Sword Play & Sword Fighting in the 1890s British Army

Sword Play Vs Sword Fighting in the British Army of the 1890s.
By Matt Easton

'Action at the Malakand Pass' by S. W. Lincoln, 1896.

In the 1890s, new models of Infantry officer's sword were introduced to the British Army, alongside a new Italian system of swordsmanship in 1895. Both the swords and the sabre system faced opposition and criticism, as we have seen in past articles here on Easton Antique Arms. 

However, in the mid-1890s a more fundamental debate erupted over sword-play, or fencing, as opposed to sword fighting training, and whether the new sword was an appropriate tool for the realities of combat. Some people started to look pragmatically at the place of the sword in modern combat, and how to improve the officers' chances in war.

I have long been aware of Captain Alfred Hutton's 1897 appendix to his manual The Swordsman, titled 'Defence Against An Uncivilised Enemy'. In fact I have trained these techniques and taught them at various international events for nearly 20 years. They are not all techniques that I would necessarily choose myself, but they were a bold and radical addition to sabre repertoire at the time (1897). 

The crux of Hutton's appendix is that he presents a set of techniques by which a British officer could effectively fight against a native swordsman in Afghanistan (an Afridi warrior precisely), who would be using a tulwar/pulwar, or choora (khyber knife) and shield/buckler according to their own native system. His techniques are heavily inspired by the earlier treatises of George Silver (1599) and Domenico Angelo (1763).

Hutton and his close friend Captain Cyril Matthey were two of the first people to consider how Army swordsmanship could be adapted from the classroom to a system that would work anywhere in the world against opponents using their own weapons and styles.


With their investigations into older fencing treatises, such as those of Marozzo, Silver and Alfieri, they drew upon grappling and other techniques to augment the typical sabre fencing repertoire of the Victorian era, to give it a more rounded approach for real combat in war. They even drew upon older knife techniques from various treatises, applied to the contemporary bayonet held in hand, the police truncheon, and more. Their approach was similar to how many modern MMA (mixed martial arts) operate, or indeed how some HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) is taught, and military close combat, as taught during WW2 and ever since. Hutton and Matthey were pioneers of this approach.


However, due to a series of coincidences, I have recently come across the person who seems to have been the principal inspiration for Hutton's addition of the 1897 Defence Against An Uncivilised Enemy appendix to the 2nd edition of his manual The Swordsman: the 1st edition of which in 1892 had not included such an appendix.


This person was Colonel (Major at the time) Valens Congreve Tonnochy, of the Indian Army (3rd and 4th Sikhs). Tonnochy has left us some unique writings and views on the 1892/1895/1897 pattern swords, sword design in general, and the 1895 (Masiello) Infantry Sword Exercise. Moreover, Tonnochy was a rare writer on British Army swordsmanship, in that he was at the time an officer serving in India and Afghanistan, in the North West Frontier, having seen intense active service for several years, and ultimately dying in combat in 1902.


It is now very clear that it was Tonnochy's writings that inspired Hutton's, but also, Hutton's earlier writings in 'Cold Steel' had influenced Tonnochy. 


Both Hutton and Tonnochy were critical of the 1892/1895/1897 pattern Infantry officers' swords, and more particularly of the 1895 (Masiello) Infantry Sword Exercise.

Colonel Valens Congreve Tonnochy (1854-1902), 3rd Sikh Infantry

Portrait of Tonnochy in the Illustrated London News, 29 November 1902

Valens Congreve Tonnochy was born in India on 3 November 1854, the son of Major Valens Tonnochy (b.1826 India - d.1873 Spain) of the 81st Regiment of Foot, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny, and Harriet Louise Tonnochy, nee Ferrier, (1836-1919).

Valens Congreve Tonnochy was educated in Aberdeen in Scotland and thereafter studied at King's College. He thereafter entered the military college at Woolwich and was commissioned into the Army in August 1873, with the 6th Regiment of Foot, but transferred to the Bengal Staff Corp in 1876.

