The old Hussar dress, with its swinging pelisse, was introduced from Hungary, where it was the national attire, about 1806, when the 7th, 10th, and 15th Light Dragoons adopted the new name of “Hussars,” and wore a scarlet shako, instead of the former headdress, the busby; while by 1820, the 9th, 12th, 16th, and 17th Light Dragoons were armed with the lance, and appeared in the Army List as Lancers. For their services at Ciudad, Badajoz, and San Sebastian, the Engineers became the “Corps of Sappers and Miners.”

One noticeable thing relating to the Highland forces had occurred in the early part of the period under consideration. Between 1793 and 1809, Scotland had willingly furnished some 70,000 men to fill the ranks of her national section of the army. But North Britain was not populous, and the supply of men, more than such a country could afford, began to fail. There were then one cavalry and nineteen infantry regiments serving with the colours and wearing the tartan; but already, as too often occurs at the present time, there were many regiments which perforce were recruited in England, and were only Scottish by name and dress. Hence it was that six of these regiments, the 90th, 91st, 72nd, 74th, 75th, and 94th, were ordered to abandon the kilt, and adopt the ordinary line uniform.

There had been many changes in the form of the sword. At first a broad two-edged blade, a heavy, hacking weapon with a cross hilt, it was designed to wound men in armour. Not that, apparently, they ran much danger, for in many a battle few were killed. The wounds received in action appear to have been chiefly contusions.[48] The mace or axe was in armoured days probably more effective than the sword. As armour was abandoned, and the mail gauntlet discarded, so the hilt became more complex (as in the so-called modern “claymore” hilt), to guard the naked, or merely gloved hand. The weapon itself was now made to thrust as well as cut, and the lighter and thinner blade was stiffened and strengthened (as in bayonets) with grooves. Finally, about the end of the last century, and for long after, the merely thrusting rapier was almost universal, save the hanger or cutlass used by bluejackets. But fashions change, and the rapier blade widened out into the modern cut-and-thrust sword, and the simple shell-like rapier guard again spread out to cover hand and wrist. Swords were worn by the rank and file of the British infantry battalions up to 1745, the grenadiers carrying them seventeen years longer.

Spears & Swords.

Pike
BlkBill
Partisan
Lochaber Axe
Halberd Geo: II.
Halberd Geo: III.
Spontoon 1820
1350
1580
Scheavona 1600
Claymore 1700
Rapier 1800
Modern 1896

No infantry weapon has exercised so powerful an influence on the destinies of mankind as the sword. The gladius conquered the world not merely because it was a true steel weapon and an excellent fighting tool, as compared with those of the nations the Romans had to meet, but because it was carried by men who knew its value. Morale—moral courage—is induced by a knowledge that one’s weapons are superior to those of the antagonist. The good sword implies a personal courage, the intention of closing with the adversary, and an individuality that no other weapon possesses. At times it had its special religious aspect. The cross of the Crusader’s sword was the emblem to him of his faith and of his cause. His prayers said before it, a consecrated weapon, had all the reverence that would have been attached to prayers before the Crucifix; his oath upon it was as an oath on the Cross of Christ. At all periods a ceremonial weapon, now it is mainly so. The two-handed Sword of State has been carried before kings and princes and potentates from early days even until now. The dress sword of the Lord Mayor means but guardian power. The State sword worn by a court official but implies the defence of the sovereign’s person, and the right of those surrounding the throne to carry arms. At all times it has been the emblem of personal authority and governance.

Highly prized as heirlooms in those days when swords were rare, they often appear in the chronicles of ancient wills. Æthelstan mentions in his will “the sword of King Offa, the sword which Ulfeytel owned, and that with the silver hilt which Wulfric made.” Similarly, in old Japan the father’s sword was a precious heirloom, a sacred charge, and this feeling has been common among all nations where the profession of arms was held to be noble, and the arms themselves consequently revered. Mrs. Norton has touched this chord very tenderly in one of her poems—

“Tell my mother that her other sons will comfort her old age,
For I was but a truant bird, who thought his home a cage;
For my father was a soldier, and even as a child,
My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild.
And when he died and left us to divide his scanty hoard,
I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s sword;
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine,
On the cottage walls of Bingen, fair Bingen by the Rhine.”

This very feeling caused a certain amount of personality to be attached to the sword itself. Thus, swords have had fanciful names, as Cæsar’s “Crocea Mors” (yellow death), Charlemagne’s “Joyeuse,” Mahomet’s “Al Battar” (the beater), Ali’s “Zulfagar,” and King Arthur’s “Excalibur.” In other cases they bore mottoes, such as on the Scotch sword which has—