Talk:Jan Smuts

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	Jan Smuts is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 25, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted
	Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 24, 2017, September 11, 2017, and September 11, 2022.

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Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Jan Smuts. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070708134043/http://www.queensu.ca/sarc/Conferences/1940s/Baines.htm to http://www.queensu.ca/sarc/Conferences/1940s/Baines.htm

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Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Jan Smuts. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160302075549/http://www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/britains-greatest-general/jan-smuts to http://www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/britains-greatest-general/jan-smuts
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There seem to be some questions over the spelling of his name, which I suggest are properly raised here rather than through the application of tags to the article. As he was of Afrikaner birth he was almost certainly born Christiaan. He is likely to have chosen to anglicise this at some point, possibly when he took up residence in the UK. I have added references for both spellings as both spellings are used. Dormskirk (talk) 09:41, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently not ever spelled Christiaan - see Archive 1, "Middle name" (the next to final post in archive). If that assertion can be verified, all of the various articles on Jan Smuts should be checked and have the incorrect spelling removed, despite having references. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:56, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken a look at the archive but the claim is not sourced and as such cannot be accepted at face value especially when there are good sources claiming the contrary. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 10:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Until today there were no flags in the infobox of this article. An IP inserted a few flags and I removed them with the edit summary "remove flags per

The exception is usually taken to apply to battles or other similar cases (such as campaigns or the whole of a conflict). This does not appear to be the case here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:25, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Dormskirk and RandomCanadian, flags should not be used in infoboxes for military biographies, they should only be used in infoboxes for wars and battles where necessary to distinguish between multiple forces. Mztourist (talk) 14:35, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think that flags are pointless clutter. My heart sank when I saw that lots of articles I watch had been stuffed. Keith-264 (talk) 16:01, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Would serve no useful purpose here. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It would be useful for someone familiar with Afrikaans to provide that more proper pronunciation of his name, which I assume is probably something like "yahn smoots". Milkunderwood (talk) 07:13, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Milkunderwood The vowels are shorter. "Jan" rhymes with "fun" - the vowel is the same. "Smuts" rhymes with "buts" as in "no buts or maybes". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:58, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the correction. Can you post the pronunciation at the article, so at least readers know not to say English "jan"? Milkunderwood (talk) 08:13, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

From the book Jan Smuts: Memoirs of the Boer War:

In 1936, Albert Einstein said of Smuts that he was one of only eleven men in the world who conceptually understood his th eories of relativity; in 1970, Lord Todd, the Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, where Smuts had studied, said that in the 500 years of the College’s hi story, of all its members, past and present, three had been truly outstanding: John Milton, Charles Darwin and Jan Smuts.

(Nattrass & Spies (1994); page 19)

Maqdisi (talk) 04:48, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]