The Symbol of War: The Sword

^{A variety of swords. From top: Turkish yataghan, Philippine Moro kris, French naval cutlass, Japanese naval officer’s sword, Indian Tulwar, U.S. Model 1913 cavalry sword.}

“Masters of the sword are called strategists. As for the other military arts, those who master the bow are called archers, those who master the spear are called spearmen, those who master the gun are called marksmen, those who master the halberd are called halberdiers. But we do not call masters of the Way of the long sword ‘longswordsmen,’ nor do we speak of ‘companion‑swordsmen.’ Because bows, guns, spears, and halberds are all warriors’ equipment, they are certainly part of strategy. To master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy.”

So wrote Miyamoto Musashi in 1645. Musashi was a ronin, a kind of Japanese knight‑errant, and a master of the long sword. Shortly before he died, Musashi wrote A Book of Five Rings: A Guide to Strategy. Musashi was Japan’s most celebrated duelist, a man who literally lived by the sword, so his estimate of the importance of his favorite weapon might seem to be somewhat prejudiced. However, his countrymen agreed with him. They continued to agree with him for the next three centuries – so much that in the 20th century they named the largest battleship ever built (and probably the largest that ever will be) after him.

The sword has had a unique place among weapons in many cultures beside the Japanese. It has been a symbolic weapon in the Islamic, Indian, and Western cultures. It has been part of the regalia of African kings, and it was the badge of a gentleman in Renaissance and early modern Europe.

Part of the reason for this is that, until the Industrial Age, the sword was hideously expensive. Only important people, and in the earliest times only rulers, could own a sword. In the Bronze Age, it used a lot of that costly metal (bronze would make many spears, axes, and daggers or scores of arrows). In the Iron Age, wrought iron had to be “steeled” before it could be an effective weapon. That took a long time and a skilled smith. Just tempering a long piece of iron or steel evenly was a tricky process. European and Indian smiths used “pattern welding” – braiding strips of hard steel and soft iron together and welding them to get a blade that was hard enough to take an edge and elastic enough not to shatter from a hard blow. Japanese smiths got these qualities by heating iron over charcoal, pounding it flat and folding it over, and welding again. They did this until the sword consisted of as many as 4 million layers of steel. Then they used a unique tempering process to make the edge and point harder than the rest of the sword. Even if the smith made a pittance per hour, making a sword took so long that one was extremely expensive. Swords were also handed down from father to son for this reason.

Men were willing to pay the very high price of these weapons because the sword had no equal as a weapon for hand‑to‑hand fighting. It was much longer than the dagger, but short enough to be far more maneuverable than a spear. It could be used to slash, parry, and thrust.

The first swords were long, thin bronze rapiers (straight, two‑edged swords with narrow pointed blades) that were useful mostly for stabbing, because the blade was not securely joined to the hit. These early Bronze Age rapiers have been found everywhere from Crete to Ireland. That type was followed by a broader bladed weapon that had a tang that ran all the way through the hilt. The iron swords that followed them retained this cut‑and‑thrust style.

Swords were important weapons for the nobles of Mycenaean Greece, but to the Greeks of classical times they were merely last‑ditch weapons. They would be used if the spear was broken and neither the point nor pointed butt of the spear was available. The Romans, however, made the sword a key part of their weaponry. The legionary threw his pila (spears) at the enemy, but he relied on his gladius, a short sword worn on his right side, to finish off his opponents. The gladius was worn on the right side so the Roman’s enormous shield wouldn’t interfere with drawing it.

The success of Greek and Roman armies established a tradition of close‑range, shock warfare in all of Europe. It was a far different way of fighting than the mobile missile warfare practiced by the charioteers and later the horse archers of the Asian steppes. The European barbarians adopted shock warfare, whether they were foot warriors such as the Franks and Alemanni or cavalry suxch as the Goths. Among all of these peoples, from the Celts of Spain to the Teutonic tribes of Scandinavia, the sword was the most important weapon. The lance was good for a horseman’s first contact with the foe, but, after that, the sword was supreme.

The sword was also highly esteemed by the Asian horse archers. The Huns would first open a fight with arrows, but after their enemies became weakened and demoralized, they charged with swords. The Turks were especially fond of swordplay, a characteristic that caused them a great deal of trouble when they met the more heavily armored crusaders. In Africa, the sword was also the principal weapon in the Sudan and the Sahara, among both the warriors of the great kingdoms of the Sahel or wandering nomads like the Tuareg tribes. British and French troops fighting in these areas in the 1890s found the natives still using their traditional swords as they charged the European machine guns.

In the Middle Ages, swords were almost as necessary to the knights as they were to Musashi and his fellow samurai. Infantry, too, carried swords. If anything happened to your spear or halberd, you had to have a “sidearm.” Infantry were still carrying swords in the middle of the 18th century, although they also had muskets and bayonets. When infantry got muskets and pikes, western European cavalry adopted pistols instead of lances, but they kept their swords. Gustavus Adolphus, the great Swedish leader in the Thirty Years War, advocated a minium use of the pistol for his cavalry and charging the enemy with the sword. “Light Horse Harry” Lee, the American Revolutionary hero, said “…the fire of cavalry is at best innocent, especially in quick action…

The strength and activity of the horse, the precision and celerity of evolution, the adroitness of the rider, boot‑top to boot‑top, and the keen edge of the saber…constitute the vast power so often decisive in the day of battle.”

Today, the sword is merely an item of costume in the military units that still carry it. The exception is the machete, still used in jungle fighting as both a tool and a weapon. For thousands of years, however, from before the Romans until well after the American Civil War, the sword was a key weapon of war. The last users of the sword were the sword‑worshiping Japanese. During World War II, there were many reports of Japanese officers charging with their swords and a few of them beating on the sides of tanks with swords.