As an Indian Army officer he saw extensive campaigning, serving in the 1881 Mahsud Waziri expedition (Mentioned in Despatches), the Burmese expedition from 1886-1889 (medal and two clasps), the Wazai Field Force of 1892, the Chitral Relief Force with the 4th Sikh Infantry in 1895, and took part in storming the Malahand Pass, where he was severely wounded, and received the medal and clasp. Commanding the 3rd Sikhs, Tonnochy took part in the North-West Frontier campaigning of 1897-98 under Sir William Lockhart, first with the Tochi Field Force and then with the Tirah Expeditionary Force. In this, he was present at the engagement at Dargai, at the forcing of the Sampagha and Arhanga passes, in the campaign against the Chamkanis, and in the Bazer Valley. He was again Mentioned in Despatches and made brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, becoming a full Lieutenant-Colonel the following year in 1899.

In 1902 Tonnochy was commanding the Sikh Infantry in the Waziri Expedition when he was wounded in action while capturing the fort at Gumatti and subsequently died from his wounds. The 1901-02 campaign is known as The Tonnochy Raid, which while being a military success, and held up as a perfect example of a hit and run punitive raid on the North-West Frontier, was unfortunately the end of the road for Tonnochy.

Tonnochy had married Marjory Helen Bain (1858-1939) on 30 March 1885, in Glasgow. His family resided at various locations in Scotland, including in Edinburgh and Hamilton Place in Aberdeen, as well as two of his children being born abroad where he was serving. He and his wife had six children together, all born in Aberdeen, except his first being born in 1888 in Burma and one in 1893 in Bengal.

Col. Tonnochy’s medal group, with C.B. for Mekran 1902. He was killed on the frontier later that year.

https://www.dcmmedals.co.uk/waziristan-1901-02-the-tonnochy-raid/

The importance of Tonnochy to our story is that he was an officer with strong views on various subjects, including swords and swordsmanship, and left to us articles which were published in the Journal of the United Service Institution of India in the 1890s. Tonnochy is a very rare example of a British Army officer who was at the sharp end of military service, sword in hand, who committed to writing some of his views on the subject. Most other sources for swords and swordsmanship that we have from this era were written by civilian fencing instructors, theorists, or high ranking officers who were far away from front line service.

As we shall see, Tonnochy's writings were both influenced by Hutton, and came to influence Hutton's subsequent writing.
British Army Swords & Swordsmanship of the 1890s

The development of swords and swordsmanship in Britain of the 1890s has been dealt with in depth in other articles here on Easton Antique Arms, and I urge readers to read those articles first.


To sumarise, in the 1890s the British Army, and specifically Infantry, changed to a new type of sword, with a narrower and stiffer blade, more suited to thrusting than cutting, and then a new (and I should say improved) hilt, featuring a grip that was easier to retain in the hand and a more protective steel hand guard.


In 1895 Colonel Fox and other officials approved a new Infantry Sword Exercise, which was essentially the work of Florentine fencing master Masiello. This new system was intended to be an improvement to the Tuohy and Angelo systems that had preceded it, as well as being appropriate to the new regulation sword.

Both the new swords and the new fencing system came under scrutiny and their fair share of criticism. As detailed in previous articles, the new sword was held by some to be too specialised for the thrust, and by others to be not specialised enough!


Moreover, it was noted that Masiello's specifications for the sword in his system (admittedly he is describing the practice sword, shown below) did not closely match the actual new British infantry officers' regulation sword, which was both heavier and balanced further from the hand than Masiello's instructions seem to indicate.

Masiello's system came under much criticism in Britain, although it also received praise from others. In part, this criticism stemmed from nationalism and the fact that it was an Italian import. But there were a list of specific grievances with Masiello's system, including the guard position, manner of cutting, the style of lunge, and perhaps most notably the lack of any leg attacks or defences to leg attacks. It is also worth noting that by the 1910s it seems that most officers in the British Army had already reverted to the Anglo-French sabre method, and this prevailed in subsequent Olympic sabre fencing manuals.


Hutton quickly published a rebuke to Masiello's system, and Tonnochy published a rebuke first to the 1895 Masiello system, and then a rebuke to the new regulation sword, which are both reproduced below.


Hutton could be argued to have had a vested interest in rebuking Masiello's system, as there was a fair amount of animosity between him and Colonel Fox (who championed Italian sabre method in Britain), and Hutton himself had been publishing sabre and bayonet manuals (in the Anglo-French style, with his own twist) since the 1860s until the 1890s.


