Asian influence on antique British military swords

And we all know that colonialism was a period of great cultural exchange, shall we say, in a politically correct sense. And so the famous sword of India was the Tulwar, which we've spoken about quite a bit before. And what's interesting is that although in British service there were regulation patterns of swords, so just to explain briefly, that is, if you were an officer of infantry in the year 1800, your regulation sword would be a spudroon. A 1796 pattern spudroon, infantry officer's sword, which has a narrow, straight, essentially a thrusting blade with something similar to a small sword hilt, a sort of beefed up small sword hilt. However, many officers decided that in the field, in combat, they wanted something maybe a bit more unique to their fighting style or their personal tastes or their ideas about the relative strengths of cut and thrust. Or indeed they just wanted a better weapon, a better fighting weapon than the regulation one. And a good example is this 1796 spudroon, which was not, as far as I have read from original sources, a particularly popular weapon. And so there were various what I call non-regulation versions of it, or should we say special regulation versions of it made, some with better thrusting blades, some with broadsword blades, cutting blades. And indeed around the year 1795 to 1800, sabres had become particularly popular for officers on foot. And of course sabres were used by cavalrymen, but cavalry swords were generally a bit bigger, a bit heavier and a bit more serious fighting weapons. And so these were taken over and used by infantry officers as well. And in India in particular, because hand-to-hand combat was more likely in India or in certain parts of Africa or Afghanistan or certain other parts of the world, Sarawak, Borneo, those kind of areas as well. Officers and indeed sometimes just general cavalrymen or general soldiers picked weapons that were maybe more robust, more combative fighting weapons. And of course in India the tulwar provided an inspiration for some officers to copy that style of sword. And it just so happens that I have here a sword which very clearly copies the style of the blade of the tulwar, but on a British regulation hilt. And here it is. It will look to many of you like a 1796 sabre. So if you search on Google, for example, for 1796 sabre, you'll find loads and loads of pictures of a sword that looks pretty similar to this. So it has what we call a stirrup hilt because it flares out, the guard flares out a bit like a stirrup on a horse or his equipment. And one particular thing to notice with this particular one, this is a later example, so probably dates to about 1810 to 1820, so late at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and in fact just after the Napoleonic Wars. It has here what's called a beak pommel or various different names, but it's essentially a conical metal section so that the grip part or the part of the weapon that you can hold, the pommel in other words, extends forwards. And this does provide a very nice secure grip if you're slashing, but equally you can hold it in a sort of pistol grip as well if you were using the point, for example. But what's really important about this is the blade. So if I hold up the tulwar again, it just so happens that the blade of this British officer's sword matches very very closely the blade of the tulwar. If you look at the outline of the shapes, they're very very similar. They've got a similar wick, similar curvature, they're a similar weight and thickness. And if you look up here at the false edge, you'll notice they have a similar yeoman it's called, it's a raised false edge. So that is this portion at the back here, it actually steps up there and exactly the same thing happens on the British sword as well. It steps up and then you have a sharpened false edge at the back here. The fullers are different, but of course there were many many different styles of fuller or groove that is in the blade. The fuller is designed to lessen the weight of the blade whilst increasing or retaining its stiffness. It's not a blood groove as some people will tell you. So very very similar blades, but it's mounted on a British officer's hilt. And in fact this example, I hope you can maybe see with the lights, actually has these little rectangular fullers that break. You have a little fuller here, then it stops, then a fuller, stops, another fuller, then another fuller. And that's something that you see particularly on Indo-Persian swords. So it's a very oriental, as they would call it in that period, in other words Middle Eastern and Indian feature. The blade itself could be straight off a tulwar. And in fact it's not impossible that it is a tulwar blade, re-hilted on a British officer's hilt. I personally think that it was probably made as one piece, for various reasons I won't go into. But I think it was probably made like this from the start. And also the scabbard, which I don't have with me at the second, is very clearly made to fit this blade. And the scabbard is, I would say, definitely a British manufacturer or European manufacturer. So there we go. I will talk a lot more about this subject in the future because it's one of my favourite subjects. And that is non-regulation or special regulation swords. That in British military circles, at least, were very often made for officers serving in India who wanted a more serious fighting sword. Or a sword that they felt could deal with and fight against people using tulwars and other pretty impressive cut and thrust weapons. Thank you.