namely, is the idea that there were Saxon mercenaries in England at all reasonable??

If the Hessian troops sent here willy-nilly by the Hessian Government to fight for England in the 1770's were mercenaries, what shall we call the UN troops sent to the Congo willy-nilly by their governments to fight for the United Nations??

If the UN troops are not mercenaries then the Hessians were not mercenaries either.

And if the foreigners fighting in the Katanga Army are mercenaries then Lafayette and Von Steuben were mercenaries too, as were also the members of the Lafayette Escadrille in the early part of World War 1, and of Chennault's Flying Tigers in the early days of World War 2.

I point now with pride to the fact that, long ere the Committee on Un-American Activities, the Minute Women, the Economic Council and other such notable `` watchdog '' organizations were so much as heard of, I was Hollywood's leading bulwark against communism, fighting single-handedly `` creeping socialism '' against such insuperable odds as the Fascio-Communist troops of the NRA, PWA, WPA, CCC and an army of more than twenty-two million mercenaries whom F.D.R. employed secretly, through the transparent ruse of regular `` relief '' checks.

During the war, the Azeri armed forces were also aided by Turkish military advisers, and Russian, Ukrainian, Chechen and Afghan mercenaries.

Subsequently, a British leader named Vortigern is supposed to have invited continental mercenaries to help fight the Picts who were attacking from the north.

Frank Gaebelein observes that " Greek mercenaries and slaves served in the Babylonian and Assyrian periods, some of whom were undoubtedly versed in Greek music and musical instruments.

These numbers include 1000 cavalry and 400 infantry were mercenaries hired by Polish king, the rest were units from Danzig.

Japanese mercenaries were hired to deal with the orang kaya, forty of whom were beheaded with their heads impaled and displayed on bamboo spears.

Abdallah returned to govern the country and the mercenaries were given key positions in government.

Herodotus ( 484 c BC – 425 c BC ) attests that the Gandarian mercenaries ( i. e. Gandharans / Kambojans of Gandari Strapy of Achaemenids ) from the 20th strapy of the Achaemenids were recruited in the army of emperor Xerxes I ( 486-465 BC ), which he led against the Hellas.

European mercenaries, US, and Belgian troops were called in by the Congolese government to defeat the rebellion.

By August 1964, the mercenaries, with the assistance of other ANC troops, were making headway against the Simba rebellion.

Relations between Fiji and Papua New Guinea became strained in November 2005, in the wake of revelations that a number of Fijian citizens, possibly mercenaries, had entered Papua New Guinea illegally and were involved in arming and training a separatist militia on the island of Bougainville.

They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly.

After a hard struggle from the combined efforts of Hamilcar Barca, Hanno the Great and others, the Punic forces were finally able to annihilate the mercenaries and the insurgents.

There were marked differences between such idealistic volunteers and the hardened mercenaries of the old Legion, as the poet Alan Seeger pointed out, making assimilation difficult.

Typically the feudal armies consisted of a core of highly skilled knights and their household troops, mercenaries hired for the time of the campaign and feudal levies fulfilling their feudal obligations, who usually were little more than rabble.

The people of Syria had little respect for the young boy, who had come to power with the help of Egypt and Cretan mercenaries led by the ruthless condottiere Lasthenes.

After the reverses of the previous several weeks, Christian of Anhalt's army had been reduced to about 15, 000 men, with little prospect of victory ; mercenaries on both sides had not been paid in months ; and with Winter approaching, cold, wet weather made for less than ideal combat conditions.

" During the 1543-50 war of the Rough Wooing, life in Morpeth was disturbed by a garrison of Italian mercenaries, who ' pestered such a little street standing in the highway ' by killing deer and withholding payment for food.

The unpopularity of Maximilian Sforza, who was seen by the Milanese as a puppet of his Swiss mercenaries, enabled the French to move through Lombardy with little resistance ; Trémoille, having seized Milan, besieged the remaining Swiss in Novara.

It may be surprising to modern American and Chinese readers to learn that in 1860, both Chinese and Westerners would place more faith in a small, motley group of mercenaries than readily available local citizenry, but one must realize that the average Chinese of the time had little understanding of marksmanship, nor much impetus to defend the Manchu throne.

