Why Sabers dominated over Smallswords & Spadroons for Infantry Officers

in the Napoleonic era why did so many officers move from using small swords and spadrons to sabers hi folks Madison here of scholar gladiatory now this is potentially a massive question so I'm going to try and answer it in the most I think concise and to the point way possible so I think that the basic context of warfare wasn't just about sword versus sword and I'll come back to this point in Greater detail in a minute but first of all to set some backgrounds so in the 18th century it was completely normal I put these two swords down for a second it was completely normal for lots of officers on foot obviously Cavalry people on Horseback are a different scenario but people on foot offices on foot to be armed with small swords now the small sword was the gentleman's dueling sword of the period and you have to bear in mind that officers in this age are not primarily there to fight their primarily there to be officers to lead men and the men do the fighting the men use their firearms they use their bayonets sometimes they've got sidearms that are hangers we'll come back to that as well but the officers for the most part in the 18th century were armed and equipped with small swords but because that represented their role as gentlemen Gentry leaders of men leaders of the working classes who made up the majority of the soldiers on foot anyway and also we have to bear in mind that fencing at this time revolved around the use of the small Sword and the foil so foil fencing the foil is the practice weapon of the small sword so even in the modern Olympic world the the root of modern foil fencing not epe and saber that's different scenario different different story there but foil fencing comes from the practice of the small sword so in the 18th century really the beginnings of the rules that we even see today and the practice weapons that we see used today have their root in the 18th century some people would argue it goes back to the late 17th century in fact I couldn't disagree with that's actually the end of the 1600s it's really where we see the birth of the small sword and what we now recognize is the more sword and foil fencing and of course it has its roots in earlier Rapier Traditions but again that's another story so in the 18th century the small sword was the de facto sword that gentlemen settled matters of Honor with it was what they dueled with it was what they practiced with in the fencing sales and it was also for the most part What They carried by their side on the battlefield into war and bear in mind again that this is not a useless weapon in war you can still stab people with it you can still Parry with it you can still take on opponents who have got a variety of weapons that you might find on the battlefield in that day however it's maybe not really optimized it's not designed for that primary purpose it's primary purpose is as a dueling sword against someone else with a small sword now the battlefields of the 18th century were incredibly varied I think a lot of people think about maybe the big sort of pitched battles in Europe or in some case America the American Revolution for example between British and American forces but you have to bear in mind that there were many other types of battle and war going on all around the world this is the age of colonialism not just British colonialism but French Spanish Portuguese Dutch and so on and so forth and this covered the whole globe so in some cases people with small swords were coming up against people with talwars or various types of Filipino weapon or Native American weapons like tomahawks and Spears all over Asia so Chinese Japanese opponents and the small sword for the most part doesn't seem to have done particularly well in that type of fighting um in addition to which remember I said I'd come back to those infantrymen so most of you know that in the 18th and 19th centuries the standard infant treatments weapon was a long barreled firearm initially muskets and then as we get into the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th sorry end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century rifles as well but basically long-barreled Firearms with a triangular socket bayonet attached now this is a later Crimean War period percussion lot but ignore that imagine it's a Flintlock okay so flintlocks in this period with triangular socket bayonets and these are fairly long fairly heavy objects they're usually about the height of a man they usually weigh eight or nine pounds which is about the weight of a medieval polax uh or it's really heavier than most two-handed swords it's a really heavy object because it's designed to shoot bull shooter musket ball um hundreds of yards it's not designed for close combat but they did get used for that with the bayonet on the end so this is what the standard infantryman has us but in addition to that they also have various forms of hanger now what is a hanger a hanger is essentially any form of short cut and frost sword and here's just one example so this type of thing is essentially a short saber some of them had straight blades they had various types of felt some of them are a bit more protective but for the most part because they were primarily designed to be worn at the side as a backup weapon and often used for chopping wood incidentally as they were worn as a backup weapon you didn't want them to be particularly big or cumbersome or have big hand guards and so really they were just that and what were these for these hangers were essentially for last-ditch self-defense perhaps storming into something like a building or a trench where there wasn't enough space to maneuver your massive musket and Bayonet and additionally those sometimes used to tools sometimes for clearing Brushwood clearing out branches for artillery emplacements stuff like this sometimes splitting splitting wood for um for making a campfire and that kind of stuff they got used and abused and as a result many of them live today including this one are in pretty bad shape but so there was a differentiation between those which will back up weapons and quite utilitarian and what the officer carried which was his actually his primary weapon in this period yes he might have pistols as well but he didn't have to have this was actually his primary emblem and weapon so this is not only for self-defense but also to represent his social class and show that he is an officer as well as his more expensive uniform but as we get into the 18th century when we're talking about India or the Americas or you know down in South America wherever there's lots of fighting going on which means that some officers are thinking I want something that's a bit more of a practical weapon so as a result we start seeing some officers start to carry the same types of hangers that their men were carrying now the irony here is that as we get into the Napoleonic period as we go through the Napoleonic period so from the 1790s through to the 1810s we actually see at the beginning a lot of infantry all