Why this popular SWORD was RESHAPED for the Battle of Waterloo

Let's look at a surprise thrusting tip on a Battle of Waterloo era sword. But it's not either of these. Hey folks, Matt Easton here, Scholar of Galiatoria and Easton Antique Arms. Now this is just a quick extra video on a day when I wouldn't normally release a video simply because I'm preparing stock for a antique arms fair that I'm dealing at tomorrow, Kempton Park. Feel free to come along to that if you're in the area anywhere around London. It's dead easy to get to, it's just on the kind of southwest side of London near the M25 and I'm preparing my stock that I'm going to be taking to that and in fact if you can't get to that one I'm going to be at the Birmingham Arms Fair the following weekend the 7th of December. But in any case I'm preparing stock and I came across a sword which I've actually had in my stockpile. That's right I have a stockpile of stock that's being prepared to go up on the website or go to an arms fair or whatever and one of these swords I pulled out of the stockpile and started documenting it and pricing it up and all of that kind of stuff and I came across an interesting feature. Now I'm holding two swords here and it is not either of these swords, we're going to look at that sword in a second but I need to of course set some context because context is incredibly important and without the context really you wouldn't have any interest probably in the sword and you wouldn't understand the relevance of it, at least most of you watching this video, so I'm going to help you. Right so first of all I'm going to put this very nice Osborne and Gumby sword down for a second. I'm going to pick up this beautiful, and you've seen this relatively recently, the heavy cavalry trooper's sword. So the 1796 pattern, often when we talk about 1796 people think of the curved light cavalry sabre, this is the straight heavy cavalry palash. Now the first thing to mention for those who don't know is that heavy cavalry are far less numerous and specialised and elite than light cavalry. Most cavalry at this time all over Napoleonic era Europe was light cavalry, sometimes known as light dragoons, sometimes known as hussars and also lancers would be classed as light cavalry as well. But heavy cavalry were usually in most countries the aristocratic elite, it was the most expensive uniforms and equipment and horses and everything else, and usually only the most noble and elite people could get into it. Not the case obviously in countries which had had revolutions like France, but even in France the cuirassiers, the heavy cavalry they had there, were regarded as an elite. We'll come back to them in a second. Now you will notice, just put the scabbard down for a second, you will notice that this sword has the original hatchet tip as used by Sean Bean himself as Richard Sharp, or indeed by Richard Sharp in the books by Bernard Cornwall. Now this is the original hatchet tip and lots of swords at the beginning of the Napoleonic wars had hatchet tips and indeed the light cavalry sabre has a hatchet tip as well, the 1796 light cavalry. So hatchet tips are very good for cutting, they're not great for thrusting. So as many of you will know many of these heavy cavalry ones are modified now because they were modified in the late Napoleonic period and often it's said that this was done for the Battle of Waterloo. In fact there's some swords that we know it was done earlier than that. Sometimes it was done in the factory as well, so sometimes it was done as an afterthought by a regimental armourer, sometimes it was done by cutler, sometimes it was done actually at the point of manufacturing. So there are various types of spear tips and all of these spear tips are designed to give a better thrusting point. Why? Well the obvious answer is to make them better for thrusting. But why did they suddenly become more aware of the need for better thrusting points when formerly they'd had hatchet tips? Well actually this is the weird thing. A lot of the earlier models of sword, if we go back to various types of basket hilt and backsword being used in the 18th century, actually had spear tips. This was actually, moving to these hatchet tips was a relatively short-lived thing in the history of swords. I mean obviously you could say that something like a katana actually has a hatchet tip and certainly other types of sabre, but those are predominantly cutting swords and the tips are not really designed for optimum thrusting effectiveness. But during the Napoleonic Wars there were a few things that happened. There were some campaigns in wintertime, some of the peninsular fighting was in winter, certainly the fighting with the Austrians but also with the Russians importantly was in winter. And in winter, in case you hadn't noticed, people tend to wear more clothes and actually clothes are actually really good stab protection, even in the modern world. Bit of general advice for you there. So multiple layers of clothes but particularly military woolen, military coats, like trench coats essentially, are actually pretty good protection against stabbing, very good protection against cutting actually. But if you want to get through that type of clothing, a thrusting point is more effective than just hitting it with an edge, okay. So