Infinite Wisdom

"No international law on warfare is in existence which provides that a soldier who has committed a mean crime can escape by pleading at his defense that he followed the commands of his superiors."

La Triviata

• It’s likely that the last time someone was “knighted oin the field of battle” was in July of 1944, when King George VI, on a tour of the Italian Front, made Lt. Gen Richard McCreery, commanding the British X Corps, and Lt. Gen. John Harding, of the British XIII Corps, Knights Commander of the Bath.
• During the Revolutionary War, roughly a fifth of the officers commissioned in the Continental Line came from Massachusetts, some 480 men.
• Having taken the Persian city of Nishapur in 1221, the Mongols not only slaughtered every inhabitant, but neatly arranged the heads of the slain in separate piles for men, women, and children, though it’s not clear what they did with the heads of the dogs, cats, cows, hogs, and other animals, all of which they also killed. 
• In fourteenth century Italy, the English mercenary William Gold bore the nickname Cocco, apparently because he began his military career as a cook – cuoco in Italian.
• Of about 250,000 American soldiers killed or wounded in action during World War I, fully a third were felled by gas, about half by artillery, ten percent by rifle or machine gun fire, and the balance by all other causes, including mines, grenades, and hand-to-hand combat.
• In the course of World War II, Winston Churchill traveled an estimated 105,728 miles outside the British Isles, by land, air, or sea.
• Captured by the British in the Battle of Queenstown Heights on October 13, 1812, and held at Fort George, Ontario, Col. Winfield Scott arranged for the American troops at Fort Niagara, just across the river of that name, to fire an artillery salute the following day for the funeral of British Maj. Gen. Sir Isaac Brock, who had been killed during the action  in which he had been taken, a gesture deeply appreciated by the enemy.
• The annual New Year’s gala playing of “The Radetzky March” by the Vienna Philharmonic began on January 1, 1940, during the Nazi regime, and commemorates a commander who billed Italian mothers for the rope used to hang their sons.

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