The name of the war (including alternate names);
When did it happen?
Who fought in it?
Why did it happen? (but if it is impossible to simplify complex causes into a one-sentence explanation, leave this for a later section)
What was the outcome?
What was its significance, if any?

The article can be structured along these lines:

The historical background to the conflict; preceding conflicts; the political situation; military preparedness and technology.
The causes of the conflict.
The trigger, if notable. For example the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria triggered a sequence of events that led to World War I. Take care to distinguish a trigger or pretext from the underlying causes that allowed the event to trigger a war.
How the partipants became involved, and the first military moves.
A summary of the conflict. When a war is large, it can often be divided into phases, or into geographic regions ("theaters"), or into naval and land campaigns. Military actions then be described by phase, theater, or campaign. Don't describe individual battles in detail; refer to a separate article on the battle and just explain the result of the battle and its consequences for the war.
If the war is very large there should be separate articles for each phase/theater/campaign of the war, and for important tactical, strategic and technological aspects of the war. Give brief summaries of those aspects of the war in the main article, and refer the reader to the detailed article.
How the war came to an end. If there was an important peace treaty, make a separate article for the peace treaty and refer to it.
What were the consequences of the war? Who did it affect? What happened next? Did the war lead to peace or to further wars? Were countries conquered or liberated? Were there significant advances in tactics or technology?
Lists and tables: list of battles; list of countries and alliances involved; casualties by country.

If the article is long, divide it into sections along the lines indicated above (if it is short, there is no need). See First Anglo-Dutch War for a short article with this structure, and World War I for a long article.

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Categories

A war should belong to the categories for the history of each of its participants, and to Category:Wars. In the most general case this is accomplished as illustrated in this diagram, using the Hundred Years' War as an example. Articles are in bold, categories are plain.

History of England    Wars    History of France      Battles
        |             |  |             |                |
        `-----+-------'  `------+------'                |
              |                 |                       |
        English wars        French wars                 |
              |                 |                       |
              `---------+-------'                       |
                        |                               |
               Hundred Years' War                       |
                        |                               |
              .---------+-----------------.             |
              |                           |             |
     Hundred Years' War    Battles of the Hundred Years' War
                                          |
                               .----------+-----------.
                               |                      |
                     Battle of Agincourt       Battle of Orléans

However, some sub-categories may not exist and it may not be worth creating them (as a rule of thumb it is worth making a sub-category when you have five articles with which to populate it). In that case, bypass the non-existent sub-categories and go straight to the parent category instead.

See Biocrawler:WikiProject History and Biocrawler:WikiProject Battles for further advice about categorization.

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Public domain resources

The online bookshelves (http://www.army.mil/cmh/online/Bookshelves/books-era.htm) of the US Army's Cente for Military History (http://www.army.mil/cmh/)
The Naval Historical Center (http://www.history.navy.mil/) of the US Navy.

Retrieved from "http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/Biocrawler:WikiProject_Wars"

Categories: WikiProjects