Infinite Wisdom

"Under a good general there are no bad soldiers."

La Triviata

• In 1933, when he engineered his first coup to seize control of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista was a military stenographer ranking as a sergeant, but almost immediately promoted himself to colonel and chief of staff.
• Of the 37 elephants that Hannibal shepherded from Spain through Gaul and then over the Alps to fight the Romans on their home ground in 218 B.C., only one survived the following winter in northern Italy, an intrepid Asiatic female named Syras.
• Between 1867 and 1892 the French spent more on defense than any of the other major European power, 23,154.4 million francs, compared to Russia’s 22,426.4 million, Germany’s 14,208.0 million, Austria-Hungary’s 7,004.5 million, and Italy’s 6,822.4 million.
• In 102 B.C., Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who had twice been consul, learned that his son, while commanding a troop of cavalry, had fled before an attack by the Germanic Cimbri, and ordered the youth to never enter his presence again, whereupon the young officer “was driven to use his sword more bravely against himself than he had used it against the enemy.”
• Nineteen men have received the Medal of Honor twice, including five soldiers, seven sailors, and seven Marines, five of the latter having each been given both the Army and Navy versions of the award for the same action whilst serving in France during World War I.
• Registering for the census one year, Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, put as his occupation “Re Galantuomo – Gentleman King,” giving the nickname by which he was popularly known.
• When a subaltern referred to him merely as “Wellington,” the Duke scolded the man for showing disrespect by using his commander’s name without his title, to which the young officer replied, “I beg your pardon, your grace," but I never heard of any prefix to the name of Caesar or Napoleon, and I treated your name with similar honor.”
• The Brazilian dreadnoughts Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, completed in 1910 and decommissioned after World War II, never fired a shot at a foreign enemy, but the first was involved in five separate rebellions and coups, while her sister ship took part in four such adventures.

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