Infinite Wisdom

"He that feareth not an enemy knows not what war is."

La Triviata

• From September 30 to October 4, 1914, British Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver, Director of Naval Intelligence, aided only by a Belgian Army officer, four Belgian privates, and a Belgian boy scout, personally sabotaged 38 steamers anchored in the Scheldt by blowing up their engines, to prevent them from being captured by the Germans.
• During his unsuccessful expedition in Arabia in 25 B.C., the Procurator of Egypt, Gaius Aelius Gallus occupied the "City of the Negrani," believed by some scholars to be Mecca, which, if correct, would make the Romans the only non-Arabs or non-Moslems to have ever captured the place.
• Aside from two child monarchs (Edwards V & VI), King George III (1760-1820) was apparently the only English sovereign since the Norman Conquest in 1066 who never visited a foreign country, and the only sovereign of Great Britain who never visited Scotland, Wales, or Ireland.
• Following their disastrous defeat in the twin battles of Iena-Auerstadt (Oct. 14, 1806), 51 of the Prussian Army’s 60 infantry regiments ceased to exist, either through losses in action or captivity.
• During the Barbary War (1801-1805), a thoughtful citizen wrote President Thomas Jefferson proposing that the Navy equip some ships with steam engines and special pumps, so that they could spray enemy vessels with scalding hot water.
• When the film Wake Island premiered in Detroit, on September 17, 1942, 4,200 civilians purchased $1.3 million worth of war bonds, and 350 men enlisted in the Marine Corps. 
• Formed in 1741, Massachusetts’ Governor’s Company of Cadets, which for a time was commanded by John Hancock, is today embodied in the 101st Engineer Battalion.
• During late 1914 and early 1915, the French Army experimented with a “chariot bomb,” a device that consisted of a partially armored tank of liquid oxygen which could be shoved through “No Man’s Land” using a mechanical traction system and then exploded by a round from a rifle fired into its rear; although when used properly it could open an 18 meter breech in enemy barbed wire, in practice hostile artillery and machine gun fire detonated most of them before they could get so far. 

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