Infinite Wisdom

"My fighting gospel is T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am never without it"

La Triviata

• Dame Helen Mirren, the British actress, is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Field Marshal Count Mikhail Kamensky, of the Russian Army, who served from the Seven Years’ War into the Napoleonic Wars, until he retired in 1806 at 68.


• In 1916 one British division commander refused to issue helmets to his troops, because he claimed they would make the men soft.


• In France during the 1920s there were approximately 22-percent more women than men aged 20 through 39, largely as a consequence of World War I.


• Two dozen pair of luxurious gloves demanded as part of Berlin's "contribution" for having been captured by the Austrian Army in 1757, where, upon being presented to the Empress Maria Theresa, found to be all left-handed.


• During the opening hours of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French Northwest Africa on November 8,1942, the capture of the French airfield at Blida was delayed because the garrison commander dickered over the surrender terms, so that the place was actually finally taken by a Royal Navy pilot, who landed his fighter on the runway and declared that he was in charge.


• Although Pyrrhus of Epiros had several times defeated the Romans, when the royal physician sent a message offering to poison the king, the Consul Gaius Fabricius sent the letter to Pyrrhus, along with a note telling him he was a bad judge both of friends and enemies.


• In December of 1812, an official Russians inquiry concluded that the defeat of Napoleon’s invasion had left them holding 41 of his generals, 1,298 other officers, 167,510 common soldiers, and 1,311 pieces of artillery, while burial parties had interred 213,405 of his troops and nearly 100,000 of his horses.

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