thrusting became probably proportionately more important for that reason. But there's another important thing associated with the Battle of Waterloo itself. Now I mentioned cuirassiers and heavy cavalry being elites. They knew that the Battle of Waterloo, so generally speaking the cuirassiers weren't necessarily involved in general fighting all over Napoleon's kind of empire and wars, but they knew for a fact that there were going to be all of the cuirassiers at Waterloo. So people like Wellington and Blucher prepared for that because they knew they were going to be facing massed cuirassiers, which wasn't something they normally faced. In the case of the British, the British didn't have cuirassiers at this date. In fact later on they did and earlier they did, but at this point we didn't have cuirassiers. Our guys just wore jackets. How hardcore was that? But the British knew that we're going to come against cuirassiers and they knew that cutting was less effective against them because they wore armor, breastplates and helmets. So partly for that reason, partly for the winter clothing reason, they decided spear tips were a good idea. So many of these 1796 heavies have spear tips on them. Now if I put that one down, and funnily enough they're more sought after and more valuable when they don't have the spear tip on because a lot of them were modified and that's the original unadulterated form. Now this is a particular Osborne and Gumby's version of the 1796 light cavalry saber which has as you will see a falchion or messer type clipped point. Probably more directly inspired by Turkish, Ottoman and other swords that they'd encountered in more recent wars rather than old medieval swords but the end result is the same and it gives a very good thrusting point. However these were expensive and rare and not many, very very few regiments, perhaps some yeomanry cavalry had these but they're very rare things. Most people had the standard curved, just pick it up and this is finally the sword that inspired this video, 1796 light cavalry sabers. Now you'll notice the unadulterated shape has a hatchet point that is rubbish for thrusting for two reasons, one because it's a broad hatchet point which huge amounts of resistance going through clothing even but in addition to that it's also a curved blade and curved blades are harder to push through targets than straight blades are because the energy tends to push off to the side. However this is a very rare thing so most 1796 light cavalry sabers are unadulterated they have their hatchet tips however this one has been spear-tipped very clearly in period because all the patinas there and in fact generally speaking this might make this sword less desirable to modern collector for the same reason as the heavy version because the original unadulterated hatchet tip, broad tip is what most people want they want it to look like the typical 1796 but this is actually far rarer and this one's actually marked to the 12th light dragoons and this is a fascinating and pretty rare example of a light cavalry saber and we know 12th light dragoons so not only is it this is actually made by Osborne as well actually Osborne and Gumby ironically the same as the clip point. This probably wasn't made originally like this it almost certainly originally had the hatchet tip and this was done let's say around the Waterloo period it could have been before that of course it could have been done during the peninsular war or whatever but we do know that a lot of swords were spear-tipped before the Waterloo before the battle of Waterloo so it's entirely possible and this is made by um the so a little bit complicated the scabbard is Osborne and Gumby the sword is Dawes so the two probably haven't always been together but they fit perfectly well um but this has got a spear tip point maybe done for exactly well almost certainly done for exactly the same reason and at the same time as all those more famous heavy cavalry swords were spear-tipped so there we go really just to show you that spear-tipping blades at the end of the Napoleonic period and in fact when we look at swords the the next models of swords that came out in the 1820s five years later they pretty much all got spear tips um so there we go um the spear tip very effective very useful you don't really lose an awful lot by spear tipping a sword but you gain an awful lot so there we go a rare thing to see a 1796 light cavalry saber with a spear tip and is now vastly more effective for giving point as they called it or thrusting uh than it would have been beforehand anyway I hope that's interesting to some of you uh as a little extra video on the weekend um hopefully I might see a few of you down at the arms fair tomorrow or maybe at Birmingham next week but anyway if you can't make either of those remember of course I've got a website and the stock all goes up on there if it doesn't sell at arms fairs or just when I get the time that's actually the main factor when I get time to put it on the website anyway thanks a lot for watching I have been Matisse and I will of course continue to be and I'll see you back on the channel really soon cheers folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on Patreon please give our Facebook a like and subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks