Infinite Wisdom

"The realization came to me that war, disguise it as you may, is but dirty, shoddy business which only a fool would undertake."

La Triviata

• Following his victory in the Third Mithridatic War (66-61 BC), Pompey the Great gave each common soldier in his army at least 6,000 sesterces -- about seven years' pay -- with appropriately larger awards for men of higher rank, culminating in perhaps 5 million to each of his approximately 20 principal commanders and staff officers.
• A survey of religious preferences among American soldiers conducted in early 1918 revealed that rather more than a third of the approximately 24,000 men in the 77^th Division (composed largely of draftees from New York City) were Jewish.
• During his 35-year reign, King Shalmaneser III of Assyria (858-824 BC) conducted 31 wars.
• Early in 1940, shortly before Italy entered World War II, Air Marshal Italo Balbo proposed opening hostilities with a surprise invasion of Malta by the San Marco naval infantry regiment and airborne troops, followed by the 47^th “Bari” Infantry Division, and covered by Italy’s full naval and air forces; but Mussolini dismissed the plan as impractical.
• The English expedition against Cadiz in 1626 was so badly managed supplied that disease carried off thousands of men, killing 130 and incapacitating 160 on the HMS Anne Royal alone , or about a third of her crew of 880 or so.
• Unlike most of their score or so comrades, Irwin Rommel and Erich von Manstein, arguably the ablest of Germany’s field marshals in World War II, were not graduates of the General Staff College.
• During World War I, France suffered an average of 890 men killed in action every day for 1,560 days.
• During some nine months of operations in France, Belgium, and Germany in 1944-1945, to help raise morale George S. Patton managed not only casual visits as far down as front line companies, but also from one to four visits to a subordinate corps or division headquarters everyday. 

More...