These crusader knights answered the call to fight World War I

The country known as Georgia derives its name – "Gurgan," the land of the wolves – from the Persian word for the "frightening and heroic people of that territory."

Heroic doesn't even begin to fully describe the Georgians. This fact was evident at the outset of World War I when a troop of crusader knights – in full Medieval armor – marched right up to the governor's house in the Georgian capital, then called Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi).

"Where's the war?" They asked. "We hear there's a war."

In 1914, the Russian Empire declared war on Turkey as part of its alliance with the Triple Entente in Western Europe. The news of the outbreak apparently took some time to filter to the countryside because it took until the spring of 1915 for the Georgian knights to arrive.

In his 1935 book, "Seven League Boots," the American adventurer Richard Halliburton wrote of the knights.

"In the spring of 1915, some months after Russia's declaration of war against Turkey, a band of twelfth-century Crusaders, covered from head to foot in rusty chain armour and carrying shields and broad-swords came riding on horseback down the main avenue of Tiflis. People's eyes almost popped out of their heads. Obviously this was no cinema company going on location. These were Crusaders – or their ghosts."