Infinite Wisdom

"An estimate of what the enemy will probably do is important, but we should not be surprised when the enemy does something else."

La Triviata

• In the last years of Napoleon’s empire, the official cost of commutation – payment in lieu of military service – rose to 6,000 francs, perhaps $240,000 today
• When Italy’s Air Minister Italo Balbo opened the ministry’s new offices in Rome in 1931, his subordinates were surprised to discover that the dining room was designed so that meals had to be eaten standing up, intended to insure that no one lingered long over lunch.
• Reportedly, during the 1870s, the Royal Navy was still issuing pork and beef that had been salted down in 1805.
• At least during the nineteenth century it was unusual for the Masai of East Africa to kill enemies whom they had taken prisoner, apparently because, as one historian delicately noted, “their methods of warfare rarely include the taking of such.”
• During World War I, tiny San Marino, nestled in the Romagna, declared war on the Central Powers and saw 15 of its sons volunteer for service with the Italian Army, of whom at least two were killed in action, and also maintained a field hospital at the front.
• Thinking his opponent would decline a challenge as being beneath his dignity, in 215 B.C. the Campanian Cerrinus Vibellius Taurea, fighting for Hannibal, offered to engage the Tribune Tiberius Claudius Asellus in single combat, though when the Roman accepted, he lost his nerve and fled.
• The earliest known specimen of a gun is a bronze piece about 34 centimeters long, weighing about 3½ kilograms, which was found in 1970 in Acheng County, Heilongjiang Province, China, and is dated to some time before 1290.
• During the War of the French Revolution (1793-1802), the Royal Navy suffered an estimated 42,000 desertions.

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