As mercenaries fresh to the scene, these units fought well, but they were equally interested in looting and did not discriminate between supporters and enemies of the government.

The plot of The Magnificent Seven directly inspired the 1980 sci-fi film, Battle Beyond the Stars, which included actor Robert Vaughn as one of the seven mercenaries hired to save a farming planet from alien marauders.

After British and Boer mercenaries had helped Dinuzulu defeat his rival Usibepu for succession of the Zulu throne, land and farming rights were granted to them along the banks of the Mfolozi River.

By this time in that region, there were two main groups of loosely organized armed outlaws: the jagunços, mercenaries who worked for whoever paid their price, usually land-owners who wanted to protect or expand their territorial limits and also deal with farm workers ; and the cangaceiros, " social bandits ", who had some level of support from the poorest population: the bandits sustained some beneficial behaviors such as acts of charity, buying of goods for higher prices and giving free parties (" bailes "), and the population provided shelter and information which helped them escape from police forces, known as volantes, sent by the government to stop them.

Although relatively ill-armed ( most were armed with farm equipment, such as scythes and pitchforks ) they flocked to Hunyadi and his small corps of seasoned mercenaries and cavalry.

500 mercenaries each received a farm of 16 km².

In Western India ( the modern Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra ), the Siddi gained a reputation for physical strength and loyalty, and were sought out as mercenaries by local rulers, and as domestic servants and farm labor.

The Theban army under Pelopidas is said to have been dismayed by an eclipse ( on July 13, 364, see 4th century BC eclipses ), and Pelopidas, leaving the bulk of his army behind, entered Thessaly at the head of three hundred volunteer horsemen and some mercenaries.

General Amasis, sent to meet them and quell the revolt, was proclaimed king by the rebels instead, and Apries, who had now to rely entirely on his mercenaries, was defeated.

Herodotus also describes that just like his predecessor, Amasis II relied on Greek mercenaries and council men.

Instead, those capable of fighting underneath the nuclear umbrella ( supranational terrorists, corporate mercenaries, ethnic militias, and so on.

Instead there was increased reliance on navies, skirmishers, mercenaries, city walls, siege engines, and non-set piece tactics.

Hunnish mercenaries were also seen on several occasions in the succession struggles of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire during the late 4th century.

When Carthaginian commander Hannibal Barca fought the Romans, he recruited several Gaulish mercenaries who fought on his side at Cannae.

The Roman legions forced their way through Hannibal's weak center, but the Libyan mercenaries on the wings, swung around by the movement, menaced their flanks.

As a result commanders of the period were increasingly drawing on larger numbers of mercenaries.

The Saracens initially concentrated their attacks on Sicily and Byzantine Italy, but soon Radelchis I of Benevento called in more mercenaries who destroyed Capua in 841.

About 80 armed Tamil mercenaries belonging to PLOTE landed on Malé before dawn aboard speedboats from a freighter.

Although the mercenaries quickly gained the nearby airport on Hulule, they failed to capture President Gayoom, who fled from house to house and asked for military intervention from India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Less than 12 hours later, Indian paratroopers arrived on Hulele, causing some of the mercenaries to flee toward Sri Lanka in their freighter.

Three days later an Indian frigate captured the mercenaries on their freighter near the Sri Lankan coast.

The captured mercenaries and their paymasters were put on trial.

As the Middle Ages progressed in Italy, Italian cities began to rely mostly on mercenaries to do their fighting rather than the militias that had dominated the early and high medieval period in this region.

Later the army was also involved in the controversial Sandline affair of 1997, when the PNGDF Commander — Jerry Singirok — blocked the use of mercenaries to destroy the revolt on Bougainville.

Instead, Carthage relied mostly on mercenaries, especially the indigenous Numidian Berbers, to fight its wars.

After securing aid from Rome, the exiled mercenaries then regained authority on the island of Sicily.

Having previously relied on mercenaries to fight their wars for them, the Carthaginians were now forced into a more active role in the defense of their city.

After destroying the space station, Parker lands back on Mars via an escape pod, Ultor brings out its reserve of mercenaries to help them in their fight against the miners.