Infinite Wisdom

"Preëminence in military skill excels all other virtues."

La Triviata

• About 40 percent of male New Zealanders between the ages of 19 and 45, totaling about 120,000 men, served overseas during the First World War, of whom 18,000 died and over 50,000 were injured.
• The first Roman to be awarded the title Germanicus, essentially signifying “Conqueror of the Germans”, was Nero Claudius Drusus, younger brother of the later Emperor Tiberius and father of the Emperor Claudius, for his campaigns between the Rhine and the Elbe in 12-9 BC.
• Early in the Korean War (1950-1951), American troops discovered that the lubricant provided for the M-1 rifle was inadequate to the demands of the local winter, though they quickly figured out that their weapons usually could be defrosted by an application of fresh urine.
• Although the two did not meet, both Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi served in the Battle of Spion Kop (January 23-24, 1900) against the Boers, the one as a journalist and officer in the South African Light Horse, and the other as a warrant officer in the Indian Ambulance Corps.
• During the Second Battle of the Gulf of Sirte (March 22, 1942), an Italian squadron of one battleship, three cruisers, and a destroyer fired some 1,490 rounds of 100mm or larger ammunition, achieving just two hits, plus a few near-misses, while the opposing British squadron of four cruisers and ten destroyers, expended over 2,800 rounds, achieving only one hit, plus one near-miss.
• About 870 BC, after conquering the small Kingdom of Kinalua, on the Orontes in modern Syria, the Assyrians carefully catalogued their loot, beginning with “100 talents of tin and 100 talents of iron, 1,000 oxen, 10,000 sheep,” going on to list various other valuables, such as fine garments and furnishings, and concluding with “10 female singers, the king’s niece with her rich dowry, a large female monkey, and ducks.”
•  In 1935 some 10,000 young men applied for admission to the Chinese Central Military Academy – the famed Whampoa Academy – though only 700 were accepted.
• From May of 1918 until April of 1921, Field Marshal Sir John French, who had commanded the BEF early in World War I, served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and during the Irish War for Independence (1919-1921) directed operations against the nationalists, who were ardently supported by his sister Charlotte French Despard, a prominent suffragette, socialist, and Irish patriot. 

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