Tonnochy is perhaps therefore a more impartial critic than Hutton was (although their specific criticisms were similar), and his published rebukes touch on some very interesting aspects of military swords and their application in actual combat. His articles cover much wider issues than just criticising Masiello's manual.


This is the first time that Tonnochy's articles have been republished in full since the 1890s.

From the Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Volume 25, 1896.

THE INFANTRY SWORD EXERCISE
Of 1895.
By Major V. C. TONNOCHY, 4th Sikhs.

It has been said by an authority of the sword –
“The death song of the Sword has been sung, and we are told that Steel has ceased to be a gentleman.” Not so! And by no means so! These are mere insular and insulated views, and England, though a grand figure, the mother of nations, the modern Rome, is yet but a fraction of the world. The case is different on the continent of Europe. Probably at no period during the last four centuries has the sword been so ardently studied as it is now by the Latin race in France and Italy. In the presence of arms of precision, the sword as a means of offence and defence may practically fall for a time into disuse. It may no longer be the arm paramount, to represent an idea. It may have come down from its high estate as tutor to the noble and the great. Yet not the less it has, and will ever have, its work to do.

The ex-Queen now appears as Instructress General in the art of arms. As mathematics are the basis of all exact sciences, so sword-play teaches the soldier to handle every other weapon. A compendium of gymnastics, it increases strength and activity, dexterity, and rapidity of movement. It is therefore with pleasure that any one who cares for the ancient weapon must have hailed the advent of this new book [the 1895 Masiello ‘Infantry Sword Exercise’].

For the first time I may say, a system of fence for the sabre has been devised and strongly enjoined on all armed with the sword. For this all lovers of the weapon must be thankful. And there is no doubt that any one, who thoroughly mastered the system of fence here laid down, would be no mean opponent in the fencing school, or in war.

At the same time I trust I may be excused if, with every apology to the no doubt excellent swordsman who compiled this book, I make a few suggestions in regard to it. Meaner men than Napoleon may, I suppose, discuss Napoleon: otherwise great men would have no critics, and the opposite is conspicuously the case. The book makes undoubtedly a sound and valuable addition to the exercises of the Army from the point of view both of swordsmanship and athletics. Yet there are some points open to remark.

In the first place was it necessary to go for a system of fencing to the Italians? There is now, (as indeed there always has been, although some times rather in eclipse) and English School of Fence. It has of late been brought to considerable perfection, and such a book as Hutton’s ‘Cold Steel’ is a most excellent system of sabre-play, and one that will hardly yield to any continental one. It does indeed presuppose some knowledge of foil fencing. But surely it would not be too much to expect such a knowledge to be acquired at school, and to be shown by men coming up for the army examination. 

Indeed I doubt whether much advance will be made in fencing till this is done. 

It would be tedious here to compare the two systems, but I may note that some of the consequences of the adoption of the new system are that all the old English cuts are renumbered. None of the parries with the back of the sword are retained, though with the sabre these are some times very useful, as well as the “High Octave” of Hutton, (a parry, I may remark by the way, always used by native [Indian & Afghan] fencers of this country): no hitting and therefore no practice in parrying below the hip bone is permitted, and the normal guard is the old and tiresome hanging guard, instead of the “Half-Rest” of Hutton.
But what seems to me to call for most special remark in the book, is the omission to consider the use of the sword in war. The rest is amusement, this is business. Is it not a really serious omission? I think it will be seen so, if we briefly consider the subject here. 

The question is, under what circumstances is the Infantry Officers’ sword likely to be used in war? The answer divides itself into three heads.

Combats
(a) With a savage armed with a spear or sword with or without a shield
(b) With a civilised horseman armed with sword or lance
(c) With an Infantry soldier with the fixed bayonet

There is also the possibility of meeting as opponent an Infantry officer armed with a sword. But compared with the other three, this may be allowed to be a remote contingency. There is not a hint, however, in the whole book, as to how these three attacks are to be met.

Now an officer does not so much himself attack as lead his men to the attack. In doing so however, he must defend his life as best he can.

