Talk:Imperial Guard (Napoleon I)

Unless anyone voices objections I am going to restore this article to 21:01, 16 May 2004 . . Greudin. I please reply in this page within 24 hours of this posting if you object to me doing this and we can discuss it further.Philip Baird Shearer 23:25, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

I am going to revert it to the earlier edit because:

• The Imperial Guard guarded Napoleon Bonaparte the French Emperor they did not Guard France.
• The are known as the Imperial Guard Not the French Imperial Guard
• This is made easier because the person 198.234.252.9 who made the change did not bother to alter the links.

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Restored + Alternate uses: see Imperial Guard (disambiguation)

Philip Baird Shearer 01:43, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

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The "La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas!" quote

The quote "La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas!" is attributed to Nicolas Chauvin too. You can see the articles under that name or under chauvinism.

Sensemaker

Guard is a group noun (noun of multitude)

Which is correct?

• The Guard are to take up position around the standard.
• The Guard is to take up position around the standard.

I think that like Government, Guard is a group noun, so a Brit I think the former reads better than the latter. http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifcompnyvscompnyr.shtml

Woops forgot to credit my self with above or the 195.92.67.79 Reversal Philip Baird Shearer 16:37, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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A collective noun is, infact, singlular.

I thought that collective noun is a term for groups of things like: a "flock of sheep" or a " herd of cattle" .

• The group is going to the store.
• The guard goes into action.

Since you have altered my perfectly valid corrections, I shall do the courtesy of correcting your purported corrections.

Correct English may, at times, be ugly. It may not always sound right, but in this case, there can only be one interpretation of correctness.

Not true when it comes to noun of multitude google on "government are" site:gov.uk. Both formats are acceptable in the UK.

Although a group consists of many people, it is infact one group, and is therefore singular. I shall not correct this again for this article, but I must stress that this is more your Wikipedia than it is mine, and it will inevitably be as you desire it to be, correct or incorrect.

Thank you. If you had argued, before making your changes, that although in some versions of English either is correct, but in American English only the singular is acceptable; and as this is a multi English encyclopaedia; could it be altered? Then I doubt if I would have felt strongly enough to object. Or if you add a couple of paragraphs of further information and then altered the grammar to be consistent throughout I would not have objected. But you did neither.

Ironically, the quote which you contributed demonstrates my point perfectly.

"La Garde meurt, elle ne se rend pas!" "The Guard dies, it does not surrender!", Cambronne

"Guard" is singular in both the quote and translation:

• It, in English is singular.
• Elle, in French is singular.

In that quote,

• "Guard" is the antecedent of the pronoun "It".
• Cambronne clearly refers to "Guard" as "It".

Cambronne apparently believed that his usage of "Guard" was singular, and I am obliged to agree with him. This example applies to the entire article, where "Guard" refers to a group of guardsmen.

Therefore, I must insist that a "Guard", as it is used in the article, refers to a group of guardsmen or a group of separate guard divisions. This grouping of many things as one thing is therefore refered to collectively as a "collective noun". I see no other possible interpretation.

"word of Cambronne", One can not always translate from one language to another exactly and one can not use the grammar of one language to justify the grammar of another! BTW the quote is also given in other sources as "La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas"

Also, in the article, "Guard" was alternatively refered to in the singular as well as the plural, contradicts its usage. – Anonymous

Then how about fixing it all to the plural?

BTW why don't you create an account then you can sign you contributions ? Philip Baird Shearer 21:42, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Corrections and Updates on this Page

I am VERY new to Wikipedia (this is my first post on any article) but I'm interested and somewhat well read in military history and see a LOT of problems and possible improvements for this page. The Imperial Guard were not a commando unit in ANY sense of the word except that they were elite (and even then the 19th century idea of an elite unit differs from our own). There is no explanation of the various infantry, cavalry, and other elements of the guard (as well as elements totally left out such as the Marin and the Velites). The difference between Old, Middle and Young guard are only mentioned. There is no mention of the foreign components of the Guard (such as the so-called Mamelukes whose services Napoleon acquired in Egypt). There is no discussion of their contribution or lack thereof except at Waterloo. There is no discussion of their commanders (Bessieres, Lefebvre, Mortier, all had commands in the Guard and there are many others). I plan to start making some edits on this page soon and would really appreciate the help of someone with more experience in designing and laying out pertinent information. I plan to be using Elting’s Swords Around the Throne and some of Chandler’s work but I am open to any suggestions about sources.