over Europe and Americas had both a firearm with a Bayonet and a hangar however by the end of the Napoleonic period they most forces have pretty much done away with those hangers they were still being carried by some but standard British line infantry for example didn't have them they just trusted to their bayonet but ironically what the um what a lot of the offices has started doing is carrying these because they had to carry a sword and they wanted something that was a little bit more more versatile for different types of fighting and so they ended up carrying things like this commonly un often called in the modern world a flank officers saber which is a completely useless and rubbish and meaningless and incorrect term this is simply an infantry officer saver this is the 1803 pattern and in fact these didn't just come in from 1803 that existed before that and when they came to devise the 1803 pattern they looked at pre-existing patterns and based it on those so officers throughout the 1790s had been gradually shifting from various types of spadron and small saw and the spadron came in 1796 and had certainly been carried widely in the 1780s and the spadron really you could say is a militarized and slightly broader version of the small sword what I'm actually holding here is a later Victorian French epe actually and this is a superior officer's high-ranking officers dress sword essentially but you could use it as a weapon as well so we have this period in between where we went from offices primarily carrying small swords to then carrying spadrons which were a a essentially a small sword with some cutting capacity almost like the marriage between a back sword and a small sword to then the spadron's not being very popular and then switching to things that were more saber-like and eventually um by the end of the Napoleonic period certainly in the British Army and the French as well we find them carrying both the spadrons and Sabers now when we talk about these comparisons we often kind of like because it's the modern world and because it's the internet we go which is better these are the pluses the plus points of this type these are the plus points of this type so spadron versus saber which is better but you've got to bear in mind so this is the simple fact that if you only go away with one piece of information from this video this is the piece of information I want you to pay attention to on a typical Battlefield Skirmish Siege raid Patrol whatever engagement with the enemy in the Napoleonic period or you could extrapolate this to the 18th century or right the way through to the middle of the 19th century most officers are not going to be fighting other officers with swords so comparing saber against small sword or small sword against Hangar or small sword against padrun or spadron versus saber or any of these is really interesting and is really fun but it's not necessarily something that would happen very often because the number of officers is very small compared to the number of men and most of the men have these so actually if you're an officer choosing a weapon not just an emblem because if you just want an emblem and something to wave and point you might as well carry the the lightest and fanciest looking thing which is probably a small sword most offices if they actually have to fight are either going to be fighting if they're European or should we say westernized mechanized opponents with a firearm with a Bayonet on the end now if you're fighting those opponents then something a little bit beefier and heavier is probably a good idea and so therefore something like a saber is easier to defend yourself against bayonets with than a small sword is I mean honestly try a small sword's fine against the saber but trying to use a small sword against a bayonet with attached to a firearm that weighs eight or nine pounds against something that only weighs 400 grams difficult very very difficult and you can only poke them you can only thrust them as well at least with against this not only have you now got a more robust weapon that's able to Parry a bit more solidly you've also got the options to cut off rust as you like to all different locations but because you can cut you can Target the opponent's hands holding the musket and Bayonet so in a European theater I would argue the saber and the hangar are far better weapons against the musket and Bayonet than a small sword is and they're better than a spadron is as well I would argue number one but remember that again this is the age of of colonialism and Colonial Warfare so if you're fighting Native Americans using tomahawks if you're fighting Indians in India fighting using tolars and shields or in China or wherever you might be against those sorts of opponents the problem with the small sword is it's quite easy to get overwhelmed okay so yes indeed you might be able to thrust someone through the chest or face and that might kill them some time later after they buried a tolwa or a tomahawk in your head whereas the saber for example is not only able to give more strong and raw robust parries against these type of less mechanized opponents weapons should we say so you know heavier and more powerful axes and swords not only is able to defend better against them but I would argue that the cuts that you're able to give and keep motion remember Cuts don't get stuck in the body in the same way the thrusts do are more able to deal with these types of opponents so my concluding thought is that if we're going small sword or spadron versus saber they're kind of an even fight I think you've got the reach advantage and the nimbleness of the point with the spadron or the small sword and I think that's the Mortal can easily hold its own against the saber in fact we do this inspiring and I would say it does they're pretty much equal weapons they've each just got different advantages to each other how how or raiding military use in general I think that this saber or weapons like it like the hangar or the back sword are more versatile and practical weapons for Warfare as an actual weapon not known as an emblem but as a weapon then the small Sword and the spadrunner and I think that that's why overall militaries all over the world had switched uh by the middle of the 19th century almost entirely with a few exceptions to using Sabers instead of using things like this unless you happen to be a superior officer who is not expecting to ever get into combat and you had lots of people in front of you to protect you I hope that's been somewhat interesting and thought provoking if you massively disagree that's fine Post in the comments below and explain your reasons why any other questions comments requests for future videos all welcome below I have been Matt Easton I will continue to be and I will see you back on the channel really soon cheers folks 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Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 167,576

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Id: pxv5DeDyTao

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023