My lords! Duchesses! Hear ye!
Yesterday was the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt where Henry V of England (who had a really stupid haircut) used his ridiculous Lloyd Christmas-hairded longbow men to great effect and defeated a much larger army of French knights who undoubtedly died, one and all, with really stupid haircuts.
Certainly in terms of people with idiotic hairstyles, no other day in history saw as many casualties except perhaps the Battle of Mullet Ridge which was fought during the Forgotten War of 1777, of which we will say no more ever.
But this delightful article argues that there were nine battles in the Middle Ages that were EVER MORE IMPORTANT than Agincourt. It describes them in great detail. Check the link:
Two things to note:
The authors of this list could be right in terms of overall impact, but few battles in history ever had as much of an impact on the history of hair as did Agincourt. As the battle was raging, the French attempted one last charge to turn the tide, and an exhausted Henry V chose 600 prisoners with the dumbest looking hair and executed them. After this, the French protested by developing a new hairstyle known as “La Pompadour.”
Secondly, this article describes the Battle of Mohi between the Hungarians and Mongols. Then, instead of stating that the Mongols left Europe because of the death of the khan, the article states that fortifications may have been the deciding factor in the Mongol decision to leave. I’m of the mind that the authors must be familiar with the brilliant MA thesis of one Lindsey Stephen Pow. Whoever this Lindsey genius is, he argued that very argument in his MA thesis and his views seem to be interestingly reflected in recent websites and such. Three cheers for Lindsey, whoever he is. Seems like a pretty nice guy is all I’m saying…
Photo: historyextra.com
CEU Medieval Radio 
The blurb about Mohi states this:
“However, overstretched, unable to reduce strong fortresses, and with Béla rallying the nation, the Mongols withdrew from Central Europe the following year.”
Given what we know about what happened at Mohi, the Mongols were not overstretched at the time of the battle or afterwards. Whether or not strong fortresses were a deterrent to Mongol aggression is a moot point in this instance because the Hungarians were not hiding in such things either during or after the battle of Mohi. As far as Bela is concerned, he was chased all the way down to Croatia by a contingent of the pursuing Mongols and ended up finding shelter on an island off the coast. He was not rallying anyone at the time. The Mongols eventually ended up going through Bulgaria after the Hungarian adventure and then headed back east through the Ukraine.