Infinite Wisdom

"It is not the big armies that win battles, it is the good ones."

La Triviata

• Left for dead on the field after being wounded 26 times during the Battle of Edgehill (October 23, 1642), Royalist Sir Gervase Scroop was found the next day by his son to be still alive, and managed a complete recovery.
• Of some 20,000 Sudanese “recruited” by Mehemet Ali of Egypt for military service between 1820 and 1823, only about 3,000 survived through 1824.
• In an effort to entice Irishmen to volunteer for its newly formed army, in 1828 Brazil sent recruiters to the Emerald Isle offering generous pay, copious rations, and liberal terms of service, plus a bonus of 50 acres upon completion of a five year enlistment, though carefully avoiding mention that the land was covered by jungle.
• In late 1863, the Russian Army proposed encasing the granite fortresses defending St. Petersburg with 12-inch iron armor plate.
• At the Battle of Culloden (April 16, 1746), the 13^th Foot (later the Somerset Light Infantry), was so heavily engaged that every officer was either killed or wounded, and by the end of the action the regiment was entirely commanded by NCOs.
• Reportedly, King Charles XII of Sweden (r. 1697–1718) once emerged from a battle without a scratch, but while undressing for bed discovered that a musket ball had lodged in his necktie.
• In the summer and fall of 1944, Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, and Evelyn Waugh, the novelist, conducted a “fact finding” mission to vet the Yugoslav partisans, spending considerable time in the field with them, often under fire, before returning to submit a report so unfavorable it was promptly buried.
• In 1827 King Kamehameha III of Hawaii (r. 1824-1854) had a Royal Guard of 200 men, uniformed and disciplined to European standards, which was essentially the entire standing army, though it was backed by 6,000 properly equipped militiamen .

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