Infinite Wisdom

"It is men who do whatever gets done in battle."

La Triviata

• Engaging in some capitalistic price gouging, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Stalin’s Soviet Union collected some $500 million in gold from the Republican regime in payment for arms and military advisors, easily equivalent to about $25 billion today.
• The Roman Emperor Julian (r. AD 331-363), found a useful way of controlling brigandage along the Rhine frontier, recruiting into imperial service two of the principal bandits, the Frank Charitto and the Allaman Vadomarius, who with their gangs helped fight off wilder raiders.
• By dint of extraordinary efforts, during the First World War, the production of wheat, oats, and other cereals in Britain rose 30 percent, despite the fact that many agricultural workers were in military service.
• During the Second World War, American troops assigned to the “Southeast Asia Command” often contended that the acronym “SEAC” stood for “Save England’s Asian Colonies”.
• The French and Indian War and the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763) caused Britain’s national debt to rise from £75 million to £133 million, sums today easily equivalent to £110 billion and £188 billion.
• Approximately one out of every three pilots who entered front line service in World War I died in combat or due to accidents.
• In 1797, when Little Turtle, sometime leader of the Ohio Indian coalition who had twice virtually wiped out the entire army, visited George Washington, the President presented him with a sword as a token of his esteem, which was later placed on the warrior’s grave, and is now in the Fort Wayne History Center, in Indiana.
• Although casualties among enlisted men in the Spanish Foreign Legion during the Civil War of 1936-1939 were unusually high at 39 percent, those for their officers were even higher, 46 percent.

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