Very Top Five... Ways To Get Medieval

The medieval battlefield was a smorgasbord of spiky dismemberment. A knight had to tool up, or before he could scream he’d have been glaived in the gonads, billhooked in the bollocks, spetumed in the scrotum and voulged in the family jewels. And that’s just the guy in charge; his privates will get poleaxed as well.

The medieval period was a time where opposing groups of angry men put great effort into developing new ways to kill one another. (In this regard, it was like all other times in history.)

Anyway, what I hope you take away from this list of medieval weapons is another reason for the “I’m-sure-glad-I-didn’t-live-back-in-the-medieval-period list”, along with disease, bad diet, nonexistent education, famine, witch burnings and dying before you were 40 of "old age".

5. Grenades

“I’ve never heard of them using grenades back then,” you might suspiciously assert. Well, that’s probably because the people that actually used the grenades didn’t have enough fingers left to write about them afterwards.

The first ones were really just stone containers full of burny liquid, as used by the Byzantine Empire from the 700s, but when gunpowder reached Europe from China the grenade industry exploded (hah!) into new and exciting areas.

Although grenades themselves were invented by the Byzantines, the word ‘grenade’ was first coined much later by Scottish highlanders in the 1700s. The Scots were keen on grenades as they fitted well into the overall highlander corporate strategy, which was to recklessly charge in a big angry hairy mass of kilts and sporrans with blades sticking out of all the gaps.

4. Caltrops

The simple design paradigm says that the most elegant, efficient, iconic inventions are necessarily the simplest; like the elastic band, the brick, and the pizza.

A caltrop is a simple piece of shaped metal; a spiky tetrahedron which, when liberally scattered on the ground, causes a great deal of annoyance to any passing dudes or ponies. And the brilliant thing is that however you drop them, they always land spiky point up.

These were the landmines of their time. They would make an area literally impassable to cavalry, as any warhorse which stood on one of these would be highly likely to let you know about it in the only way it knows; throwing you off and giving you a good stomping for having the temerity to order it through the spiky ouchy hoof hurty thingies. You dick.

3. Flamethrower

Medieval flamethrowers worked like modern flamethrowers, and it really says it all on the box, doesn’t it? They throw flame, or rather flaming oil in a big splashy burny whoomph. The Byzantines (of earlier grenade fame) invented these too, and it strikes me as somewhat surprising that they didn’t conquer the world what with their terrifyingly varied access to the mighty power of fire.

I can only assume that these weapons were as dangerous to the people using them as they were to their enemies, which is why if you look at any modern census form you won’t see “Byzantine” anywhere on it. I dare you to put it in as your choice for “other” at the next census. The new Byzantine revolution starts here!

2. Elephants with cannons on their backs

You know the joke: “How do you get an elephant into the fridge?” Answer: “Open the door and put it inside.”

It was never an amazingly good joke, and now it’s not even an option; this elephant will just blow the fuckety door right off the hinges and emerge triumphant through the wreckage, ready to let you know what it thinks of your futile refrigerant plan in a big trumpety gunpowdery explosion of pachydermal death.

Elephants were fitted out with cannons for only a slim period in history, during the time just after the realisation that elephants were indeed strong enough to carry cannons but before the realisation that elephants made a fucking massive target for the enemy’s own guns. And hitting an elephant with a cannon ball makes a mess, let me tell you.

1. Longbow

“Gi’ me ma gun any day ‘n’ ah’ll show ya what I fink aw yer stoopid wooden bow, hyuck hycuk hyuck,” you may drawl foolishly. But in the right hands longbows were far deadlier than most people realise, certainly more so than guns until as late as the 20th century. Hold those gasps, here’s some stats;

Ignore everything you know about girly modern bows. Proper medieval Longbows were taller than a man, at 6’6’’ (2m). They had a range of around 650 feet (200m) and were able to pierce any piece of contemporary armour you might care to slip on in precaution of the expected penetrative shaft (know what I mean, ladies?). They are eerily silent, particularly when compared to their spluttery barking cousins, and have a rate of fire of perhaps ten aimed shots a minute, in the right hands.

“So if they are so amazingly super, how come everyone in the early modern historical period was toting muskets and whatnot instead of longbows then?” you might enquire, in a rather supercilious tone because you feel proud at having used the phrase “early modern historical period” in a contextually valid manner.

Well, it’s because you can give an untrained man a gun and he’ll suddenly have the power to unleash a lead bullet with face splattering power right into your supercilious moosh, but give an untrained man a longbow and all he’ll have is a curved stick (Which, nevertheless, I would encourage him to beat you mercilessly with. That’ll teach you to be condescending when I’m trying to educate you.)

Alongside the fact that making arrows is laborious, difficult and expensive, learning to be badass with a longbow takes years of frequent practise, as well as massive upper body strength. Here’s a simple home test for you to see if you have what it takes; Stage 1: Pick up a cow. Stage 2: Tear it in half. Stage 3: Repeat.

Very Top Five... Horrifyingly mauled (but awesome) British soldiers

The British Empire was the largest Empire the world has ever seen, plateau-ing in the 1800s to the awesomeness of Georgian and Victorian splendour, and eventually declining in the 20th century.

