Infinite Wisdom

"Discipline is the foundation of an army."

--	Jose Vilabla, General de Brigada, Spanish Army, 1922

La Triviata

• During the Franco-Prussian War, smallpox killed about 25,000 French troops but only 297 German ones, since the latter had almost all been vaccinated, though about 180,000 German civilians may have died from the disease, infected by the horde of French prisoners who came to reside temporarily in their midst.


• About 10-percent of adult Massachusetts men served under arms during the French and Indian War (1756-1763).


• In 1840 a student riot at Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, resulted in 40 of the 130 cadets being dismissed and sent into the ranks to serve as enlisted men.


• One of Stalin's favorite ways of relieving stress – aside from mass murder and vodka – seems to have been to play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 repeatedly, and certainly to enthusiastic applause.


• In 1886 the French Minister of War informed officers’ messes and military clubs that they were strictly prohibited from serving German beer.


• By selling commissions to the highest bidder, in 1788 the Spanish Vice-Roy of Mexico amassed 190,000 pesos, sufficient funds to enable him to raise two infantry regiments, fully manned and equipped.


• During the Revolutionary War the odds were 13-to-one that a man serving in the Continental Navy might be killed-in-action, but fully three-to-one that he might die in an accident at sea.

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