Fighting Swords

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Sept 23

Our esteemed Federal government has been giving away the stores to Ukraine to help them fight their war with Russia.  Could this mean that, with all of the old inventory being gone, newly manufactured and modern replacements are coming soon?  Not on your life, fella!  The Federal government chopped a billion from the defense budget, and slowed defense purchases.  I’ll bet Justin has even given away the last of our 78 year old, packed-in-original-grease Inglis High Powers. With our artillery given away, tanks, anti-tank weapons, what’s left to acquire that’s war-like, yet inexpensive?

The answer is new fighting swords.  Yes, the side-arm of centuries: that’s what the army is down to, and the designs we have haven’t been updated since 1897; when Victoria was queen.  They’ve had excuses for not updating sword design for over a century, what with machine guns, tanks, and sniper scopes and all, but it’s high time the Canadian army got an update and re-supply of fighting swords!

The dawn of modern era of sword design may be said to be in the 9^th century AD, during the migration period.  The big development of that time was the making of crucible steel.  This was a qualitative leap in blade metallurgy from pattern-welded wrought iron, and one of the first, and most famous, makers of crucible steel swords was Ulfberht, who inlaid his name into his blades as a brand of quality.  Ulfberht sold to everyone: Vikings, Franks, Thuringians, Goths, Saxons, you name it.  Ulfberht swords have been found all over Europe.

After the development of real steel, blade design became the dominant concern.  Soldiers were protected with shields, bucklers, chainmail, and improving body armour.  By the time of Agincourt, knights were well protected with articulated steel armour, and were rather hard to kill.  Blades became more sharply pointed to get into the vulnerable chinks in the knight’s armour.  Everett Oakshott developed a classification scheme of blades showing their gradual evolution from the 8^th to 15^th centuries as responses to changing battle conditions.

The dramatic improvement in sword design, quality, and manufacturing was from the latter part of the 18^th century to the beginning of the 20^th, following the development of steam powered forging hammers and industrial revolution scale, and -quality, steel manufacturing.  By then, sword makers had a lot of experience with blade design and hilt development; and design of swords for specialized purposes became common: falchions, rapiers, and spadroons being examples.  There was a lot of competition.  Besides Britain, there was France, the Austrian Empire, Italy, and Prussia in Europe.  Europe had only concluded the Seven Years War in 1763, and was about to enter the period of the Napoleonic Wars.

The modern era of British sword design I’m going to date from 1788, with the development of the 1788 Heavy Cavalry sword.  It has a well-designed basket hilt that protected the hand as well as a Highland basket hilt does, but without restricting hand movement.  In addition, it has probably the best-ever blade design.  The blade is long, at 38”; it is a backsword blade for half its length, and finishes as a narrowing broadsword (i.e. doubled edged) with a spear point.  (A backsword is a blade with only one edge.)

A Highland broadsword is double-edged from the end of the ricasso to the tip, ending in a spear point, with a characteristic Highland basket hilt, excellent for hand protection, but notorious for restricting hand movement.  (A ricasso is the unsharpened blade that enters the hilt.)

The 1788 was replaced with two of the most famous British sword designs ever: the 1796 Pattern Light Cavalry Sabre, and the 1796 pattern Heavy Cavalry Sword.  (A sabre, in British parlance, is a single-edged sword with a curved blade.)  The 1796 Light Cavalry sabre is famous to this day as the best “cutter” ever. It was designed for one purpose: hacking, which it does it exceptionally well; and the blade remained in British service in India until the end of the 19^th century.

 

The 1796 British Light Cavalry sabre was designed on the theory that British trooper-recruits had never ridden a horse before, and it would take years to develop fencing skills on horseback; hence, the weapon they would be given had to be easy to master, congenial to their habits, and excellent at what it did; and that was hacking at the enemy in close combat.

The 1796 pattern Heavy Cavalry sword, a pallasch, is copy of the very fashionable Austrian heavy cavalry sword of 1769. The 1796 Heavy is a long, 35” backsword blade with a hatchet tip, which made it poor at thrusting, or “giving point.”  It had good hand protection; so much so that it was a common field expedient modification to remove part of the hand guard for easier wearing.  At Waterloo, orders were issued to grind the top of the blade back of the tip, changing the hatchet point into a spear point; and Sgt Charles Ewart of the Scots Greys used one of these to capture an Eagle standard.  Hacking and stabbing, he killed three in seizing the standard.

“One made a thrust at my groin, I parried him off and cut him down through the head. A lancer came at me - I threw the lance off by my right side and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth. Next, a foot soldier fired at me and then charged me with his bayonet which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down through the head.”

The remainder of the 19^th century saw blade design follow fashions, and hilt design improve to combine hand protection with comfort for wear and use.  The 1796 Light Cavalry Sabre was officially replaced with the 1822 Pattern, which reduced the curvature, and reformed the tip so that it was better at thrusting.  The heavy cavalry was redesigned for better thrusting, and with a different hilt.  Infantry officers were given a new blade design in 1845, followed, in 1892, by the current blade design.  Changes were made also in hilt design, and the current hilt was settled upon in 1897; putting the 1897 hilt on the 1892 blade made the 1897 pattern Infantry officer’s sword.

The summit of British sword design was reached in the 1890s.  The infantry officer’s sword of 1897 remains the standard design of Britain and Canada today.  It is a simple blade, designed to give point only, and nothing else.  The cavalry swords became little more than short lances: used for giving point at the speed of horse, and nothing else.  Beginning in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, revolvers became a standard battle weapon in the cavalry; Winston Churchill used his Mauser 1896 “Broom handle”, in place of a lance, during the charge of the 21^st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

So, what’s there to improve? The improvement is to get infantry officers’ swords away from the ceremonial and back to a fighting weapon.  A real sword aficionado hit upon what could be the all-time best fighting blade design: the Wilkinson CJM Pattern.

The CJM, whose initials could be those of Charles J. Mitchell, decided that the 1788 Pattern sword was the best design; but at 38” it was too long for fencing on foot, which officers sometimes had to do in the days of the bayonetted rifle. CJM had the blade scaled to a nimble 33”, but kept the original 1788 basket hilt, as offering the best hand protection.  He had Wilkinson Sword custom make several of these “CJM” pattern swords.  A surviving example has a 1897 pattern steel scroll hilt on a CJM blade, which is one of the two preferred designs.  The other possible hilt is the cavalry three-bar hilt.

There it is: the best fighting sword for infantry officers and dragoons fighting on foot is the CJM pattern blade with a 1897 scroll hilt or an 1912 three bar cavalry hilt.

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