Talk:Defence of Iwardo

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected, closed by Dclemens1971 (talk) 15:22, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

• ... that the Assyrian village of Iwardo has become famous due to the heroic defence that took place during the Assyrian genocide?

• • Reviewed:
  • Comment: The source reads "...we ended up in Ayn Warda, an Assyrian village famous for having been a bastion of resistance to the genocide during World War I."

Surayeproject3 (talk) 17:12, 19 November 2025 (UTC).

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - see below
• Neutral: - see below
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting: - I don't think it works to center "famous" in the hook, since many places that were the site of well-known military actions gain interest as a result.
• Other problems: - "heroic" fails WP:POV.

QPQ: None required.

Overall: (t · c) buidhe 02:40, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

• Having written the Sayfo article, my eye was caught by "it is one of the only episodes of Assyrian resistance to the genocide". I am not sure it's true. What does the source say exactly?
• I have also read elsewhere that the so called "Midyat Rebellion" was an invention of Ottoman officials who imagined that independent resistance efforts were part of a coordinated, seditious conspiracy. But this article posits it as a fact
• Article would benefit from citing Kaiser, Hilmar (2014). The Extermination of Armenians in the Diarbekir Region. İstanbul Bilgi University Press. ISBN 978-605-399-333-9. you only need the section about armed resistance in Tur Abdin, I don't recall if there is a specific subchapter about Iwardo but it has the most detailed and reliable info of any source on this topic (t · c) buidhe 02:40, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Page 55 of the cited source says Only rarely did this resistance result in an Assyrian victory, such as in the villages of Azakh and Ayn-Wardo.; I have changed the article text to "successful episodes" coinciding. The Midyat Rebellion part is cited to an article by David Gaunt; The events of Midyat have enabled Turkish historians to interpret the meager defense as a rebellion, thus justifying the full severity of its repression by the Ottoman authorities. I cannot access Kaiser's 2014 book anywhere. Surayeproject3 (talk) 04:41, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that the Gaunt source actually supports what I said more than the current wording in the article, since it says that "rebellion" is an interpretation by "Turkish historians". "Were labeled" is vague and suggests this is a more widespread interpretation than it actually is. (t · c) buidhe 20:21, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't disagree with these issues. I have just made some additional changes in "Legacy" to coincide. Surayeproject3 (talk) 21:01, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Just gonna slip in here and agree that the hook has NPOV issues and needs to be changed. TheBritinator (talk) 13:08, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Would a better hook be ...that the village of Iwardo was one of the places where a defence took place during the Assyrian genocide?; or possibly ...that in Iwardo, an Assyrian village in southeastern Turkey, a defence took place during the Assyrian genocide? Something along these lines might do better to fix issues of WP:NPOV. Surayeproject3 (talk) 21:01, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I was looking for another hook but I found some other issues:

• 13,000 men — seems pretty WP:EXTRAORDINARY. That's only a bit less than the Ottomans had at major battles such as the Battle of Aleppo (1918), yet they spared this many men to attack an Assyrian village defended only by haphazardly armed and trained militia in the middle of a war?? and still lost despite outnumbering the strength of the defenders nearly 10:1???
• The last two paras of Background are really confusing. Are Arnas and Enhil the same place? Who is in charge of the defense, Shabo or Miraza? (t · c) buidhe 03:44, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Gaunt (2006), Çetinoğlu (2017), and Akdemir (2023) cite the 13,000 figure. Assyrians developed a force of 6-7,000, so it's actually 2:1 on Ottoman:Assyrian strengths; if it was 10 for Ottoman, Iwardo would have for sure been wiped out. The sources cited also give descriptions of both Shabo and Miraza as leaders of the defence.Surayeproject3 (talk) 04:58, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Based on the article, I thought the 6-7000 figure was for total population and of these only 700-1000 were fighters (which is plausible given demographics at the time). This should be clarified, as should the matter of leadership. It might be helpful to clarify where the 13,000 figure originally comes from (check footnotes), is this from Ottoman documents or is it an estimate from Assyrian oral history? (t · c) buidhe 19:47, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Çetinoğlu cites William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain but I couldn't find any statistic info in his writings (on top of that, the source denies Assyrian continuity, which is considered greatly offensive and so I am not willing to include it anyway). Gaunt states that the number of villagers who were in Iwardo is from two sources, including by that Syriac Catholic priest mentioned in "Aftermath", so it's probable these numbers are estimates from Assyrian oral history. I've made it clear that Miraza and Shabo both co-led the defence, especially as Shabo was the village lead of Iwardo during the genocide. Surayeproject3 (talk) 15:40, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I am still having trouble with the infobox. The issue with infoboxes in contexts like this one is that they can give the impression of more certainty of figures than the sources do, which is why it is omitted in the Sayfo article. I would recommend removing the infobox or, failing that, keeping it to military strength (the current figure of 7,000 includes civilians, which is not appropriate) and adding (estimated) or something like that. (t · c) buIdhe 19:01, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the infobox should be deleted outright, but I have removed casualties and changed the military strength numbers. Surayeproject3 (talk) 19:18, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

it still says "Kurdish & Ottoman soldiers surrendered". I don't have the patience to go over the entire article for accuracy issues. (t · c) buIdhe 19:26, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, eventually the Kurdish and Ottoman tribes decided to negotiate a truce and the defence was formally concluded through such. I have removed it anyways as the article still makes this information clear; is there anywhere where I can disseminate specific infobox criteria for articles moving forward? Surayeproject3 (talk) 19:36, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

A truce is not the same thing as surrender. At this point I cannot support the article being put on the main page, I think that the content issues are beyond what can be reasonably fixed at DYK. The fact that I'm several comments in and still dealing with basic factual / WP:VER issues is not encouraging. (t · c) buIdhe 06:04, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• Given the above comment and how it does not seem like the issues will be resolved anytime soon, this is now marked for closure per the "contentious topics may be subject to greater scrutiny" guideline. @Buidhe: Given your concerns, do you think this may need to go through GAR, or is that not necessary? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 06:40, 15 December 2025 (UTC)