The Crusader-Era Knights Who Volunteered to Fight World War I(military.com)
military.com
The Crusader-Era Knights Who Volunteered to Fight World War I
https://www.military.com/history/crusader-era-knights-who-volunteered-fight-world-war-i.html
9 comments
Yes, the article does seem a little sketchy:
> Even by the standards of 1914, Russia was a backward country. Most of its citizens were serfs, often tied to the land they worked, like serfs in the Middle Ages.
Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, more than 50 years before the start of the First World War.
> Even by the standards of 1914, Russia was a backward country. Most of its citizens were serfs, often tied to the land they worked, like serfs in the Middle Ages.
Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, more than 50 years before the start of the First World War.
It also relies on things such as their wearing red crosses like crusaders. Given this is in Georgia it is likely that this would be the cross of St George (as on the English flag).
Poles on horseback fought Germans in WWII.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
And, volunteering is easy, especially for a group pre-disposed to defending their land. I’d be more surprised about them not volunteering.
I’d be surprised about them winning.
Then again, in ‘39, as above, the Polish cavalry charge delayed the Germans.
Charging machine-guns on horseback had the expected result in the end though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
And, volunteering is easy, especially for a group pre-disposed to defending their land. I’d be more surprised about them not volunteering.
I’d be surprised about them winning.
Then again, in ‘39, as above, the Polish cavalry charge delayed the Germans.
Charging machine-guns on horseback had the expected result in the end though.
Agreed! Like I said, I find it plausible that they participated. I just think that the crusader angle is a 1935 version of clickbait.
People love this kind of story, cf https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/polish-cav...
Makes sense. Jack Churchill did WW2 with a claymore and longbow after all, why wouldn't other nations have similar anachronisms?
Note that Jack Churchill didn’t use claymore as in “late medieval two-handed sword”, but a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword[1], which is more modern; it was still in use in 18th century and especially in Scotland[2].
The story about a confirmed longbow kill is also uncertain[1]:
> A common story is that Churchill killed a German with a longbow in that action. However, Churchill later said that his bows had been crushed by a lorry earlier in the campaign.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket-hilted_sword
The story about a confirmed longbow kill is also uncertain[1]:
> A common story is that Churchill killed a German with a longbow in that action. However, Churchill later said that his bows had been crushed by a lorry earlier in the campaign.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket-hilted_sword
> The story of the Khevsurs comes from American adventurer Richard Halliburton's 1935 book, "Seven League Boots," a collection of his essays written while traveling off the beaten paths of the early 20th century. It includes an interview with the assassin of Tsar Nicholas II and a dinner conversation with Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I.
Obviously, I can't know for certain which of these anecdotes is fact and which just make a great story, but this particular anecdote relies in part on a very suspect story about the ancestry of these people—a story which only outsiders ever told about them and which is of extremely dubious historicity [0].
Could a bunch of poorly armed horse-riding Khevsurs have volunteered to fight in WW1? It's plausible. But the idea that they were some sort of descendants of Western crusaders smacks of a story created for a sensational early-20th century travelogue.
[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers...