Infinite Wisdom

"What a hard time young officers of the army would sometimes have but for the old sergeants."

La Triviata

• In mid-1848, shortly after the end of the Mexican-American War, as the U.S. Army prepared to return home, it sold the Mexican government an enormous amount of surplus equipment, at discount prices, including 5,125 muskets with over 750,000 rounds of ammunition, 208 carbines with 30,000 rounds, and so forth.
• During the height of the Moghul Empire in Central Asia and India, around 1700, about 4.4 million men were either in the army or the active militia, perhaps 3- or 4- percent of the total population.
• In 1930 uniforming an American soldier or marine cost Uncle Sam about $30.00-$32.00, slightly less than the price of his Springfield M1903 30-06 bolt action rifle, $32.75.
• The British Pacific Fleet, which fought as Task Force 37/57 of the U.S. Third/Fifth Fleet in 1945 was the most powerful force that ever put to sea under the White Ensign.
• The fighting between Austro-Hungarian and Italian troops for Monte San Gabriele, on the Isonzo Front, in September of 1917, was so fierce (between the 8^th and the 10^th alone 45,000 Italian shells struck the mountain), that its height was reduced by about 10 meters.
• A battery of two British 15-inch Mark I naval rifles installed at Wanstone, in southeastern England, in June of 1942, fired so often at German positions on the other side of the Strait of Dover that they had to be retubed four times before the war ended.
• So much loot was transferred from Egypt to Rome in the aftermath of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra in 30 B.C., that annual interest rates on loans fell from 12-percent to 4-percent.
• While a child, Winston Churchill amassed a collection of some 1,500 toy soldiers, which he organized into armies and staged “wars” using elaborate improvised rules.

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