Infinite Wisdom

"The god of war hates those who hesitate."

La Triviata

• Perhaps as a way of assuaging their martial pride, during the German occupation of their country in World War II, French archaeologists conducted extensive evacuations at Gergovia, site of Caesar’s defeat by the Gauls in 52 BC.
• In 1813 Napoleon ordered a new 44-gun frigate to be laid down at the Arsenale of Venice, to be named Moscova, in dubious commemoration of his disastrous Russian Campaign.
• Although the fleet was expanding at an impressive rate, between 1905 and 1914 the U.S. Navy accepted only about 25 percent of the men who attempted to enlist.
• In the course of leading the heroic defense of the Republic of Rome against French troops in April, May, and June of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi had four horses shot out from under him.
• During the War of 1812, it appears that U.S. Army courts martial handed down 260 death sentences, of which 205 were actually carried out, with most of the reprieves occurring in 1815, after peace had been restored.
• Only two of the 89 divisions in the U.S. Army during the Second World War received the Presidential Unit Citation, the 4^th Armored and 101^st Airborne.
• In 1916 a German military mission to Kabul was unable to convince the Afghani government to undertake a war against Britain, thereby threatening India and perhaps taking some heat off the Western Front, though failure did not prevent the expedition's leader, Wilhelm von Hentig, from becoming Chief of the Oriental Section of the foreign ministry during the Nazi regime.
• Of the hundreds of ships hired by the British Navy Board as transports during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), only 34 were lost to all causes; 21 to enemy action, eleven of which were captured but ransomed, two to accidental fires, and eleven more to the hazards of the sea. 

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