As the following list will show, this prolonged success was due to a small but significant number of total dudes who were able to get shot in the face and just laugh it off, before single-handedly conquering a few nations before lunch – which would be seventeen delicious courses, served with silver cutlery on fine china plates – before continuing with a pleasant afternoon's continued nation conquering.

The following small sample of Mighty Heroes of Britishness are all of this rare ilk, conquering countries with only the twinkle in their eyes and suppressing rebellions (often heroically outnumbered and armed only with a bit of twig) while still maintaining a stiff upper lip and fantastically elaborate starched moustaches.

That they could do this even with their arms half torn-off and bits of their aide-de-camps spattered up their best dress shirt is additional testament to their splendidness.

5. General Sir David Baird.

Shot in the leg in 1779 while in India, and taken prisoner by Hyder Ali. He spent 4 years being tortured in an Indian prison, and when liberated by the British the bullet from four years ago was still lodged in his still broken leg. He recovered, and in 1799 he commanded a British siege army - personally leading the charge on the battlements of the city where he had been held (Seringapatam) - with a claymore broadsword, no less. And that's mighty heroic, if you ask me.

They didn’t let him be governor afterwards, as he was apparently a bit racist and the British rulers of India decided that he would aggravate the locals too much. This was in 1803, when racism was pretty much totally fine all round… makes you wonder what he did that was considered so ultra-racist in the Georgian value system. (Answer: He repeatedly had Indians shot for “being Indian.”)

They made some other chap called Arthur Wellesley governor instead. More on him later…

4. Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson.

He was shot in the head (causing him to be permanently blinded in one eye) in battle in 1794, but no record of the wound was made at the time because Nelson insisted that it was "not much." It didn’t stop him from leading the attack successfully. His right arm was later amputated after it was smashed by a musket ball. While it was hanging off, he hoisted the flag on the ship despite a nerve being stuck in the stitches of his arm.

Nelson was pacing calmly and gallantly on his ship’s open deck when he was finally fatally shot at Trafalgar in 1805 (A mighty victory for the British, by the way).

3. Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Lord Wellington.

…Shouldn’t really be on this list, because Wellington was somewhat famous for not getting shot. He commanded the British in dozens of battles, often from the front (For a better view, he said) and although at the battle of Waterloo all 15 of his aides were killed by snipers, Wellington was not hit once. A nearby tree (The only one on the open ridge on which he was calmly standing (What a man, eh?)) was torn from it's roots and smashed to pieces by some of the many cannon balls aimed at Wellington)He later became Prime Minister, was known as the Iron Duke, and held in great regard by the people of Britain - what a mighty hero. Oh, and that smashed tree? He had it made into two handsome chairs; one for himself, the other for Queen Victoria. Very dashing.

2. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill:

A World War II commando officer, Jack Churchill’s first claim to fame is that he is the only person to have confirmed kills with a longbow during the entire second world war. In fact he went into battle armed with only a longbow and a claymore broadsword. He volunteered for as many battles as he could, and was wounded in every single one of them due to his tendency to immediately charge the enemy, sword aloft.

But Churchill survived every time, what with being tough as nails and all, and was given several medals for his ridiculous courage. In 1944 he commanded a massively outnumbered night-time commando assault; but pressed on to take a German fort. Most of his men were shot, but he whipped out his bagpipes (this is true) to rally the few remaining men in the darkness. The Germans closed in, and he was eventually “knocked unconscious” by a sustained grenade and mortar attack.

There followed a vaguely comical series of imprisonments, fabulously daring escapes and re-captures. Once he was chained to the floor, but had escaped within 24 hours, leaving a note with his phone number and an invitation to the German commander to join him and his wife for dinner when the war ended. What panache.

When the war with Germany was won he immediately transferred to the Pacific theatre; He said he wanted to die in battle and be buried wrapped in Union Jack, but the war ended before he could realise his dream. He later said;

"If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years."

He quit the army during peacetime (twice) and rejoined during wars, and after WWII he was bored shitless. He took up parachute jumping, motorbike speed trails and powerboat racing to fill the void of skewering people with a longbow, which he sincerely enjoyed. He died in 1996, aged 89.

1. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.

“Shot in the throat while gallantly leading an attack on a rebel group in 1890”… Would normally be a sentence that suggests the protagonist has nobly died; it is perhaps a suitable sentence to grace the obituary of a fine officer. Those officers are not Lord Kitchener, who eats throat-bullets for breakfast.

Kitchener contemptuously dispatched the man foolish enough to shoot him, and successfully concluded an assault on some filthy rebels.

Afterwards, Kitchener continued work as normal, although he could not eat because he had a bullet stuck in his throat. After two days of prodding it (he did this absent-mindedly while doing paperwork) he had worked it loose enough to swallow, and after a subsequent light bandaging was perfectly able to lead the next day’s atacks.

By the way, Kitchener is the dude from the original “Your country needs you” campaign while he was minister for War in World War one.

Kitchener died at sea in 1916 when his Battleship was struck by a mine. 7 of the 650 men onboard survived, and one survivor recalled that Kitchener was standing "calm and still" on the main deck as an example to the men as the ship foundered and sank- Mightily heroic.
All from a man whose name was Herbert. Not bad.

There are many more mighty jolly examples of steel-moustached Britishness, but I think those are enough to be getting on with for now.