Let us consider each case in turn.
a) The civilised swordsmen of the present day, even when armed with a pointed sword, seldom or never uses the point. They cut, as far as I have learnt, generally from the right downwards to the left. Such a cut, or any other, should be easily warded, and the riposte would be, if he had to shield a thrust, probably a cut say at his arm or leg. And in this connection the warning of another swordsman should be remembered “Never forget that it is more easy to make sure of a cut than it is of a thrust in the heat of an encounter.”
b) A horseman’s sweeping blow or steady lance thrust requires a strong guard or parry and a sword of not too light a make.
c) In European warfare, in a hand to hand combat, by far the most likely case is that of a swordsman having to parry a bayonet thrust. By far the most likely and by far most difficult! But in this book there is not a word about sabre against bayonet.

To parry this thrust, one way at least is to grasp the sabre with the left hand, and by a strong sideward or upward push of BOTH hands, to throw the rifle off, just as is done in quarter staff play.

The new sword is not well adapted for any of these three things being in my opinion, too narrow, insufficiently sharp along the front edge, and unnecessarily sharpened along the back edge.

However, as some one has said, “It is not so much the lover that woos as the lover’s way of wooing,” so it is not so much the sword you use, as the swordsman’s skill in using it. Officers are themselves apt to pooh-pooh the use of the sword, and consider that a Napoleonic coup d'œil is the most precious possession on the field of battle. No doubt it is, and let us hope we all have it.
Yet the sword is not without its history even in modern war. It has not unfrequently been used in street fighting or isolated skirmishes. 

Baron de Marbot relates in his Memoirs how he saved his life with it. He was trying to get unobserved through a village on foot, when he came suddenly on five Spanish carabineers. One took him by surprise and got a cut in over his left eye. He says “I ran mechanically towards the houses on my right, in order to get my back against a wall, but by good luck I found, two paces off, one of the steep and narrow lanes which went up to the vineyards.” The soldier (a recruit he had with him) had already reached it. “I flew up there too, with the five carabineers after me, but at any rate they could not attack me all at once, for there was only room for one horse to pass. The Brigadier* went in front; the other four filed after him. My position, although not as unfavourable as it would have been in the street, where I should have been surrounded, still remained alarming; the blood flowing freely from my wound had, in a moment, covered my left eye. I could not stanch it being obliged to defend myself against the Corporal who was cutting at me heavily. I parried as well as I could, going backwards all the time. After getting rid of my scabbard and my busby the weight of which hampered me, not daring to turn my head for fear of losing sight of my adversary, whose sword was crossed with mine, I told the light infantryman, whom I believed to be behind me, to place his musket on my shoulder and fire at the Spanish Corporal. Seeing no barrel however, I leapt a pace back, and turned my head quickly. Lo and behold there was my scoundrel of a Norman soldier flying up the hill as fast as his legs would carry him. The Corporal thereupon attacked with redoubled vigour, and seeing that he could not reach me, made his horse rear, so that his feet struck me more than once in the breast. Luckily as the ground went on rising, the horse had no good hold with his hind legs, and every time that he came down again I landed a cut on his nose with such effect that the animal presently refused to rear at me any more. Then the Brigadier losing his temper called out to the trooper behind him “Take your carbine; I will stoop down, and you can aim at the Frenchman over my shoulder. I saw that his order was my death signal; but as in order to execute it, the trooper had to sheathe his sword and unhook his carbine, and that all this time the Corporal never ceased thrusting at me, leaning right over his horse’s neck, I determined on a desperate action, which would be either my salvation or my ruin. Keeping my eye on the Spaniard, and seeing in him that he was on the point of against stooping over his horse to reach me, I did not move till the very instant when he was lowering the upper part of his body towards me, then I took a pace to the right and leaning quickly over to that side, I avoided my adversary’s blow and plunged half my sword blade into his left flank. With a fearful yell the Corporal fell back on the croup of his horse; he would probably have fallen to the ground if the trooper behind him had not caught him in his arms”. Then de Marbot taking advantage of the confusion in the narrow lane effected his escape. 

