Infinite Wisdom

"I don’t care if he drinks, gambles, and womanises, he hits the target!"

La Triviata

• The production of one military tunic for a Roman soldier in the late Republic and early Empire (c. 100 BC-AD 100), appears to have required about a month; three weeks of spinning thread, a week or so of weaving, and a few hours of sewing, so that a single issue of tunics for the 5,000 men in a full legion took the labor of about 1,000 women for a full year.
• In the autumn of 1860, the Papal Army was so short of equipment that new recruits often lacked uniforms, boots, and other items of kit, including prayer books!
• Of the approximately 450,000 Axis troops held as prisoners of war in the United States from April of 1942 through September of 1945, only 1,583 managed to escape, some of them after the war had ended, preferring not to be shipped home; all were rather quickly recaptured, with the exception of one who managed to elude the FBI until the 1960s.
• During the First World War, an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 German civilians died of complications from malnutrition.
• Apprehended in Confederate uniforms near an army camp in Virginia during the Civil War, two women plying a trade easily as old as soldiering told military authorities that they were merely doing their bit for the cause, and that if all the women of the South were as patriotic as they, the war would soon have been over.
• Although in most countries service as aide-de-camp to the king was a highly desired post for any young officer, during the reign of William II of the Netherlands (1840-1849), the assignment was not much sought after, because, although a very able horseman, he was noted for extraordinary recklessness when riding.
•  During World War II, Peter Fleming, a novelist, historian, and travel writer (and the brother of Ian Fleming), served with the British Special Operations Executive, at one point attempting to recruit a “Garibaldi Legion” from Italian prisoners of war to serve against the Fascist regime; which met with only limited success, mostly after Italy came over to the Allies in September of 1943.
• Exiled from France and Italy as a teenager upon the ouster of his Uncle Napoleon and the execution of his father Joachim Murat, Achille Charles Louis Napoléon Murat (1800-1847), sometime Crown Prince of Naples, Hereditary Prince of Berg, etc., etc., etc., became an American citizen, settled in Florida, prospered, rose to lieutenant colonel in the militia during the Seminole Wars, served as mayor of Tallahassee, and held other public offices.

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