Infinite Wisdom

What age has not been plagued by barbarian troubles?"

La Triviata

• In 1865 the budget for the personnel and operations of the Austrian Imperial Army headquarters in Vienna was 3.15 million florins, while that for all 81 infantry regiments in the army was 3.8 million
• Although the Royal Navy has been the backbone of the defense of England since time immemorial, it was not until 1797 that a naval officer was made a Knight of the Garter, Sir Richard Howe, who had commanded the British fleet for some time during the American Revolution and was later First Lord of the Admiralty, and was the man who settled the Spithead Mutiny on 1797.
• Although Americans referred to Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne” as “Mad Anthony” for battlefield heroics during the Revolutionary War, the northwestern Indians had perhaps a better nickname for him, reflecting the extraordinary energy and speed with which he conducted operations, “The Whirlwind.”
• In 408, the Roman Emperor Theodosius II barred pagans from military service, and in 416 prohibited providing arms or military training to pagans.
• During King Philip’s War (1675–1676), Massachusetts military regulations required that men found to have threatened or struck an officer, or had committed mutiny, murder, rape, adultery, or “unnatural acts” were to be put to death, while blasphemers were to have their tongues bored through with a hot iron, but anyone guilty of fornication was to be punished at the discretion of his commanding officer.
• In 1973 a group of British and German historians and military officers, including some senior veterans of World War II, played a series of wargames at Sandhurst, the Royal Military College, to evaluate offensive and defensive plans if Hitler actually had attempted Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain, and concluded that, while the defenders would have taken serious losses beating off the attack, perhaps as few as 15,000 of the initial 90,000 troops in the landing force would have escaped death or capture.
• Among the Mexican military supplies found at Matamoros when American forces under Zachary Taylor occupied the town on May 18, 1846, were the usual stocks of muskets and gunpowder and rations, as well as some 200,000 cigars, which the general ordered distributed to his troops.
• An old tradition in the Royal Navy required that when mess cooks were preparing a Christmas pudding, the ship's captain was given the honor of stirring it, using a oar.

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