Forbes-Mitchell relates of Major Burroughs of the 93rd Highlanders that he “was an accomplished maitre d’armes. When he joined the 93rd as an Ensign in 1850, he was known as Wee Frenchie. I don’t exactly remember his height, I think it was under five feet, but what he wanted in size he made up in pluck and endurance. It was he who volunteered to lead the forlorn hope when it was thought the Highland Brigade was to storm the Redan, and before it was known that the Russians had evacuated the position. At the Relief of Lucknow he was not the first man through the hole in the Secundrabagh wall but was either the fourth or fifth. He was certainly the first officer of the regiment inside, and was immediately attacked by an Oudh irregular sowar armed with talwar and shield, who nearly slashed Burroughs’ right ear off before he got properly on his feet. It was the iron frame of his feather bonnet that saved him: the sowar got a straight cut at his head, but the sword glanced off the feather bonnet and nearly cut off his right ear. However, Burroughs soon gathered himself together (there was so little of him!) and showed his tall opponent that he had for once met his match in the art of fencing; before many second Burroughs’ sword had passed through his opponent’s throat and out of the back of his neck. 

Notwithstanding his severe wound Burroughs fought throughout the capture of the Secundrabagh, with his right ear nearly severed from his head, and the blood running down over his shoulder to his gaiters; nor did he go to have his wound dressed till after he had mastered his Company and reported to the Colonel how many of No. 6 had fallen that morning.” Many other instances of the use of the sword could be quoted and not a few here an Officer has been wounded by trusting to a revolver that did not go off instead of to his sword – two within my own knowledge. However this is somewhat of a digression from the subject. In concluding I trust I may be allowed to express a hope that we may soon have a fencing school at the Head Quarters of each Command, and so all armed with the sword may have opportunity “to acquire facility and skill in the use of that weapon.

*A Corporal in the French and Spanish armies.

Tonnochy's 1896 article above raises several very interesting points, but for the purposes of our discussion here, the most important part is the question of what military swordsmanship training should focus on.

The vast majority, nearly all, military sabre manuals from around the world focused on sword vs sword encounters, yet as Tonnochy so succinctly points out, on foot these would only make a small number of encounters. 

In a colonial environment, the opponents a sword-armed officer on foot would most often encounter would be armed with their native weapons and fighting in their own styles, quite unlike European fencers in general. 

In a European war, the majority of opponents met in close combat would be on foot with bayonets attached to muskets or rifles, or mounted on a horse with a sword or lance. Most contemporary sabre manuals on foot give very little or no advice for these encounters, even though they would be the most common in reality.

The Army and Navy Gazette on 17 October 1896 summarised the matter:

Therefore, Tonnochy absolutely correctly points out that manuals like the 1895 Masiello system were rather deficient in training the British officer for service. For a duel with sabres, something hardly any British officer even experienced in this period, these and similar manuals might seem excellent, but for military service they seem lacking in the most important things.


Two British authors had given a reasonable amount of attention to sword vs bayonet in recent history: John Musgrave Waite and Alfred Hutton. Angelo and earlier authors had occasionally given it a little attention and sword vs bayonet was a regularly featured competition in the numerous Assaults at Arms. Nevertheless, the subject had been rather overlooked and totally neglected in the Masiello manual. 

Now that Tonnochy had raised this interesting and pertinent matter in a prestigious military publication, mentioning Hutton's own 'Cold Steel' manual (of 1889) no less, Hutton decided to pick up the glove and commit to paper a system of using the British infantry officer's sword against the sort of enemy that he might actually come up against in the 1890s. 


This brings us to 1897, and the publication of "Sword Fighting and Sword Play", which would subsequently be added, with some changes, as an appendix to Hutton's foil and sabre manual "The Swordsman" (2nd Edition of 1897), where the appendix was titled "Defence Against an Uncivilised Enemy".


Hutton, probably with help from his friend Cyril Matthey, drew upon earlier historical combat methods for inspiration and advice, as he had also done in his manual "Cold Steel" of 1889. His principle source was the 'grips and closes' section of George Silver's backsword system (c.1599).


For the first time here I republish this "Sword Fighting and Sword Play", which is also available in scanned copy here.


SWORD FIGHTING AND SWORD PLAY


(BY CAPT. ALFRED HUTTON F.C.A.)


Reprinted from the "Indian Fencing Review" of January, 1897.


MAJOR V. C. TONNOCHY of the 4th Sikhs has recently published



Copyright of Matt Easton, Easton Antique Arms Ltd, 2023
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