The Crusader-Era Knights Who Volunteered to Fight World War I
Less than a year after the Russian Empire entered World War I, a band of Georgian men came down from the Caucasus Mountains. Dressed in chain armor and wielding shields and broadswords, they rode to the governor's house in modern-day Tbilisi and asked, "Where's the war?"
At the onset of World War I, the Russian Empire was massive. It stretched from the Pacific Ocean in the east to what is today Finland in the west. It also encompassed most of the Caucasus regions, including the area where Georgia and Armenia are today.
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. In the more far-flung areas of the empire, people could be frozen in time. In Russian Georgia, the Khevsurs were this kind of people.
Locals believed the Khevsurs were descendants of knights who settled in the area after the fighting in the Crusades in the 12th century. Instead of marching to the holy land, their forefathers instead moved north through Turkey and into the Caucasus Mountains. Other scholars say their ancestors were still crusading, just fighting Muslims in a different direction.
