"Infantry sabres" Topic

I was wondering,

at least with the French, Elite companies carried sabers. Did they ever get used ? I wonder how practical it is to brandish a saber with a musket in the other hand …..

A quote or reference would be helpful

Thanks

John

I do not have a quote but apparently the infantry sabres were mostly used as tools and kitchen implements. I can recall no instance of a memoire recalling the use of the sabre as a weapon. Indeed some French voltigeur companies were known to have dropped the sabre briquet altogether.

By this time the sabre briquet was more of a status symbol than a practical war weapon.

Often discarded on the march even if issued.

The term "sabre briquet" was originally (18th C) just a nickname, refering to its small size, more like a knife, even a pocketknife. It might also refers to pieces of firewood (about that size -60 cm), "the sabre briquet was just good for cutting firewood", I came across that last quate somewhere but cannot recall where. Never of much combat use I imagine, unless maybe in very confined spaces such fighting in houses etc.

I think just about every figure (some milita excluded) in my Prussian and Russian armys have their swords.

THe British infantry -grenadiers- hadn't carried them in the field for a good long while…

The term briquet in french means lighter – like a cigarette lighter. My understanding was that that term was adopted because is only practical use was as a fire starter. The steel part of flint and steel.

Rob

Infantry issued swords seem to have been an issue for centuries by the Napoleonic period. I recall comments on swords issued to the rank and file in the English Civil War were not used for combat and mostly used in cooking or chopping wood.

I never understood why it's useful for chopping wood (something even good swords are not very good at) but not to fight with. I have a small hand axe not suitable for chopping trees but can be used be used to split small logs and even break lighter steel chains. I can guarantee if i hit you in the shoulder with it. You'll be horse de combat. So anything that can chop wood is quite nasty when used on humans

I cannot imagine that any military system would keep a weapon in production with all the resources that entails for no value return. Short sabres would have come in useful in melees in tight areas where the proverbial cat (and a bayonet on a musket) cannot be swung.

From reading about close combat
They used the bayonets in all places including tight stairways.

The bearskin hats had only a moral advantage, expensive to make. But they thought the moral effect was worth it. Perfectly possible they thought the same with short swords.

they had value return – morale – the sabre – along with mousetaches – did show elite status

Uniforms alone show that notions of practicality were not the same in the C18th and C19th centuries as today.

Not that our descendants won't look back on our oh-so-practical present and scratch their heads.

I believe there is an account fron Erwald's book on the AWI of his Jaegers storming a bridge with their hangers. There is also an account of an Old Guardsman who went down in 1814 with his sabre-briquet, supposedly leaving a circle of deceased enemies. I think I may have read of 1813 Swedish Jaegers storming a town with their hangers.