Anecdotes IIt's hard to find good help nowadaysDuring the battle of Königgrätz in Austria during the Seven Weeks War of 1866, Austrian General Festetics had his foot ripped off by a wayward Prussian shell fragment. His weeping batman attended to the mangled leg. General Festetics, observing the hysterics, remarked "Look at this hypocrite, whining like a mutt, yet he'll have only one boot to polish from now on."
Guy of Spoleto at one point descended on Benevento to demand the surrender of Benevento's current Arab-mercenary leader, called "Apolaffar" in [ninth century] south Italian sources. Radelchis [ruler of Benevento] was ordered to go wake Apolaffar (who was apparently sleeping in a wing of the palace) in order to deliver him to Guy's troops. And what seemed most to distress Radelchis, for which he apologized profusely to Apolaffar, was that he could not even allow the mercenary time to find his shoes. Apolaffar's understandable rejoinder was, "Why are you worrying about my feet? What about my head!"
How to sack a divisional commander: Tewksbury, 4 May 1471.
...Henry Francis Mellish [a captain of the 10th Hussars] was ADC to Sir Ronald Ferguson, one of Wellington's generals. It was reported one day that Mellish had been taken prisoner but when Wellington heard of it he said, "They'll not keep him long." Sure enough, the next day he was seen riding into the British camp on a donkey. Everyone laughed at his mount and said it was not worth £5. He retorted, "I'll soon make it £35." He then rode it towards the enemy lines, had it shot from under him, and returned to claim £35 from the government for the loss of his mount in battle.
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The Iron Duke had a rather sound understanding of human nature: and he was being realistic, rather than cynical, when, during the Peninsular campaigns he set a limit of forty-eight hours for his officers' leaves in Lisbon, or behind the lines. This, he said, was as long as any reasonable man could wish to spend in bed with any woman. A Military Visionary
"The machine gun is a much over rated weapon..."
"...I am all for using aeroplanes and tanks, but they are only accessories to the man and the horse, and I feel that as time goes on you will find just as much use for the horse - the well bred horse - as you ever have in the past."
Calling a halt,[the Byzantine Catapan] sent a messenger across to them, offering the choice: either they could leave Byzantine territory peaceably and at once, or they must face his own army in battle on the morrow.
The Normans had heard communications of that sort before, and knew how to deal with them. During the harangue one of the twelve chiefs, Hugh Tuboeuf, had approached the messenger's horse, and had been stroking it approvingly; now, as the man finished, he suddenly turned and struck it one mighty blow between the eyes with his bare fist, laying the luckless animal unconscious on the ground. At this, according to Malaterra, the messenger in a paroxysm of fear fainted dead away, but the Normans, having with some difficulty restored him to his senses, gave him a new horse, better than the first, on which they sent him back to the Catapan with the message that were ready.
Around Allatoona, October 5, 1864.
Five minutes will be allowed for you to decide. Should you acede to this, you will be treated in the most honourable manner as prisoners of war,
Allatoona, Georgia, 8:30 a.m. October 5, 1864.
John M. Corse,
Rank hath its privileges
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