British Infantry Officers Battle Swords in the 19th C...and up to 1914

[Peter Hudson]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

This is a fascinating topic Peter!! and wrought with complexity, especially as the detail expands into sword stick/cane and even more into the native regiments of East India Co. later into British Army.

I had no idea John Jacob was involved in creating this interesting sword hilt design in British cavalry officers swords. The notion of pierced work in the sheet guards of these heavy cavalry officers swords seems to have begun with the M1796 period types, which I believe were termed 'honeysuckle' pattern.

When the M1829 swords came out for both light and heavy cavalry, the M1821 swords both had the three bar design hilt for both troopers and officers.

The 1829 heavy cavalry had the sheet bowl hilts, with the troopers plain and the officers with pierced designs in the guard which I thought were extension of the designs on the 1796.
As these swords were of course produced until superceded in 1853 by the pattern of that year for ALL cavalry, light and heavy....it does seem quite possible that a design for the pierced work in the officers hilts might have been connected to John Jacob as noted.

He was a brilliant officer of the East India Co. and very innovative as in the famed battle of Meeanee in Sind in 1843, he had used straight swords attached to rifle barrels and intro the 'sword bayonet'.
After that campaign the remarkable pun supposedly issued by Sir Charles Napier...PECCAVI (Lat. -I have sinned) was issued noting his victory taking Sindh for the EIC.

The sword pictured is the heavy cavalry officers of 1829, which continued until 1853. Jacob went into Sind in 1838 forming irregular cavalry unit as these were termed, comprised of native forces commanded by British officers. This is of course the standard pattern for the British regular cavalry, so the pattern design for the Jacob sword was likely following this type work but using the more native related theme as described. The Sind regions were of course highly influenced by Persia, so quite understandable.

These men were keenly sensitive to the combining of tribal and ethnic forces and the cultural significance of many elements, so it would not be surprising that Jacob would propose designs using these kinds of themes.

The belt plate is from later in 1850s recognizing the battle honors from Sind, and the Scinde Irregular Horse (Jacobs Horse) as cavalry were termed.

Illustrated are John Jacob, and one of the Muslim Rissalders (NCO) of the Scinde Horse.

Hello Jim, Thanks for your reply and I see you went straight into search mode and nailed it in regards to the Indian Scinde Cavalry link.
When looking at the 19th Century most people give up on seeing the difficulty or problems being tied to the everlasting arguement or discussion about two different kinds of blade. Often they give up! I can see why but thats not the whole story.

Please allow me the example seen in Samurai fight style. They realised that there were two sorts of fighting...and that to compete in both a warrior needed two swords...The Katana for fighting out in the open...and a Wakezashi for fighting in close quarter battles in buildings and Forts.

It also occurred to me that they better understood blade construction so that great care was taken in producing blades that could slash and chop with the ability to skewer or stab a target thus building into the blade in no particular order here thick backblade for blocking, a very sharp powerful blade and a well designed stabbing blade that could be used at very close quarters. But they also realised that you need two swords to do this...in fact they also had a dagger which was like a miniature of the main sword called the Tanto.The name given to all their 3 weapons points was in fact Tanto Point.

Part of the problem in Europe was that we also needed to fight in utterly different battle scenery...but we only had one sword.The plot thickens... My question to Forum laid out at the end of my Post at 1 in bold letters ...wasnt answered in 1914 ...They didnt answer it in my opinion because they were completely blinded by the arguement...They didnt understand that they actually needed two swords but worse than that they were thrown by not getting the question right...

In the 1900s through to WW1 Sword designers and specialists built more than 20 different sword styles so can anyone see the problem that this created... Meanwhile I will start placing sword pictures so members can best answer that burning question at my initial post....Thanks Jim.

Regards Peter Hudson.