Infinite Wisdom

"The weaker or more incompetent an enemy, the easier the business of generalship becomes; the converse is also true."

La Triviata

• Adolf Hitler had a private library of some 16,000 volumes, in many of which he made extensive notes, most of which now reside in the Library of Congress.
• An analysis of the personnel of British regiments preparing to depart for America in 1774-1775, suggests that men with three or more years’ service comprised two-thirds or more of the troops, and that in most regiments about a quarter or more of the men had been under arms for ten years’ or longer.
• Between March and July of 1848, over 300 volunteer military organizations were raised in Italy to help newly liberalized regimes from Naples to Piedmont overthrow Austrian domination.
• In 1942, U.S. economic warfare experts calculated that recycling one worn out tire yielded sufficient rubber to recap two or three others, with the addition of only two ounces of virgin rubber.
• Taking the field against Alexander the Great in 333 B.C., the Persian King Darius III reportedly brought along some 360 concubines, as well as his wife, daughters, and mother, which may help explain why he lost big time.
• Of 6,500 men in the Uruguayan Army fighting the invading Argentines in mid-1843, only 800 were native-born.
• The earliest evidence for the use of horses as mounts dates from about 4,000 B.C., and was found in the Ukrainian village of Dereivka, where archaeological evacuations during the 1960s uncovered the ritual burial of a stallion, with teeth showing indications of wear characteristic of a bit, along with the remains of what seem to be bits.
• The Roman Senator Marcus Cornelius Fronto was assigned to govern the province of Asia (western Turkey-in-Asia) around A.D. 150 or so, at the height of Roman power, and for that purpose brought with him one Velius Rufus Senex, a specialist in anti-bandit operations, the empire being rife with brigandage even at the most stable periods.

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