Infinite Wisdom

"Give me troops who are prepared to fight to the finish, and I will undertake to show good tactics."

La Triviata

• During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), one-in-eight free Southern white men of military age bore arms, in contrast to two-in-five in New England.
• The U.S. Army's famous maneuvers in Louisiana, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and elsewhere in the 18 months before Pearl Harbor, resulted in the removal of 31 of the 42 commanders of corps and divisions, and the sidetracking of literally hundreds of other prewar officers.
• When the Vandals captured Rome (June 2, 455), the Empress Licinia Eudoxia and her daughters were kidnapped by King Gaiseric and held in comfortable circumstances for several years at Carthage, until the girls were ransomed by Eastern Emperor Leo I, but their mother preferred to stay in Africa, having married Huneric, who later became king of the Vandals.
• With Soviet Russia a virtual ally of Nazi Germany during the early months of World War II, in early 1940, the French proposed to the British joint offensive operations against the Caucasus oil fields, a project that was interrupted when Hitler blitzed his way to the Channel in May of 1940.
• In May of 1848 a coalition of Cuban nationalist groups offered U.S. Maj. Gen. William Worth, hero of several Mexican War battlefields, $3,000,000 if he would lead a revolution to liberate their country from the Spanish, which he wisely declined, thus avoiding the firing squad that awaited those who actually took part.
• Among the many wedding gifts received when King Farouk of Egypt (r. 1936-1952) married Farida Safinaz Zulficarin, on January 20, 1938, was a Mercedes-Benz sport coupe, sent by Adolf Hitler.
• From 1832 until 1881, one-third of the second-lieutenant vacancies in the French Army were reserved for NCOs with at least two years in grade, provided they attended an officer candidate school, while another third was reserved for graduates of the military academies of Saint-Cyr and the Polytechnique and the final third was left to the discretion of the Minister of War or certain senior military officers, giving France the highest proportion of officers promoted from the ranks of any major European army.
• In 1816, the Prince Regent of England (later George IV), hired a new chef, Antonin Carême, for £2000 a year, more than twice the annual pay of the captain of a 100 gun ship-of-the-line. 

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