The Craziest British Officer chose this SWORD?

cut versus thrust the Eternal debate of the perfect sword design but today we're going to look at an original antique sword where one mad lad of a British officer decided to throw everything in One Direction hi folks Mattis and here Skol Gladiator now over the last decade many many years I've been talking about swords and lots of other types of weapon and often actually when you boil things down to the design of swords it comes to this eternal struggle between cut and thrust because the object which is the ultimate cutter is often not going to be the ultimate Thruster the object which is often the ultimate Thruster is not going to be the ultimate cutter it's about compromise and therefore lots of Sword designs struggle between how do we make something which functions really well for cutting but also really well for thrusting and are we going to throw more weight in one direction or the other and most sword designs throughout history have tried to make this compromise work this is a uh Bronze Age Leaf bladed sword there are lots of other types of Bronze Age swords but most types of Bronze Age swords are cut and thrust designs some of them are more specialized to one of the one of those too more to the cut or more to the thrust but most of them are cut and thrust designs this is also true if we go through most of the ancient world even if we look at designs which are more cat towards cutting something like the Copus or the falcata they still have thrusting Capac if we look at the Roman Gladius some people wrongly describe this as a dedicated thrusting sword but it's got a big old broad blade this is a compromise cut and thrust design same for the Roman Spa same with Greek swords like the zos as well clearly owes something to the earlier bronze Leaf blades and it is a compromised cut and thrust design with a good acute point but still a leaf shaped design which emphasizes the uh abilities of the cut as well so these are compromised cut and Trust designs as we come into the Middle Ages uh certainly in the early medieval period there seems to be slightly more preference to given to the cut versus the thrust but by the time we get into the high and late Middle Ages we get these compromised cut and thrust designs uh like this type 15 here whereby we've got a good amount of cutting capacity and of course an acute point for thrusting yet always there were some types of Sword certain types of falan for example and and Chopper it doesn't matter where we look in the world we could look at Renaissance Europe where we get certain types of Blade which have thrown more emphasis onto the cut rather than the thrust they don't have particularly acute points but therefore have a broad blade but will give good cuts out towards the tip of the blade and a good Cutters we find the same thing in uh China for example with certain types of Dow design and certain types of genen some of them are a little bit more towards the thrust some are more towards the cut but fundamentally most of these the vast majority probably 80 90% of swords from around the world even even swords and just grab one from behind the camera like the shamire which have thrown a lot in the direction of the cut still have acute and small points not always just for thrusting although for thrusting as well these can still thrust even though they've by the curvature thrown a lot in the direction of the uh of the cut so most 80 90% of swords from across the world throughout history are compromised cut and thrust designs now in the 19th century this cut and thrust debate hit the newspapers because by this time you've got the beginning of tabloid newspapers you've got sword scandals yes that was actually a thing in Britain in the 1880s you've got whether it's in Britain or whether it's in France or Italy or America you've got people debating actually debating oh well you know the correct sword for light Cavalry is a curved cutting sword or the correct sword for an infantry officer is a straight thrusting sword and they're literally now now debating it in letters to the editor in newspapers and I've covered these in previous videos I'm sure I'll cover them in future videos as well and so that we find uh predominantly still most designs like the 1845 pattern blade here featured on a heavy Cavalry um Officer sword of the 1860s are compromised designs they are a slightly curved predominantly single-edged cut and thrust sword with a spear tip that is a thrusting sword and some sword design as I say uh even in this period went more towards the cut or more towards the thrust but the majority are somewhere there in the middle they cut and thrust designs so where's this leading well we find that as we get towards the end of the 19th century so the late 1800s particularly as we get into the 1890s although it did start earlier than that there are certain people who are starting to throw all of their eggs into one basket and for the most part as we get into this period it is towards the thrust okay so we start to see certainly by the time you get into the 1890s and into the early 1900s a lot of Cavalry swords so for horseback use are becoming dedicated thrusters and a lot of swords for infantry officers are also becoming pretty dedicated thrusters even if they maintain some ability to cut so just for a second to make this a little bit less Anglo Centric a little bit less British here is a Prussian curasan sword now this is a cut and frust design but it is dead straight and while it has been Ser sharpening it does have a Cutting Edge on it and you can cut with it it is a spoed straight blade that really is intended primarily to be thrusted with so this is a um 1889 pattern so this is a late 19th century model and the prussians the French uh led the way I would say in Europe uh not really the Italians at this point but the prussians and the French led the way and the Swedish as well to some extent in thrusting designs now I've talked about the British 1892 patn blade 1895 and 97 patent hilts that culminated in the current sword this is