not a military rank.... No reference is given for this particular claim.

It seems a rather strange claim. This (non-)rank was awarded to generals, and a Marshal displayed four silver stars, while the top military rank, General of Division, displayed three stars. If these Marshals retained their previous military rank, surely they would have worn its insignia on the field? They wore distinctive uniforms and were entitled to carry a cylinder-shaped baton, which was a symbol of their authority. It sounds very much as if Marshal simply outranked General, does it not?

They were appointments to a position, and required political approval, but no more so than the current four-star US rank of General, Goering's rank of Reichsmarschall or the six-star rank proposed for Douglas MacArthur. Andrewa (talk) 16:39, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete citations[edit]

The incomplete citations appear to have been around since this article was written. "Banc" may refer to Jean-Claude Banc's Dictionnaire des maréchaux de Napoléon, and "Tulard" is probably Jean Tulard, though I can't say what work of his this would be, perhaps his three-volume Œuvres littéraires et écrits militaires. I don't have easy access to either to check.—Ketil Trout (^<><!) 23:07, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bernadotte as King of Sweden[edit]

Should Bernadotte's later title of King of Sweden be added to his titles in the list of the Marshals? Or should it not as he resigned all his French titles upon his election as Crown Prince in 1810? Are only French titles to be listed? Murat has his title of King of Naples listed.

SJCreecy (talk) 08:48, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double content[edit]

Beside the newly-added list being essentially double-content of the other parts of the article, there also exists a separate article List of Marshals of the First French Empire. So maybe people should talk about what should/could be achieved before beginning to edit back and forth. ...GELongstreet (talk) 00:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On Marshalls[edit]

@Marshal Davout III: Instead of trying to edit war, you should probably explain your edits here so that the matter can be discussed :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Trimming the list of marshals[edit]

The table containing the list of marshals seems unnecessarily bloated to me. Do we really need columns listing all the battles each marshal fought in, or all the formations they commanded? I suggest that we do not - if the reader wants details of a marshal's career, they can click through to his article to find them. The marshal list (in my view) serves the purpose of sorting them into various orders, and/or identifying them by name, title or nickname. I suggest it be restricted to the following columns:

Portrait (not sortable)
Name
Title(s) (if any)
Date of Birth
Date of Promotion
Date of Death
Nickname(s) (if any)

We don't need to put the cause of death, or if we do it should be in brief terms rather than a full paragraph laying out all the details. The "reason for promotion" is already covered in the body of the article as well as the marshal's own page. "Battles fought in" and "Commands held" just provide walls of text to fill up the screen - it must look horrendous on a mobile browser. If you want to know "which marshals fought at the battle of X?" you're much better off going to the battle of X article than trying to scan through this table.

Somebody's obviously put a lot of work into this table, so I'm discussing it here before doing anything. What are your thoughts? Chuntuk (talk) 22:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]