Infinite Wisdom

"'All the dangers of war, and one half percent of the glory;' such is our motto, and that is the reason we expect such large salaries."

La Triviata

• On March 1, 1811, Mehemet Ali, the Turkish governor of Egypt, resolved his problems with the Mamluks, the warrior caste that had ruled the country for centuries, by the simple expedient of inviting their leaders and hundreds of their fighting men to meet him in Cairo, where he promptly slaughtered the lot.
• During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) there were about 1,500 military "enterprisers" active in Germany, mercenaries who could field entire regiments, and in some cases even small armies, about 80 percent of whom were Germans.
• The preliminary bombardment for the Third Battle of Ypres (Paschendael) saw the expenditure of 4.3 million rounds in 15 days (July 16-31, 1917), the equivalent of 321 train loads of ammunition, a years’ production for 55,000 munitions workers, worth some £22 million, most of which was actually expended in the German rear.
• In 1872 only 9-percent of the officers in the Italian Army were noblemen, in contrast to 49-percent in the German Army.
• During the 1994-1995 American intervention in Haiti, there were two casualties from suicide, out of some 20,000 troops deployed, a rate significantly below that for the American population as a whole.
• Following Napoleon’s abdication on April 6, 1814, the Royal Navy discovered that it had to find work for 60 admirals, 850 captains, and 4,000 lieutenants, in fleet reduced to perhaps 10-percent of the size it had been a few months earlier.
• In the course of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), a remarkable 2,030,000 men served in the French army or navy.
• So suspicious were the American people of the danger of “militarism” that when the Army General Staff Corps was established in the early twentieth century, Congress limited it to just 55 officers, of whom no more than 29 could be stationed in Washington at one time.

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