still the sword carried today uh in parade and those kind of you know like uh remembrance Sunday and all of those sorts of things trooping of the color if you see an infantry officer they almost always uh if they're following the regulations carry carry this model of Sword okay so this is more or less a dedicated thrusting sword now I say more or less because actually if we look at masello's uh fencing manual that Associates with the 1895 um treaties that goes with this sword there are Cuts in there and in fact many of these for World War I and the B War were sharpened for about 18 in of the blade up here so um kind of 30 40 cm of the blade um towards the tip so technically you can cut with them but they you know you can look at the blade shape you can look at the blade cross-section this is never going to be a great cutter it's not going to cut anything like uh something like that okay so a Bronze Age sword thousands of years earlier will cut better than this but this is a really good thrusting sword and has the point of balance fairly far down near the hand and it is a good Nimble sword and it's good at parrying it's a good thing to defend yourself with against bayonets or another person with a sword even if you're out in somewhere like the Boxer Rebellion in China or the Sudan campaign in 1898 um doesn't matter if you're coming up against da or uh cascara or talas um and things like this you know big cuty swords you can this is a solid bar of Steel it's not particularly light it actually weighs as much as earlier swords so it's a good parrying device and it's really stiff and good at giving point or thrusting so this is a fairly stiff and very pointy blade yes you could cut someone with it across the head or across the knee and it will do an injury but primarily it is that really sharp and acute tip which is going to go straight through someone's body clothing or no clothing and out the out the back and hopefully kill them in short order so it's a bit like a bayonet blade okay very good for stabbing and a good handguard now that's all being said so this is a dedicated frosting sword but it's not that dedicated is it what do I mean by that well if we actually go back earlier in history we see even more dedicated thrusting swords and most people at this point will be instantly thinking of the rapia that's right why is the rapia an even more dedicated thrusting sword than that British officers sort well a number of reasons it's an even more slender blade it's a longer blade it has a point of balance closer to the hand it has a bigger guard it has a longer cross guard so this in many many ways is can stab from further away it has a more Nimble uh and a tip that feels lighter although the total weight of the weapon is actually about the same it feels lighter at the tip it's got a more responsive tip so you can hit from further away you can skewer someone from further away and keep yourself safer which is quite good if you're fighting against people with something like a toat or a dow and they're trying to take your head off but they've only got 30 in of Blade you can skew them from 40 in away in the head or chest quite useful for defensive purposes and it's got a nice big guard here with quillons that is more protective one of the downsides of thrusting while it's very good at killing people uh while you are thrusting number one when your blade is in their body there's nothing much defending you except for your Hilt or if assuming you don't have a dagger or a buckler or anything like this um and secondly you've got to get it back out again okay whereas a cut will go in and naturally come out most of the time a Thrust will go in you have to actually get it out before you can either thrust again or defend yourself so having a good Hilt with a thrusting sword quite important another type of dedicated thring sword doesn't have that protective Hilt but has a very very light and responsive blade it is the small Sword and the small sword really is a small and light and easier to wear version of the rapia it's an evolution of the rapia comes about in about the 1660s becomes really popular by 1700 and is the main dueling sword of the 1700s and was carried also by officers in on in the battlefield as well as a pistol and these were used in self-defense in duels and sometimes in war as well uh so this is a very light very Nimble very quick weapon and it gives rise to Modern foil fencing essentially the foil is the practice weapon of this um so it's is a scaled down rapia so coming back to the officer's sword this while it might be a great Thruster and might be very solid at parrying things like bayonets or TS or da or whatever um so it's good app parrying device and it's a good thrusting device is all that long um and it doesn't have any kind of cross guard uh so actually if we just focus on the length but also if we think about the responsiveness of the tip one of the uh one of the criticisms of this sword and you could relate this also to the French comparison the 1882 for example which was the standard and still is the standard French infantry Officer sword um it's not particularly Nimble at the tip and it doesn't reach very far so now we get round to the weird wacky and I have to say God awful ugly sword that has come into my uh possession and this is an amazing thing okay so this is a British officer sword and it's not even Victorian it's actually Edwardian it's from the early years of of uh Edward's um Edward I 7's Reign it dates to around 1904 to 1906 so we're dealing with only 10 years before World War I now I've mentioned this many times in previous videos but you've got to remember remember that we now look at World War I in hindsight we now think about planes and tanks and artillery that shoots for miles and trenches and all of these things we think about machine guns and the you know Cavalry not being able to operate in the way that it was expected but you've got to bear in mind that in the year 1904 at that time Japan was at war with Russia and a lot of that war was decided by bayonet charges and a lot of