Infinite Wisdom

"Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never."

La Triviata

• By Act of Congress in 1792, the Department of the Treasury was responsible for procuring all supplies needed by the War Department, including rations, arms, and other materiel, a matter that was not changed until July 16, 1798, when the task was transferred to the Secretary of War.
• Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II of Macedon, once threatened the Spartans by saying, "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city," to which the Laconians replied with the appropriately laconic message, "If,” which prompted him to drop the matter.
• The youngest person to have been awarded the Medal of Honor was Willie Johnson, of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the drummer boy of Company D, 3rd Vermont Volunteers, who received it for the Seven Days Battles, when just 13..
• During a disorderly protest by some troops, a soldier pointed his halberd at Gonzalvo de Cordoba’s breast, whereupon “The Great Captain” gently pushed it aside, saying “Comrade, take care in playing with that weapon that you do not wound your general,” defusing a potentially disastrous situation.
• Désirée Clary (1777-1860) seems to have been destined to marry someone of consequence, for at various times she was courted by, among others, Joseph Bonaparte, later for a time King of Naples and then of Spain, by his brother Napoleon, later Emperor of the French, by Jean-Andoche Junot, who became a general of division and a duke, by Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, who became a Marshal of France and a duke, and finally by Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, who became successively a Marshal of France, a duke, and King of Sweden, whom she married in 1798.
• During the reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14), an ordinary legionary would receive 12,000 sestertii upon retirement after 25 years service, and a Praetorian Guardsman 20,000 after 20 years, perhaps the equivalent of $750,000-$1,250,000 today.
• General Nguyen Van Thieu, who became President of the Republic of Vietnam in 1967, began his military career during World War II as a volunteer with the Communist Viet Minh, before becoming an officer in the French colonial army.
• Many of the troops serving in the Spanish Army that passed through the Papal States in 1734 to invade Naples went AWOL to visit Rome and see the Pope, a matter to which their commander, the Count de Montemar, turned a blind eye, since almost all of them shortly returned to the ranks.
• Of 19,034 young men who served a year as volunteer officer candidates in the Italian Army between 1900 and 1910, only 622 – 3.26 percent – actually received reserve commissions, the rest having failed the exam or been found wanting in the performance of their duties.

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