Talk:Charles V Wall

A fact from Charles V Wall appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 November 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the Charles V Wall (pictured) was built by Spain to keep the Barbary pirates out of Gibraltar, but ended up being used by the British to keep the Spanish out? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Charles V Wall.

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Wow thats an impressive entrance Victuallers (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thats a rubbish map however as its impossible to determine the course of the wall — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 11:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The position of the wall on the map has been marked with a red dot that is not present if you then move to load the image itself in a new window. We could do with the map itself being enhanced to mark the wall location clearly. Unfortunately, I do not know how to achieve this. Otherwise a good show! Well done. Quartic (talk) 14:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following was originally on WP:ERRORS, but the DYK hook went off the main page before resolution, so moving it here for further discussion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(begin copy/pasted discussion)

... that the Charles V Wall (pictured) was built by Spain to keep the Barbary pirates out of Gibraltar, but ended up being used by the British to keep the Spanish out?

I don't get it. How does that work? The Barbary pirates came from the south (or the coast), the Spanish from the north (or the mainland). I can't imagine it, the article doesn't explain it (nor really put it this way in the first place), and the map is completely useless (featured or not), at least for this particular purpose, as it does not show the course of the wall. Either I'm incredibly dense, too impatient to read the article closely enough to figure it out, or this is a fail (i. e., the catchy DYK line completely fails to deliver on its promise, or at least it is not evident how it came about; it shouldn't be this difficult to understand for an outsider). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"In July 1704 combined forces from the United Kingdom and the Dutch Republic led by Sir George Rooke, captured Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession. The Spanish attempted to recapture The Rock in October 1704 during its Twelfth Siege. A force of five hundred volunteers led by Spanish Gibraltar-born goatherd Simón Susarte managed to scale Charles V's Wall, and massacred the guard at Middle Hill, but were attacked by a party of grenadiers and were all either killed or captured." Taken verbatim from the article. Didn't check what direction those Spaniards were coming from but the engagement is cited and I don't doubt the historical veracity of it, so the hook does reflect the article accurately. There's an image of the wall depicted in a scale model of Gibraltar there, too, which to me looks like bisects the land rather than framing it, it seems to cut down the middle so there's plenty of room to advance on each side. GRAPPLE X 15:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It could still be made clearer. I would like to visualise what happened. Note that two other users on Talk:Charles V Wall have reported the same problem with the map. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From the scale model, I gather that the wall runs to the south of the old city, bisecting the peninsula from the western to the eastern coast. So the Spanish troops were in the south, too? Why did they not attack from some other side, then? Are all sides steep but the southern side? (OK, looking again, there's a fortification along the western coast too, and the eastern side of the city does not need protection as it rises, so presumably, the only access is from the south; but from the scale model, it cannot be seen what is in the north.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:24, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(end copy/pasted discussion)

The map with the red dot is just a standard pushpin map. It could be copied and the dot hard-coded, but I prefer not to. See the old map to the right - the best I have come across, which I think shows the wall's position well. It could be added.

The wall ran from the South Bastion, at that time protruding into the bay and visible as a triangular shape on the old map, up to the crest and the unscalable eastern side of the rock. There was a defensive seawall protecting the town from the bay to the west, and more fortifications along the north side. Anyone coming from the south would have to get over the Charles V wall. Presumably the Moors landed somewhere near the tip of the peninsula, before there was any wall, and moved north into the city. The source does not make clear how the Spanish got round to the south of the wall. Perhaps the goatherd led them via some route round the rock along the east coast, if that is possible, or perhaps they got there by boat. The source does not say. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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