Infinite Wisdom

"Always remember that those whose careers depend upon war always want war."

La Triviata

• Although an American citizen, during World War I, Raymond Chandler, later creator of the famous fictional detective Philip Marlow (The Big Sleep, etc.), served in the Canadian 50^th Victoria Infantry.
• At the height of his power, the Umayyad Emir Aal-Hakam of Cordoba (r. 796-822), maintained a permanent bodyguard of 5,000 Christian troops, mostly Franks and Gallicians, but including even some Slavs, as they could be counted upon in the event of unrest among his co-religionists.
• Despite the widespread impression they were “asleep” during the 1930s, in 1934, only about a year after the accession of Hitler to power in Germany, the British adopted a five year military expansion plan, so that defense outlays rose annually, from £100 million to £700 million by 1939, today perhaps equivalent to an increase from somewhat over $3 trillion to nearly $19.5 trillion.
• In A.D. 9, faced with mutinies by troops in some provinces and barbarian incursions in others, the Roman Army resorted to conscription to raise troops, including enough Jewish men to form a cohort, which was sent to cope with unrest in Sardinia, a task which they appear to have performed satisfactorily.
• Lt. Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks, who commanded the British XXX Corps in northwestern Europe from D-Day to the end of World War II, learned of Germany's surrender while listening to the radio as he was sitting in the latrine.
• French officers who surrendered to the Prussians at Sedan and Metz in 1870 were permitted by their captors to retain their swords until they reached internment camps, a privilege the Japanese later granted to Russian officers taken at Port Arthur in 1905.
• During the Great Depression there were only about 60 cases of desertion a year among the approximately 80,000 enlisted men in the U.S. Navy.
• In 1777, British quartermasters calculated that operations in wilderness areas of North America, such as upper New York, required two horse-drawn carts per day to haul supplies for every 500 troops in a force, so that Maj. Gen. Sir John Burgoyne’s 7,800 strong expedition intended to capture the Hudson Valley needed nearly 30 carts for each day it was in the field, or at least 3,700, given his campaign was expected to last about four months.

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