Infinite Wisdom

"Nothing is so good for the morale of the troops as occasionally to see a dead general."

La Triviata

•  Almost half of all German military personnel and the great majority of German civilians who perished in World War II did so during the final 10 months of the war; that is, after it was clear that Germany could no longer win nor even secure a negotiated peace.
• An old tradition has it that George Frideric Handel himself composed the "The Regimental Quick Step” of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), which is now embodied in the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, and is also used by The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada.
• As a child, George S. Patton, Jr., had a toy sword on which he had inscribed “Lt. Gen. G. S. Patton”.
•  Between September 1^st and November 11^th of 1918, the period of World War I that saw the heaviest fighting by American troops, approximately 35,000 of Uncle Sam’s nephews in uniform died from combat, and 32,000 more from the so-called “Spanish Influenza”.
• In the early 1860s, the Royal Navy discovered that building six wooden-hulled ironclad warships would cost about £197,560 each, while four similar iron-hulled ironclads would each cost about £4,000 less.
• At the end of World War II, the United States formed the “National Defense Reserve Fleet,” consisting of 2,277 merchant ships “mothballed” in various bays and backwaters, at an average annual maintenance cost then of $19,000 each; a fair number of which (now hopelessly obsolete) are still available in the event of a national emergency.
• Winston Churchill was notorious for being able to conduct business well into the wee hours, which, unbeknownst to most people, he accomplished by taking a daily siesta of at least an hour, a custom he picked up while serving as a war correspondent with the Spanish Army in Cuba in 1895.
• The first formal war dog training program in modern history was established by the Imperial German Army in 1884.

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