Infinite Wisdom

"Of the First World War it may be said that never have such a gay and brilliant generation been so ardently prepared to meet an early death."

La Triviata

• Plutarch tells us that the great Theban general Epaminondas (c. 410-362 BC), referred to the region of Boeotia as the "polemou orchestran – dance floor of war," thus coining the term “theatre of war,” using the phrase that describes the part of a Greek playhouse between the stage and the audience.
• Though built at tremendous expense in 1593 to defend the Venetian Republic from the Austrians and the Turks and constantly improved over the centuries, one of the most perfect “star fortresses,” the city of Palmanova (northeast of Venice)  was never besieged by an enemy.
• Some senior naval officers and politicians who, after December 7, 1941 criticized President Franklin D. Roosevelt for stationing the fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1940 as a deterrent to Japanese aggression supported the idea when, in September of 1939, then Command-in-Chief, US Fleet Adm. Claude Bloch proposed basing the fleet there.
• As part of his preparations to go on Crusade, King Richard I “Lionheart” of England (r. 1189-1199) created a special tax, which was widely known as the “Saladin Levy” after the great Saracen king.
• During World War II, British intelligence agents sought to trick Hitler into believing that the Allies were planning major operations in Scandinavia by having cooperative stock brokers make hefty investments in Norwegian securities on the Stockholm Bourse, thus creating the impression that some millionaires had secret knowledge of a pending invasion of that country.
• Winston Churchill’s first cabinet post was as Under-Secretary for the Colonies in the liberal government installed in December of 1905, primarily on the strength of his exploits in South Africa in 1899-1900.
• Considering differences in population, industrial capacity, technology, and national wealth, the British fleet of 1795, some 512,000 tons of ships, compares quite favorably with the approximately 1,500,000 tons that the Royal Navy had in the early 1930s.
• At one point during the Cold War, some senior American defense officials, both uniformed and suited, believed that the Soviets might pre-position “suitcase” bombs in their embassies and consular offices, the better to take out major U.S. cities by surprise should they want to start a nuclear exchange.

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