Edged weapons rival the spear and the club as man's oldest weapons and, like them, are derived from hunting tools. The earliest military edged weapons were probably stone daggers and early swords may have been made in the form of wooden paddles, their edges studded with sharp stones like the Aztecs' obsidian-edged weapons, or sharks' teeth such as those employed in Polynesia. Although edged weapons pre-date the discovery and development of metals, these permitted the creation of more lethal weapons. Metals, initially alloyed copper, then bronze, and then iron, gave greater weight with less bulk and superior penetration. Metal swords are thought to have developed in the second millennium bc, possibly as horsemen's weapons initially, and excavated examples exist from Anatolia and other areas of the eastern Mediterranean in both straight and curved forms. Crete and Mycenae were important areas of sword development in the 17th to 11th centuries bc but elsewhere in Europe similar advances were being made, principally with straight swords, in the north-west and central areas of the continent around 1500 bc. Sword design appears to have been little affected by the advent of iron and its use in sword manufacture grew between 1200 and 700 bc, the Assyrians making great use of iron swords by both their cavalry and infantry. Perhaps the most well-known type of sword from the Bronze Age had a leaf-shaped blade, narrow near the grip and swelling towards the point, its double-curved, double-edged form ideal for thrusting but also capable of a savage cutting stroke. This type of blade shape was maintained in the iron- and steel-bladed swords of the Greek hoplites, who tended to use their swords only when their spears had failed them. This leaf shape was modified into the gladius of the Roman legionary: a short, thrusting sword, said to have a Spanish ancestry like the very similarly shaped legionary's dagger. The gladius was to the Roman infantry what its longer brother, the spatha, was to the Roman cavalry. Derived from a Celtic straight-bladed slashing sword, the spatha had its ancestry in north-west Europe and both it and the gladius remained as core styles of sword long after the fall of Rome, as they were adopted and exported throughout Europe by the Germanic and Nordic occupiers who replaced the Romans north of the Mediterranean.

As the gladius and spatha gave birth to the longer Viking sword, so it became the basis for the knightly sword of the medieval period: cross-hilted, heavy-pommelled, straight-bladed, and, increasingly, an object of veneration, of sumptuous decoration, and of bequest and inheritance. Viking swords, in their heyday from the 8th to the 12th centuries ad, had generally double-edged, pattern-welded blades, frequently signed by their skilled bladesmiths and often bearing intricately decorated cross-guards and pommels. Similar swords became used by the 9th century for ceremonial purposes too, such as coronations: the sword had become, with the mace, a symbol of majesty. The broadly triangular shape of the Vikings' sword pommels developed, in early medieval swords, into the shape of a brazil nut and that, c.1100, gradually became joined by pommels of disc or wheel shape. As the blade became longer and heavier—with an average length of 36-8 inches c.1100—so the counterbalancing pommel grew larger too. Longer sword blades, which had reached about 48-52 inches by c.1325, necessitated still larger pommels and longer grips—enabling the sword to be held and swung with two hands. Such swords, while intimidating even against a mail-clad opponent, had little other than a musical effect upon plate armour and these great swords only persisted in cultures beyond the reach of the development or culture of the fully armoured knight, in the Highlands of Scotland, for example, where they remained in use into the 16th century. Knights began to carry shorter thrusting swords, the blades of which were reinforced with a pronounced median ridge, and similarly formed daggers, ideal for stabbing into the joints of an armour or through the slits in a visor. Men-at-arms and common soldiers carried daggers too and occasionally short, curved multi-purpose swords. These rigidly bladed thrusting swords and daggers remained the principal edged weapons of the European soldier from the end of the 13th century to the end of the 16th century.

No survey of military edged weapons can be complete without a consideration of those from outside Europe which impinged so significantly on western warriors and affected their own cultures in a marked way. The crusading knights encountered the swords of Islam in the Near East, the soldiers of Britain and France squabbling over India in the 18th century found a tradition of swords and daggers as old as their own, and Allied servicemen in the Far East in WW II were all too aware of the potential of the samurai sword. What all these warriors had in common, in their encounters with these extra-European cultures, was the tales that they bore and the souvenirs they brought home of their opponents' edged weapons. Few, regrettably, survive from the Crusades—perhaps because Islam was ultimately triumphant—but it is clear that an Islamic tradition of curved swords existed side by side with one of straight swords from the 8th century to the 14th century; only after that did the curved-bladed sword of Islam become the norm, under the influence of the Ottoman Turks. Under the Ottomans the traditional ‘scimitar’ form developed, with the differing blade and hilt styles known as kılıç and samsır, and remained constant, with minor sophistications to blade and hilt design, until the end of the Ottoman empire; the ‘scimitar’ is still a sword symbolic of the Islamic faith. Styles of Persian ‘scimitar’, closely resembling the Turkish samsır, were very similar to some genres of sword found in northern India since the two regions had many cultural links and similarities.

