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These Times History Took a Turn for the Batty

Khalid Elhassan November 3, 2019 34 min

31. The Drawback of Charging Blind Into Battle

“Don’t charge blind into…” is usually used as a figure of speech, to caution others against rushing into something, without knowing what they’re getting themselves into. In the case of King John of Bohemia (1296 – 1346), that could have been used as a literal warning.

Also known as John the Blind after losing his sight in the last ten years of his life, this royal John mounted a horse, and despite being blind, charged into battle. It did not end well for him, nor for the entourage that tried to protect him from his folly.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.