In the pages of this Manual an attempt is made to give full and
practical instruction in Sabre and Singlestick Play, and in the use of
Sabre against Bayonet, and also to explain the course of practice that
is necessary for those who wish to perform the difficult sword feats
which require at once strength and lightness of hand. How far I have
succeeded in what I have sought to do it will be for the readers of
these pages to judge; but I may perhaps be permitted to say that the
book which I now venture to offer to the public is the result of
experience in the use of arms extending over an unusually long period,
and that before I began to teach, some twenty years ago, I was so
fortunate as to be trained by teachers of the highest skill. I learnt
fencing from the late M. Prevost, Fencing-Master to H.R.H. the Prince of
Wales, and to the Royal Family of France, and, as pupil and assistant,
practised for many years with this admirable master of the small sword,
who in his prime had been certainly one of the best fencers, perhaps the
best, fencer in Paris. To make me as thorough a proficient with the
weapon as he was himself, my esteemed friend spared no pains. In the use
of the sabre and singlestick I was first trained by Mr. Platts, who had
learnt from the celebrated Bushman his system of broadsword play. I thus
had the advantage of learning from those best qualified to teach; but
when, after no short or easy period of probation, I became in my turn an
instructor, and gained that knowledge which can only be gained by
teaching and by constant combat with adversaries of all degrees of
strength, it appeared to me that that part of the course I had gone
through had been somewhat conventional, and though the system of fencing
which I had learnt from Prevost could scarcely be altered for the
better, the English method of sabre play, good as it was, could be
considerably improved. Sabre-players, as a rule, have not been fencers,
or at least have been fencers of trifling skill. Accomplished fencers
have usually, from an exaggerated fear of losing their lightness of
hand, not cared to work much with the sabre. The consequence has been
that no attempt has been made to bring knowledge of the small sword to
bear upon sabre play, and that little attention has been given to what
is really the most formidable way of handling the latter weapon. Those
who have taught its use seem to have thought of little else than the
cuts which can be given with it, and to have overlooked the fact that
the modern sabre, essentially a cut-and-thrust weapon, can be used with
great effect for thrusts, and that, when thrusting, a man exposes
himself less and is more likely to disable his antagonist than when he
delivers a cut. It is true that one or two thrusts have been taught, but
small reliance has been placed in them, and several of the fencer’s
methods of attack and defence which are admirably suited for sword play
have been altogether neglected.
Daily combats gave me every opportunity for putting my ideas to the
rough test of practice, and I soon found that I was not mistaken, and
that there were longes and time thrusts which could be delivered with
the sword, and were formidable even to the most skilled opponents. I
made it, therefore, part of my work as a teacher and sabre player to
improve sabre play by adapting to it many movements used in fencing
which have hitherto been entirely overlooked by sabre players, and also
by copying the fencer to make the attacks, &c., in a closer and
consequently quicker and more effective manner than they had before been
made.
These movements are specially described in this manual.
That the man who has mastered them will have a more varied and effective
manner of using his weapon than one who has only practised the ordinary
method, and will therefore be a far more formidable antagonist, will, I
think, be admitted by all who, possessing some knowledge of the subject,
do me the honour of giving attention to these pages; and inasmuch as
sabre practice is not a mere exercise, but a course of training which
teaches a man how to defend his life, it is scarcely necessary to point
out that a really efficacious and not traditional method of using the
weapon should be adopted. Recent events have shown our soldiers that
even in these days of “arms of precision” the sword is not by any means
obsolete. Assuredly these men should be taught to handle it in the best
way. A soldier’s life may often depend on his being able to wield his
sword against a determined antagonist, and his chances of victory are
not likely to be improved by the fact that his instructors have
forgotten that a sabre has a point as well as an edge, and have not
taught him the most formidable way of using the weapon they have placed
in his hands.
It is true that to many of those who learn how to handle the sabre this
matter is not of much importance, inasmuch as what they seek is a
healthy and interesting exercise, and as they are not likely to have to
wield the weapon in the defence of their lives. Considered, however,
merely as an amusement and an exercise, sabre play is better when the
conditions of the actual combat are followed as closely as possible in
the mimic fight. It is more interesting and seems more real and
practical, while the many varied movements which are required when every
possible way of handling the sword is resorted to strengthen the whole
frame as no other exercise can. I am not without hope that the altered
system of sword play I have described in this Manual will, if properly
followed, be found interesting by amateurs as well as by soldiers, and I
am greatly encouraged in this hope by the fact that the very numerous
pupils I have had the honour of instructing have never failed to take
great interest in what they had to learn and practise: have often been
as anxious to acquire complete mastery over the weapon as if they were
shortly to use it in actual fight, and, in not a few cases, have
attained exceptional proficiency. I would add that, while greatly
changing the method of using the point in sabre play, I have been
careful to retain all that was good in the old system, and have
described minutely and to the best of my ability the established cuts
and guards.
In these chapters I have written nothing special on Singlestick, as the
stick is merely a substitute for the sabre, and is used exactly in the
same manner, and throughout the Manual everything said about sword play
applies equally to singlestick play.
On contests with sword against bayonet, nothing, so far as I am aware,
has yet been written, and as the knowledge of how to use one weapon
against another cannot but be of the greatest value to the soldier, I
have endeavoured to put into the most practical form what I have learnt
from observation of assaults innumerable, and from many hard struggles
against vigorous antagonists.
Sword feats are of less importance than skill in the defensive and
offensive use of the weapon, but when well performed are always greatly
admired; and I have frequently found that good swordsmen were anxious to
learn how to execute them. I have therefore carefully described the
manner of accomplishing a variety of these _tours de force_. Some of
these, such as—