Infinite Wisdom

"War permits no excuses."

--

Ibycus

La Triviata

• Duke Carlo of Parma’s victory at Bitonto, near Bari in the Kingdom of Naples on August 25, 1734, was so complete that when the Prince of Belmonte, the defeated Austrian commander, wished to send a courier to report the disaster to Vienna, he had to ask that an officer be released from captivity to perform the sad duty.


• To finance his invasion of Parthia in 53 B.C., the Roman Triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus plundered the temple of the Syrian goddess Atargatis in Heiropolis, as well as that of the Jewish God in Jerusalem, which may help explain why he lost big time.


• During the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the average sentence for a flogging in the British Army was 720 stripes.


• So inept a commander was the Venetian general Bartolomeo d’Alviano (1455 – 1515), that some disgruntled citizens took to calling him "Destructori patriae - Destroyer of the Fatherland!"


• During World War I, approximately 1.1-percent of all Russians were killed, as well as 1.6-percent of all Britons and of all Italians, 1.9-percent of Austro-Hungarians, 3-percent of all Germans, 3.4-percent of all Frenchmen, 3.7-percent of all Turks, and a staggering 5.7-percent of all Serbs.


• In their patriotic efforts to support the war effort during the Revolution, in 1777 the noble citizens of Maryland decided to volunteer for military service “such disaffected persons that were arrested, or hereafter shall be arrested.”


• During World War II, Donald Pleasance, later a distinguished actor (“A Man for All Seasons”), served in the RAF until shot down and captured, after which he was sent to the infamous STALAG LUFT III, where he played an important role in planning the famous "Great Escape," for which he later received a "Mention in Dispatches" from the Air Ministry, and still later went on to act in the film about the attempt.


• In the eighteenth century the average ratio of deaths-from-disease to deaths-from-combat in a European Army was 3-to-1, save for the British Army, which, due to extensive campaiging in tropical climes had an average of 8-to-1.

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