Infinite Wisdom

"Since I have seen alliances at work, I have lost some of my admiration for Napoleon."

La Triviata

• By one calculation, by 1966 some 3,000 books had been written about certain events in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
• In July of 1941 there were 12,055 first lieutenants in the German Army, a figure that plummeted to 7,276 by March of 1942, despite the promotion of thousands of men to that rank in the interim.
• During the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897 (Feb. 3-Dec. 4), the Turkish forces suffered some 2,000 deaths in combat, and about 28,000 from disease.
• Frederick the Great of Prussia (r. 1740-1786) was the first notable European general who did not wear armor, even on ceremonial occasions.
• When he restored the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in 27 B.C. after it had been devastated by a fire, Augustus used four great bronze columns to support the front pediment, using metal taken from the rams of warships captured from Marc Antony and Cleopatra.
• At the outbreak of World War II, in September of 1939, the French Army decided to recruit 1,000 dogs for “patrol work, Red Cross, dispatch courier, or observation duty,” a project that had not been completed by the time France fell to the Germans the following Spring.
• In 319 B. C. Antigonus Monophthalmus (“The One-Eyed”), one of Alexander the Great’s Successors, marched over 40,000 infantry, 7,000 cavalry, and a number of elephants from Cappadocia to Cretopolis in Pisidia, covering about 310 miles in seven days and seven nights to surprise his rival Alcetas, for an average march rate of about 44 miles a day.
• During the 1820s, in the West African Kingdom of Oyo, a good cavalry horse cost from 80,000 to 100,000 cowries, more than twice the price of a prime slave.

More...