Terminological confusions abound when westerners attempt to classify non-European swords, particularly in relation to the Indian subcontinent where the Hindi word talwar simply means ‘sword’ (the same is true in Turkish of kılıç and samsır). Swords of a wide variety of styles can be classified as talwari but the term is generally applied, at least in the West, to a curved-bladed sword with a bulbous grip, a disc-shaped pommel, and a straight cross-guard widening at the ends; many talwari had all-metal grips, often exquisitely decorated. The warriors of the subcontinent used a wide variety of edged weapons but even the straight bladed swords, like the pata and khanda, were intended primarily for the cut rather than the thrust: the latter movement was intended solely for the dagger. Daggers existed in many blade and hilt forms and combinations in India and the Middle East and were an essential part of the dress of anyone aspiring to warrior status. Perhaps the most well-known edged weapon from this area is the Gurkha kukri from Nepal, a curved knife with a double-curved edge ideal for a drawing stroke: these are still carried by Gurkha soldiers in the British and Indian armies. The edged weapons of India paralleled those of the Near East in being considered not only the honourable weapons of the warrior but also vehicles for the display of wealth associated with warriors of high rank and status.

The same attitudes applied to edged weapons, and especially to swords, in Japan, where the craft and symbol of the sword is inextricably associated with the tenets of the Shinto religion. In Japan the art of the blademaker was equal to that of the hilt-maker; the quality of Japanese sword blades was widely recognized and had assumed almost mythological proportions by the time the West made contact with Japan in the mid-19th century. By that time the samurai warrior caste had developed the custom of owning two swords, sometimes wearing both: the long sword, or katana, and the shorter sword, or wakizashi. The wakizashi was the all-purpose sword and most Japanese military swords were of its dimensions, including those captured in such quantity towards the end of WW II and taken home as souvenirs by Allied troops. Daggers en suite with wakizashis and katanas were accorded the same care in their manufacture and decoration as their companion swords.

Besides being a lethal weapon, the sword is also widely regarded as a symbol of power and aristocracy. Other weapons, such as the halberd, derived from agricultural implements, may have lacked the sword's prestige but could be more effective
(Click to enlarge)

In the West, once the sword had declined from a major role on the battlefield, demoted by the pistol by the mid-17th century, it remained the symbol of the cavalryman and the officer. In this way it was continuing its traditional role, one which was maintained by gentlemen in civilian clothes for much of the 18th century and one which persists in the armed forces today. Swords and firearms coexisted on the battlefield from before the end of armour, since firearms had only one shot apiece before reloading and in a mêlée the sword remained essential. In a cavalry mêlée the hilt of the sword was almost more important than the blade since a strongly constructed hand-covering hilt could act as a very effective mailed fist on occasions when opponents were too close to each other to wield blades effectively. Swords remained in use for both infantry and cavalry soldiers during the 17th century and for the greater part of the 18th century, most infantrymen relinquishing them in the second half of the 1700s. Among the most heavily armed of 18th-century infantrymen was the Highland infantry soldier of the British army: as well as his musket and bayonet, he carried a basket-hilted sword and a dirk, both weapons being relics of the culture from which the Highlander was drawn. Dirks were descendants of the long medieval daggers, of varying forms, had 10 to 12 inch (25 to 30 cm) blades, intricately carved bog-oak grips, and were carried from the waistbelt in tooled leather sheaths. In the late 18th century, with the romanticization of Highland Scotland, they acquired symbolic status, became much embellished, and, in the 19th century, were joined in the ‘Highland’ garb by the sgian dubh, or black knife, worn in the right stocking top by officers and civilians. At sea, cutlasses became common issue in the 18th century for most navies and officers were equipped with swords and dirks in much the same way as their military counterparts. Although a dirk was introduced for midshipmen late in the 19th century in most navies, such efficient close-action weapons were carried by most combatant sailors during the Napoleonic wars.

From the late 18th century until WW I, debate raged in European cavalry circles about the role of the ideal sword: was it to cut, or thrust, or to do both? Thus cavalry swords came and went in a bewildering variety of patterns for cavalry regiments of different types. Although light cavalry regiments, hussars for example, generally carried curved swords and heavy cavalry regiments, such as cuirassiers, generally long straight ones, the protagonists of the ‘cut-or-thrust’ schools continued their arguments until they were stilled for ever by the rattle of the machine gun, against which neither stroke made much sense. Although there were instances of cavalry actions with the sword during both world wars, the automatic firearm finished what its muzzle-loading ancestor had started and the sword slipped finally away into its symbolic role of today. The military dagger, whether in the form of commando knife, kukri, or survival knife, has lasted longer, since it is useful as a tool as well as a weapon and so the edged weapon as tool remains, even on the highly technological battlefield of the late 20th century.

Bibliography

• Coe, Michael D., et al., Swords and Hilt Weapons (London, 1989).
• Edge, David, and Paddock, John M., Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight (London, 1988).
• Oakeshott, Ewart, European Weapons and Armour (London, 1980).
• Robson, Brian E., Swords of the British Army (London, 1996)

— Stephen Wood