The story of Aleksander Józef Lisowski and his brutal ferocious band of mercenaries Lisowczyks (active 1607-1636)! They were an irregular unit of Polish cavalry that received no wages and was instead allowed to loot and plunder as they pleased. People were terrified of them!
They were led by Aleksander Józef Lisowski, a very brutal man who became persona non grata in Poland 1605 but would soon find his fortunes elsewhere, in Russia! Russia was in chaos in the period called Time of Troubles, and Lisowski took full advantage of that!
With his ragtag band of mercenaries Lisowski would plunder Russian villages and engaged in many battles and skirmishes between various factions, proving his worth in battles. Finally he would defend the Polish Commonwealth and was crucial in defense of Smolensk in 1612!
Lisowski and his mercenaries were extremely capable warriors and were able to defeat many opposing Russian forces, capturing and looting numerous Russian towns and villages. They would pillage, rape, murder and commit multiple other outrages!
Finally, Lisowski would fell ill in 1616 and die. But his mercenaries carried on! The mercenary life was just too alluring for them! They continued to be named after him, Lisowczycy. After the 1618 Truce of Deulino that ended Russo-Polish hostilities,they became soldiers for hire
Fortunately for them, in the same year another epic conflict started in vicinity, the Thirty Years' War. They offered their services and engaged in the famous 1620 Battle of White Mountain on Imperial side, capturing 20 enemy standards. They would continue to pillage and loot.
In fact, they would get even more ferocious as they reportedly killed even children and dogs during their raids. Emperor Ferdinand II eventually released them from service, due to numerous complaints about their behavior! Their indiscipline became legendary.
The Lisowczycy would then split in two groups, one would return to Poland while the other stayed in the war-torn Holy Roman Empire and offered their services to others. The local German population thought they were Tatar hordes of ferocious barbarians and not Christian Europeans!
Despite this horrible reputation they would eventually gain fame for Christendom as some fought against the Ottomans for the Polish Commonwealth at Cecora (1620) and Khotyn (1621). In peacetime, they would resort to banditry and get increasingly hunted down by local authorities.
By 1936 they were gone; dispersed and disbanded. They would become legends as their atrocities became forgotten and they became seen as the defenders of Commonwealth and Christendom against the Schismatics, Protestant heretics and Mohammedans with which they fought in battles.
This is related to the Polish-Russian war of 1605-1618 and the battle of Klushino I wrote about today. Those were extremely dark and brutal times for Russia! And at the same time, an era of glory and prestige for the mighty Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth!
This is the Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen made in 1937.
I was always fascinated with this car.
It's crazy how in 1938 this car recorded a speed of 432.7 km/h (268.9 mph). This remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken in 2017.
The record was set by German driver Rudolf Caracciola who drove this car on the Reichs-Autobahn A5 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt on 28 January 1938.
This reflected the obsession with breaking records and showcasing industrial prowess of nations at the time.
The onlookers who observed the spectacle of a car racing at astonishing 432.7 km/h past them also noted the brutal boom of the side spewing exhaust stacks as the silver car hurtled past.
It must have been an incredible spectacle to witness!
Hussite war wagons proved so effective that within 100 years this tactic spread from Bohemia all the way to India!
In 1526 Mughal Emperor Babur employed war wagons to win the First Battle of Panipat.
A short thread on how this style of warfare spread over the world. 🧵
The tactic of "wagenburg" (wagon fort) was adopted in the Hussite Wars (1419-1434) by the Hussites, a religious movement which fought armies of crusader knights from all over Europe.
The use of such war wagons enabled them to withstand the cavalry charges of armored knights.
The purpose of these war wagons was not just to present an obstacle for the cavalry but also to give handgunners protection to fire their weapons at the enemy.
The main weakness of handguns at the time was the long reloading time, during which handgunners were vulnerable.
There was a scene in the movie Lord of the Rings where they light signal fires to warn of an attack.
But this is how the defense system of Habsburg lands actually worked against the Ottoman threat!
A network of bonfires was in place to warn people of incoming Ottoman raids. 🧵
In the Lord of the Rings these are called the Beacon-hills of Gondor.
They are permanently manned stations across the hills where great fireplaces are kept in the state of readiness.
In this manner, people all over the kingdom can be informed of an attack quickly.
People might think this is something that belongs to the fictional world, but in 15-16th centuries the Habsburgs actually established a similar system like this.
The mountainous regions of Carniola and Styria offered many good strategic positions!
In 1927 Benito Mussolini ordered to drain the Lake Nemi south of Rome to recover the wrecks of the Nemi ships, two large pleasure barges built under the reign of the Roman emperor Caligula.
Unfortunately the remains of the ships were destroyed by fire in 1944 during WWII.
It is speculated that Nemi ships were elaborate floating palaces, with mosaic floors, heating and plumbing, baths, galleries and saloons, as well as a large variety of vines and fruit trees, similar to other Caligula's galleys described by Suetonius!
Lake Nemi is a volcanic lake which was popular by wealthy Romans due to clean air and uncontaminated water and cooler temperatures during the hot summer months.