Infinite Wisdom

"The wounded, to whatever army they belong, are sacred and cannot be enemies."

La Triviata

• Hoping to cash in on the rising tide of patriotism as World War I broke out, a corset manufacturer in Leipzig reminded the women of the Reich of their duty to discard “un-German” foundation garments of French origin in favor of suitably Teutonic ones.


• By some estimates, during “The Great Patriotic War” as many as 158,000 Red Army soldiers may have been condemned to death by the Soviet authorities.


• In 1936 the pro-German leaders of the Argentine Army established a military purchasing commission in Berlin, which was not withdrawn until 1944, although from the onset of World War II, in September 1939, the amount of equipment actually procured plummeted to nothing.


• During their triumph in 293 B.C., for the defeat of the Samnites the Roman Consul L. Papirius Cursor displayed over 2.5 million pounds of bronze obtained from selling prisoners as slaves, while his colleague Spurius Carvillius Maximus only displayed 380,000 pounds of bronze at his triumph, a few days later, because he’d given each legionary in his army 102 pounds of bronze, with larger sums for centurions and officers.


• In 1879 French Minister of Marine Jean Bernard Jauréguiberry ordered the closing of the last government-owned naval gun factory, and was soon afterwards appointed a director of the Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranee, a private firm with contracts for over 300 new guns at a cost approximately 15-percent more than of the old government works.


• During the height of Queen Anne’s War (1707-1711), Massachusetts maintained a sixth of its military aged manpower under arms, the highest contribution of any jurisdiction in the British Empire, including Britain itself, and mounted six locally financed expeditions against the French in Canada.


• Of some 17,955,000 men examined for induction by the Selective Service System during World War II, 35.8 % (6,420,000) were rejected as physically, mentally, or morally unfit.

More...