Infinite Wisdom

"My Prince, the duty of a good general is to conquer, and not to fight"

La Triviata

• During World War II Britain's 51^st (Highland) Division, a Territorial Army unit that accumulated an impressive record, featured "HD" on its unit emblem, and earned the nickname the "Highway Decorators" because the troops used it to mark its route across Europe.
• About 30 percent of Italy's approximately 500,000 military dead during World War I were due to illness, exposure, or other non-combat causes, in contrast to about 10 percent in the German Army.
• While serving as British Commander-in-Chief in Ireland during the late 1880s, Prince William Augustus Edward of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach mentioned to a friend that he was going to institute more rigorous musketry training for the local militia, but demurred after being told, "If you make the militiamen good shots there won't be a landlord left in the country."
• During the Second World War, the 2,500 or so residents of the Falkland Islands not only raised a 200 man local defense force, but also collected sufficient funds to donate ten aircraft to the Royal Air Force.
• The cannon shot that killed the great Turenne at the Battle of the Salzbach (July 27, 1675), also took off the arm of the Marquis de St.-Hilaire, causing the latter's son to burst into tears, whereupon the old man said "Weep not for me my dear, but grieve for the death of that great man who is killed by the same ball . . . ."
• Reportedly, during the Gallipoli Campaign, British tinned beef became so inedible when temperatures rose, that Australian troops would sometimes throw cans of the stuff at the Turks, who would often throw them back, usually with rude suggestions.
• In 1805, during the Napoleonic Era, the Chief Clerk of the British Admiralty earned £850 a year, more than twice what the captain of a first rate ship of the line was paid, and he also had an annual "allowance" of £150 and an impressive additional sum from gratuities customarily paid by officers upon their promotion .
• During the German Empire, the general staff college -- the Preußische Kriegsakademie -- not only taught military history, geography, and paperwork, but also penmanship, so that every officer would write in the same hand, to prevent ambiguities.

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