Order of the Drakon

Picts Annihilated Largest Anglo-Saxon Army Using Own Troops as Bait | Battle of Dun Nechtain 685 AD

PICTS USED OWN ARMY AS BAIT, ANNIHILATED LARGEST ANGLO-SAXON FORCE IN BRITAIN
685 AD. Scotland faced its greatest threat.
King Ecgfrith of Northumbria assembled the largest Anglo-Saxon army Britain had ever seen.
His mission: Conquer the Picts. Wipe them out. End Scottish independence.
Thousands of Anglo-Saxon warriors marched north. The finest soldiers. The best equipment. Overwhelming force.
The Pict Response
King Bridei III (also called Bruide) faced impossible odds.
Fight head-on? His army would be crushed.
Surrender? His people would be enslaved or destroyed.
So he chose option three: Be smarter.
The Trap
Bridei devised a brilliant plan:

Use his own army as BAIT
Pretend to retreat in fear
Lure the Anglo-Saxons deeper into Pictish territory
Lead them into a narrow pass near a lake (Loch Nechtain)
Ambush from the high ground

The Ex*****on
The Pictish army "fled" before the Anglo-Saxons.
King Ecgfrith's forces pursued eagerly. Victory seemed certain.
Deeper and deeper into Scotland they chased the "cowardly" Picts.
Into the narrow pass. Terrain getting tighter. Lake on one side. Steep slopes on the other.
Then hell was unleashed.
The Ambush
Picts on the high ground on both sides.
Arrows. Spears. Rocks. Pouring down on the trapped Anglo-Saxons.
The narrow pass became a killing ground. The Anglo-Saxons couldn't effectively fight back. Couldn't retreat. Couldn't escape.
Slaughter.
The Result
By day's end:

King Ecgfrith: Dead
The largest Anglo-Saxon army in Britain: Annihilated
Northumbrian expansion: Ended permanently
Pictish independence: Secured

The Legacy
The Battle of Dun Nechtain (or Nechtansmere) changed British history.
Anglo-Saxon power never recovered in Scotland. The Picts remained free. Scotland's path as an independent kingdom secured.
Today, the Aberlemno Serpent Stone—a Pictish carved stone—depicts the battle. Still standing 1,300+ years later.

Sometimes the smaller army wins. Not through strength. Through strategy. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚔️

Scotland’s Final Clash With the Vikings!
In October 1263, a sudden storm scattered King Hákon’s fleet at Largs turning a weather-worn skirmish into the end of Norse power north of the Firth of Clyde.

Hugues de Payens (Hugh of Payns) was a French knight from the Champagne region who became the founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. After the First Crusade, the Holy Land was still unstable, and travel routes to Jerusalem were risky for pilgrims. Around 1119, Hugues and a small group of companions formed a brotherhood to protect pilgrims on the roads.

At first, they weren’t the unstoppable warrior order people imagine today. They were few in number, dependent on patronage, and living in Jerusalem under royal support—famously associated with quarters near the Temple Mount, which fed into their name: the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.”

What makes Hugues important is that he didn’t just lead fighters—he helped invent a new institution. Medieval Christianity had monks, and it had knights. Combining the two into a permanent, disciplined, transnational force was radical. It raised a moral problem: how can a man swear religious vows and also kill in war? The Templars needed a framework that made their violence “holy,” controlled, and legitimate.

Hugues went to Europe to solve the real problem: recognition and funding. That campaign culminated in the Council of Troyes (1129), where the order received formal approval and a rule of life shaped by major church figures. With legitimacy came donations, recruits, and a network that spread across Europe—commandries, estates, cash flow, and a pipeline of trained men moving toward the eastern front.

This is Hugues’ true legacy: he took a tiny Jerusalem experiment and turned it into an organization that could scale. In modern terms, he created a medieval institution with branding, discipline, and funding—an order that became elite shock troops on crusade and a major economic power at home.

So if you want the “Templar origin story” in one face, it’s Hugues de Payens: the knight who convinced Christendom that the sword could be worn like a monastic habit.

When people picture Mongol warfare, they imagine endless lines of male horse archers. But the Mongol system ran on something broader: a mobile society at war. The ordo—the ruling household and moving court—was not a background detail. It was the empire’s beating heart: logistics, wealth, captives, decision-making, and the families of the ruling elite, all traveling with the campaign machine. If enemies hit the ordo, they weren’t just raiding tents—they were striking the command center.

That reality shaped elite women’s roles. Mongol aristocratic women (khatuns and princesses) could control their own ordos, manage resources, and maintain political networks while men campaigned. In a steppe context, that authority wasn’t purely administrative—it had teeth. A mobile court had to be defended, and steppe life demanded that even non-frontline members of elite households could ride, hunt, and fight in emergencies.

This is where the “women archers” angle becomes historically believable without turning into fantasy. We don’t have solid evidence for a formal, named all-female archer regiment the way modern armies work. What we do have is repeated scholarship emphasizing women’s influence and capacity within the Mongol imperial system—and specific famous individuals who embody the warrior skill set.

The most cinematic face of this is Khutulun (Qutulun), a princess associated with Kaidu’s court in the late 1200s. Medieval accounts portray her riding into the press of battle and returning with captives—an elite warrior image that only makes sense in a culture where women of the ruling circle could be trained, mounted, and trusted near the center of power.

So if you want the “elite Mongol women archers” story: it’s the ordo. Not a fantasy battalion, but a moving fortress of empire—where high-status women could be strategists, managers, and, when needed, armed defenders of the most valuable target on the steppe.

До края на февруари! Турската армия ще получи първия изтребител Eurofighter Typhoon от Катар МО в Анкара обяви, че планира да закупи по 12 изтребителя от Катар и Оман като временно решение, докато започнат доставките на нови самолети от Обединеното кралство

Albert Séverin Roche was one of France’s most decorated soldiers during World War I, known for surviving repeated frontline missions that few others did. Despite his reputation, he was once found collapsed at his post and accused of sleeping while on duty, a charge that carried the harshest possible punishment under wartime discipline. He was sentenced and the process moved forward quickly.

Just moments before the sentence was carried out, a messenger arrived with the full account of what had actually happened. Roche had spent nearly ten hours crawling under continuous fire to reach his wounded captain and bring him back to safety. After completing the rescue, his body finally gave out from sheer exhaustion, causing him to collapse at his post.

The ruling was immediately overturned. Roche returned to active service and went on to receive some of France’s highest military honors. His case later became an example of how extreme exhaustion and heroism could be mistaken for failure in the brutal conditions of trench warfare.

Egy pillanatra enyhült az idő, így ma már a XVIII. kerületi Havannán, a piacon kezdtük a napot! Nagyon köszönöm, hogy egyéniben ennyien támogatnak, és hogy ezt ilyen sokan vissza is jelzik. 🙋🏻‍♀️

Bárhogy is mentegetőzik, amit ma Lázár János számára üzentek a választók, azt a sok válogatott jókívánságot biztosan nem tenné ki az ablakba. 🫣

1444 г. – Варненски кръстоносен поход: в Битката при Варна кръстоносците, водени от крал Владислав III Варненчик (на картината) и Янош Хуняди, срещу Мурад II. Владислав лично води гвардията си от 500 рицари и участва в боя на предна линия.
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