Infinite Wisdom

"Soldiers are close students of tactics, but only rarely of strategy and practically never of war."

La Triviata

• Living in the age of “sexting” as we do, many of those reading this may be surprised to learn that early in the Civil War women who gave photographs of themselves to soldiers who were not kinsmen were often criticized for being very forward.
• At a command conference on Nov. 11, 1917, Imperial Crown Prince Wilhelm and Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, each commanding an army group on the Western Front, expressed their belief that the war was no longer winnable, and recommended that Germany seek a negotiated peace; the proposal was immediately rejected, exactly one year before the Empire accepted a highly unfavorable armistice.
• The largest cistern known from the early Roman Empire, the Piscina mirabilis, was built about 25 BC at Misenum, near Naples, and had a capacity of some 12,600 cubic meters of water to supply the fleet based there.
• Reportedly, of the first 500 volunteers who completed training with U.S. Army’s 1^st Ranger Battalion when it was formed at Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland in the Spring of 1942, only 87 survived alive and uninjured at the end of World War II.
• During the opening campaign of the Franco-Prussian War in the summer of 1870, French Emperor Napoleon III was in such ill health that he needed help mounting his horse, used makeup to mask an ashy appearance due to pernicious anemia, and wore diapers to cope with incontinence caused by kidney stones.
• From the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) through World War I (1914-1918), Europe was dominated by five powers: Britain, France, Prussia/Germany, Austria/Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
• During the siege of Port Arthur (Aug. 1, 1904-Jan. 2, 1905) the Japanese expended more than 44,000 hand grenades, some improvised by the troops themselves, which averages about 250 per day.

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