Western Doctrine the British army the French army austr hungarians they were looking at that war in the East between the Russians and the Japanese much like how we now look at Wars that are going on in other parts of the world and and decide our military procurement and uh tactics based on what's going on over there and it's not always the best idea because often that war is very different to the next War they looked at that and they went bayonet charges yeah there's going to be loads of hand-to-hand combat so in 1904 to 1906 the BR British particularly because the British were on the Japanese side behind the scenes and they had uh British officers were stationed out with the Japanese Army observing and they were seeing the Japanese kicking the Russians butt with bayonet charges bansai bayonet charges so they want okay this is the future clearly you know machine guns combined operations we're going to be using uh Cavalry as well they hadn't yet invented tanks of course so we're going to be using highly mobile cavalry and our infantry are obviously going to be prized Marksman but they're also going to be charging him with bayonets a lot because this is what they're doing in the um Japanese Russian war right now okay so that bearing in mind British officers who are joining the Army in 1904 come into this environment they the Empire the British Empire is still out in India the strength very you know massively powerful but there's problems on the northwest Frontier the Afghans are a little bit of a problem there's some problems in in places like China uh down in Persia um North Africa the Sudan places like this and swords bayonets and lances are still being used in those places so don't think about the fact that 1904 1906 is not very long time ago think about the fact that a British officer on this would go for French Spanish Portuguese Dutch Prussian Italian all of these other Empire wielding um uh Powers at this time the officers joined those forces might be going out to the colonies or they might be fighting a war in Europe and they're looking at the Japanese Russian war and they're thinking swords and bayonets and lances are still going to be used so what does this offenser do does he go and get the standard old 1897 pattern sword oh no he goes I want to go I was going to use a rude expression that I went I want to go full hog I want to go deep penetration really I don't just want a good thrusting sword I want an ultimate even better thrusting sword I want a longer blade I want greater penetration I want a guard which works better for a thrusting sword than the saber guard here and I also want a hilt that I can grip not like a saber but I can grip it more like one of those awesome old thrusting swords of days of Y ages past so essentially he wanted a rapia now you might think why didn't the officer why didn't the British officer just go and buy a you because there's regulations sir you have to observe the regulations your sword has to be in a regulation Scabbard from a distance it needs to at least passingly look like a regulation sword the guard needs to look a little bit like that so what did this mad lad do he went and got a Rapier Blade with a modified Rapier Hilt with a little bit of a regulation guard on it um yeah this thing is super ugly I will completely accept that however it's also super cool so let's have a little bit of a look at its features the first thing to notice is it has a Pummel a knuckle bow a cross guard and a ricasso so this entire Hilt is actually quite similar to a spadon hilt which in itself derives from a small sword hilt which in itself derives from a rapia hilt the most important thing you need to know about this is it has a fairly long grip with a pommel at the end but most importantly it has a place to stick your finger so when you grip this you can hold it exactly like a rapia and in fact if we look at small swords this is a particularly old small sword and old small swords do have functional finger rings but late small swords certainly most things that people would have been familiar with in the age of the officer's sword in the Edwardian period actually had vestigal like leftover fingerings that you couldn't actually put your finger through if we go back to earlier rapers they they've got massive finger rings that you can fit one or sometimes two Spanish rope you can often fit two fingers through okay so essentially finger rings got they got they grew bigger and then they grew smaller again this guy hasn't gone for a finger ring exactly but there is a space for to put your finger over the quill on and I'm certain that's how it was intended to be held the reason I know that is because of the rounded shape of this ricasso block here and by putting your finger over there it means that you're very much gripping this like a rapia now what would have been the period references for this British officer they would have been either historical rapas or possibly the Italian foil because Italian foils at this time still maintained a finger ring and a rasso and they still put the finger over so the Italian foil was a little bit more like rapia in fact whereas the foils we're familiar with in modern Olympic fencing are French foils and they don't have any of that gubbins so is it possible this person had some Italian influence Poss possibly I wouldn't write that out um however we don't know so the hilt you can grip like a rapia now let's look at this weird shell guard because it is a section of an 1897 guard even with the folded over section now let's just grab the 1897 for comparison here you can see the folded over Edge folded over Edge look at the fronts of the guards you can literally see where it's being cut out and the crown has been cut out there over the top of uh this one's actually a later uh oh no that is actually Ed that was complete chance that is also Edward I 7th so they're both Edward I 7th hilts and this one has been cut out now I fully this was actually made this sword for the real effici AOS watching this you might be wondering who made this sword uh this was actually made