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Concerning the sentence "...[Germany] managed to build the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and the French ones."[edit]

"Third-largest"? What about the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and American colonial empires? 32.132.12.210 (talk) 05:39, 31 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Do you have a reliable source that says that the empires of those countries were larger than that of Germany? Because the sentence you cite is supported by a reference to a book published by Oxford University Press. If you've got a source, cite it here, and then we can talk about possibly adjusting the sentence. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
According to Chatbot BARD, the 5 largest colonial empires where the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Portuguese Empire. 32.132.12.210 (talk) 09:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Chatbots are not reliable sources; in fact, given their tendency to hallucinate, they are about as far from a reliable source as one can get.
Also, keep in mind the phrase "at the time"; while other empires were bigger at *some* point in history, the time period specified is the 1880s, where many of the older empires were already in decline. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 12:57, 2 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Considering that Germany became unified only ten years before the 1880s, can it be possible that a recently unified country could have large colonial holdings compared to its rivals who had a headstart of centuries? 32.132.12.210 (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
...yes? It's not like Germany appeared out of nowhere; just because the German states hadn't been unified yet doesn't mean they didn't exist, or weren't already busily colonizing the rest of the world. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 04:08, 4 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Read the article. The astonishingly quick growth of the empire is specifically commented upon. Furius (talk) 08:42, 4 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
According to "German Colonialism: A Short History" published by Cambridge University Press:
- In the late 1890s, smaller possession in East Asia (Shandong province in China) and the Pacific (Samoa, New Guinea, and a number of Pacific Islands) were added. After those of Britain, France, and the Netherlands, this was the fourth largest empire at the time.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/german-colonialism/introduction/DAC793B9B6610B6A8BC7A4D375A74C6A 32.132.12.210 (talk) 04:53, 27 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The dates are wrong, may have been vandalized en-mass by AI[edit]

The dates in this article are wrong some likely by over a century claiming some of these things happened as early as 2018.

It's possible someone used an AI to vandalize this article by flipping all the dates to +100 years and then +/- some additional years as well possibly. There could be other parts of the article which have also been vandalized.

I suggest this article needs an AI restoration with human approved changes and or or reset to a cold storage copy. 64.110.223.142 (talk) 18:31, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mentioning AI is a bit hyperbolic; this is just regular old human vandalism, and can be solved by a regular old human revert. :) Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Name in German[edit]

In the Infobox it mentions the name of the German Empire was "Deutsches Reich" in German. However, above in its introduction, it mentioned the German Empire in German was "Deutsches Kaiserreich". Unless I'm wrong, both would be correct, but in that case shouldn't both be side by side in both instances?

Thanks to anyone willing to answer. Sandjaar (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

WP:COMMONNAME applies here. Displaying the two names side by side is clunky and adds minimal extra information, they are largely in free variation. Maybe there should be some additional consistency in how they are presented, but having them next to each other seems pointless. Remsense聊 17:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
These terms are not equal and are properly used in this context, throughout 1871 to 1945 Germany had the same official name, Deutsches Reich, though in English the official name used was "German Empire" until 1918 and "German Reich" onwards to 1945 (since the "Empire" translation denotes a monarchy). Today, German historiography differences the Imperial period by calling it the Deutsches Kaiserreich, since Kaiserreich indisputably means Empire (unlike Reich, whose usage depends on the context). Point is, Deutsches Kaiserreich is a modern German term to name the period, but Deutsches Reich was the official contemporary name used by the state in question. (See also the references and notes attached to the name Deutsches Kaiserreich in the lead.) Shrek 5 the divorce (talk) 16:06, 12 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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