Infinite Wisdom

"Those who have not yet realized danger are generally the bravest soldiers."

La Triviata

• Strapped for cash while at war with Britain in 1694 and 1695, the French Navy hit upon the simple expedient of leasing spare frigates and even ships-of-the-line to individual entrepreneurs for service as privateers.
• In 1939, using floatplanes operating off merchant ships, Germany arranged to drop five foot long steel “darts” bearing the swastika flag in several areas of Antarctica, to established a territorial “claim” in the region.
• On the eve of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Army found that its new Krag-Jorgenson rifles had to have their sights re-adjusted for tropical service; because they originally had been calibrated at the Springfield Arsenal during the Winter of 1894, and when used in a warmer climate fired high and to the left.
• Of 140 British destroyers lost during World War II, 46, slightly less than a third, were sunk in the Mediterranean.
• During the Second and Third Centuries, Roman governors were routinely assigned a detail of a thousand men, divided between infantry (pedites singularis) and cavalry (equites singularis), so that they would have troops available even in provinces that lacked a permanent garrison, though how these men were recruited, and whether they formed a part of the army or were a separate organization is unknown..
• For most of the 1920s the only war strength units in the U.S. Army were two battalions at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning. 
• Retreating after the Battle of Le Cateau, August 26, 1914, the 1^st Battalion of the Cameronians marched 91 kilometers in 36 hours.
• Approximately a quarter of the 11,000 troops in the French light armored division that served in the Gulf War of 1991 were members of the Foreign Legion.
• To acknowledge the important if unheralded work of the his waggoneers in keeping his army in the field, on several occasions during the Revolutionary War George Washington was seen to tip his hat in salute to the hard working teamsters.

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