Fig. 111.
I have given precedence to the curved blade because cutting is more familiar to man than thrusting. Human nature strikes ‘rounders’ until severe training teaches it to hit out straight from the shoulder. Again, the sabre-form would naturally be assumed by the sharpened club during the wooden age of imperfect edges; and the penetrating power would be weak and almost nil when the point was merely a fire-hardened stick.
CUT AND THRUST.
Yet there is no question of superiority between the thrust and the cut. As the diagram[437] shows, A, who delivers point, has an advantage in time and distance over B, who uses edge. Indeed, the man who first ‘gave point’ made a discovery which more than doubled the capability of his weapon. Vegetius tells us that the Roman victories were owing to the use of the point rather than the cut: ‘When cutting, the right arm and flank are exposed, whereas during the thrust the body is guarded, and the adversary is wounded before he perceives it.’ Even now it is remarked in hospitals that punctured wounds in the thorax or abdomen generally kill, while the severest incisions often heal. Hence Napoleon Buonaparte, at Aspronne, ordered the cavalry of the Guard to give point. General Lamoricière, a scientific soldier, recommended for cavalry a cylindrical blade, necessarily without edge, and to be used only for the thrust: practical considerations, however, prevented its adoption. Moreover, the history of the ‘white arm’ tells us that the point led to the guard or parry proper, and this ‘defence with the weapon of offence’ completed the idea of the Sword as now understood in Europe.
Fig. 112.
Again, the peoples who fought from chariots and horseback—Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Tartars, Mongols, Turks, and their brethren the ‘white Turks’ (Magyars or Hungarians), Sarmatians, and Slavs—preferred for the best of reasons the curved type. The straight Sword, used only for thrusting, is hard to handle when the horse moves swiftly; and the broad straight blade loses its value by the length of the plane along which it has to travel. On the other hand, the bent blade collects, like the battle-axe, all the momentum at the ‘half-weak,’ or centre of percussion, where the curve is greatest. Lastly, the ‘drawing-cut’ would be easier to the mounted man, and would most injure his enemy.
On the other hand, the peoples of southern latitudes—for instance, those dwelling around the Mediterranean, the focus of early civilisation, where the Sword has ever played its most brilliant and commanding part—are active and agile races of light build and comparatively small muscular power. Consequently they have generally preferred, and still prefer, the pointed weapon, whose deadly thrust can be delivered without requiring strength and weight. For the inverse reason the sons of the north would choose the Espadon proper, the long, straight, ponderous, two-edged blade which suited their superior stature and power of momentum.
Such is the geographical and ethnological view of Sword-distribution, but it gives a rule so general that a multitude of exceptions must be expected. As far as we know, the civilised Sword originated in Egypt, but it had many different centres of development. A gradual and continuous progress can be traced in its history till it was superseded by an even older form of attack—the ‘ballistic.’ Yet some of the earliest blades show the best forms, and the line of advancement at times becomes distorted or even broken. Again, many Southrons, and races that fought on foot, have used the curved weapon, although the converse, the adoption of the straight, pointed Sword by horsemen, is comparatively rare.