by pull that and I don't want to give too much away actually no I won't show you that yet uh it was made by George thle so if you look on the Eastern antique arms website so my antique dealing website I have a section for research and I have articles there and I have a section on the THL family now the THL family were a famous sword making family from the middle to the end of the 19th century um but George THL was a one of the sons who was still making swords as a separate entity in the early 1900s and this is one of them so this was a custom piece and I fully suspect that George THL took a standard guard and cut it down to to order for the shape but look at this nice little detail this guy wanted a cross guard so he put his finger across but look the cross guard protruded from the guard there and so he's cut a nice little hole for it to come out of it's so Charming it doesn't need to be there he could have just made that guard that cross guard shorter and had kept that blocked up but nope instead he decided to go full hog I want that stick through there it also makes a little bit more stable adds another anchoring point for the guard and so he's cut that through there which was something that's reminiscent of boat shell guards that we see on heavy Cavalry dress swords do I think this is one of those no because that's an infantry officer's guard there uh and this is silver or white metal finish plated uh and if you in the horse guards the dress sword had to be guilt had to be gold colored so I don't think it's that I think it is an infantry Officer sword finally we get to the main custom I mean that's I would't say the main custom feature actually but from a functional point of view this is pretty weird yeah I mean that's just so different to a typical sort of 1897 Hilt or saber Hilt of the time okay but this is this is where it gets for me really funky we have got a extra long 39 in Rapier blade that's right this is a double-edged hollow ground mid ribbed and service sharpened this ain't just a dress sword rapia blade and I just want you to Feast your eyes on the the glory that is this blade look at that Hollow grinding that is such a thick mid rib and this is about uh 9 mm thick I haven't actually measured it but it's about 9 mm thick at the ricasso and it does distal taper down but it stays pretty damn thick and it has been server sharpened on both sides just look at that cross-section on there it is so so Hollow ground by Hollow ground that means you start off with a rectangle section here and you literally use a round uh grinding wheel to grind out that section uh it could be forged as well it can also be forged or rolled in a die so there's various ways of doing it but essentially you end up with this type of crosssection that goes up to a ridge and then down so it's scooped out which means that this is light but also incredibly stiff because of course the cross-sectional thickness is really thick uh but it's just amazing so this is really really comparable blade to a period Rapier and you can see that they are comparable lengths 39 in is a good length for a 17th century Rapier so service sharpened presumably intended for use 39 in long and you see it's still got its original mirror polish it's been kept very well in Scabbard obviously the Scabbard is uh custom made for it uh because it has to be very long and straight and fit section of Blade and an interesting detail again for the real afficionados is the end of the Scabbard has a Scottish style bll end on it I don't know if that necessarily means that this person had anything to do with the Scottish regiment if they did then why would they have the standard infantry officers guard I don't know it might be that they were in a Scottish regiment but we don't really know anyway this hopefully has been an overview I hope make you think a little bit about sword design this isn't just specific to this specific sword but I thought you'd love to see this thing I should also mention if you're one of my uh patrons on patreon you will have obviously seen this sword before because I showed it to you when I first got it I haven't yet cleaned it up this is as the sword came to me and actually it's still got cobwebs and some dust and stuff on it so it needs a good clean up and it will it will brighten up a little bit uh but I'm going to be very sympathetic to this because this is as far as I know an absolutely unique uh sword and I while my special is uh British non-regulation officer swords I have never seen anything quite like this um I do have a Wilkinson Sword which has some parallels with it which I might show in a future video um but this is just something else really really wacky and isn't it great and a good reminder that even in the Years 1904 to 1906 when this was made people were some people maybe the crazy people were still expecting to use their swords because yeah people have p PS people had broom handle mousers um and various types of revolver the cult 1911 wasn't that far away so they did have forms of semi-automatic pistol and revolvers but the fact is swords and bayonets were still being used if we look at the Japanese Russian war yes Russian officers had revolvers but they also used their swords same for the Japanese um and you know in World War I we know bayonets were extensively used um and uh swords for Cavalry were still extensively used as well so yet another reminder that not that long ago swords were still very much considered weapons of war I hope You' enjoyed this video uh any questions any queries any requests obviously as always I hope to see you down in the comment section down below thanks a lot for watching I have been Matt Eon and I will continue to be cheers folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on patreon please give our Facebook a like And subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks

Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 82,230

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Id: QIEs4a56OsE

Length: 24min 57sec (1497 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024