More Bunny Trails

 

So, tonight as I went tumbling through my mind for post material, and I remembered a comment I saw on a FB post tonight (Monday).  The original post pointed out (and I did not fact check, but sounds reasonable) that today the Berlin Wall has been down as long as it was up.  The comment I saw 'speculated' that if we'd have just set Patton loose on the Russians, there never would have been a Berlin wall.  I said to myself, "Well obviously one of us doesn't know how bad the Red Army outnumbered us at that point."

Turns out, it was me.  An article based on a statistical survey of the war says that the Red Army and the USA were roughly even-strength at that point.  In fact, it went on, we still overestimate the size of Russian conventional forces.  As of now, Russia has only the 5th biggest active duty army in the world.  Total forces- with reserves and paramilitary forces- drops them to 6th, although it does manage to pass us (which they don't in active military).

Vietnam claims 5 million reservists- outstripping #2 South Korea by 2 million, and 6 times the US reserves.  Still, the 'butts in the barracks' numbers drop them to 8th and 9th.  The top ten are: China, India, the USA, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, South Korea, Vietnam, and Egypt.  Not surprising how many bitter enemies meet on the list: North and South Korea, China-India, India- Pakistan, China-Russia, Russia-USA.

The top five are the only ones with million-man active forces, with Pakistan's actives only 3/5ths the size of Russia.

The site lists six nations with no army at all- however, they do not count Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Kosovo (which I do) and DO count Palestine as a nation (which I don't).  I also don't see any mention of the "flyspeck island brigade" (18 island nations between the Caribbean and South Pacific/Indonesian area, and other bodies of salty water), as well as Bhutan, Cyprus, Eswatini, Zambia, Djbouti, Benin, San Marino, Bosnia-Hercegovina and those warlike bastards of the Vatican.

I'm especially disappointed they missed the Vatican, 135 roughnecks armed with halbards and other such anti-terrorist weapons.

I really shouldn't make fun of these guys; in 1527, they had their own Alamo, at a place called the Teutonic Cemetery in Rome.  It was during the War of the League of Cognac, with the Pope joining with France, England, Venice, and Florence.  It was an Imperial Army of about 14,000 German mercenaries who preferred Pilsener to cognac, 6,000 crack Spanish troops, and an undetermined band of Italians of various stripes who were there for the chicks.  Facing them were about 5,000 militia (read: cannon fodder) and 189 Swiss Guardsmen.  Like Col. Travis's men, they fought valiantly but were hopelessly outnumbered.  Emperor Charles V (who already held the biggest empire in history, if somewhat loosely) had his men led by the Duke of Bourbon (a lot of booze in this story!), a big dope in a bright white suit that quickly got him picked off by Benvenuto Cellini, who was better known as a sculptor and author than a warrior.  (Incidentally, it served the Duke right; legally, he was supposed to be an underling of the King of France, whom he was fighting against.)

After the good (?) Duke got knocked off, his troops, supposedly commanded by a guy named Phillibert (who wasn't listened to- and with a name like Phillibert, why would they?), went on the rampage, taking the walls and sacking the city for three days despite Phillibert's stern pleas to "Please refrain!"  A handful of Guardsmen made for St Peter's to draw the rampaging army-for-hire and were massacred; but it left 42 survivors get the Pope to safe ground down a still existing tunnel.

At this point, King Francis of (where else?) France managed to bribe Henry VIII with a gross of turkey legs to help him out.  Henry was still looking for his shipment of gravy to go with the legs when Francis's army got hit by the Imperial army, the plague, and a mercenary admiral who cut a better deal with Charles and got whooped.  Negotiations were set up between Francis' Mom and Charles's aunt (who were sisters in law), and left the war to the troop-less Pope, who was making ready to kiss the Imperial butt at that point, and the two republics, who were definitely seeing themselves at the wrong end of a very big stick.

The Guardsmen?  This is when they said to themselves, "Methinks we are better suited to look good for the the tourists," and just about abandoned actual fighting for a few hundred years.  Besides, with all that cognac, pilsener, and bourbon going around, what's a guy to do for a little brandy and a big, drooly dog?

"Duh!  Ya haf to 'head for da mountains'!"