FENCING 



3112 



FENCING 



sword -play, but were now the in- 

 troduction to far wider and more 

 thrilling practical problems, he be- 

 gan to see that fencing was one of 

 the best games in the world. By 

 swift degrees he took up the science 

 and art of the epee until he could at 

 least make a fair fight with the best 

 exponents of the sword in Europe. 



In 1900 Sulzbacher fought in the 

 first pool ever seen by an English 

 audience. In 1903 the first fencing 

 team to represent Great Britain 

 was sent out to Paris by the ama- 

 teur fencing association to compete 

 in the grande semaine for the inter- 

 national medals. It was beaten by 

 France ; but it won the second 

 place by conquering Belgium, who 

 had her revenge in 1912 at Stock- 

 holm, where France was not repre- 

 sented. In 1906 at the Olympic 

 Games at Athens a British team 

 for the first time fought France to 

 a dead heat in the final of an inter- 

 national tournament, and a Brit- 

 isher hit four Frenchmen one after 

 another. In the Olympic Games at 

 Antwerp in 1920 the challenge cup, 

 presented by British fencers for 

 amateur epee teams, open to the 

 world, was won by the Italians, 

 chiefly owing to the fine fencing of 

 the brothers Nadi, who also put 

 their country ahead in foils and 

 sabres. The English team, though 

 well up to the average, did not do 

 as well as usual in any of the three 

 weapons at these games, one reason 

 being a new rule which gave points 

 in foil-play to hits on the sword- 

 arm from the shoulder to the elbow. 



To obtain practice fencers often 

 form a pool. The winner is he who 

 is least hit. The score -sheet would 

 be something of this kind : 



This would show that B wins 

 because he received less hits than 

 anyone else, having lost only to A 

 and to E. Turning to A's line, 

 under the column marked B one 

 finds a cipher showing that he won 

 his fight against B, and another 

 cipher appears in E's line, also 

 under the column marked B. It 

 will be noticed also that C, D, E, 

 and F have each one square with 

 the mark Id ; this means a coup 

 double, to signify that hit was 

 scored against each man, proba- 

 bly because one of them, when 



attacked, defended himself by a 

 counter-attack instead of a parry, 

 and though he hit his man he was 

 not quick enough to do so before 

 being hit himself. Though this is 

 sometimes a calculated stroke on 

 the part of a fencer admittedly in- 

 ferior to his opponent, it is not 

 generally considered good fencing. 



A pretty variation of the pool, 

 when there are eight fencers or 

 more, is the team fight. The num- 

 ber of fights in a pool can be easily 

 calculated. Let X be the total 

 fencers ; the number of fights will 

 be X(X-l) /2. Therefore if the 

 pool is composed of six fencers 

 there will be 6(6 1)/2=15. 

 Style in Fencing 



To turn to style. In fencing it is 

 possible to analyse all the useful 

 movements mathematically into 

 conic sections, the point of the 

 sword describing the base of the 

 cone of which the apex is the pum- 

 mel. Again, they may be described 

 geometrically by assuming the 

 position of the point in the final 

 thrust to be within one or other 

 of the quadrants of the circle on a 

 compass, i.e. between the cardinal 

 points N. and E. or N. and W. in 

 the upper lines, and the cardinal 

 points S. and E. or S. and W. in the 

 lower lines. Practically this ex- 

 hausts the possibilities of the 

 fleuret. It also serves as a definition 

 for any thrust or parry with the 

 sword ; for wherever an attacking 

 blade threatens a thrust, thither 

 should the defending sword imme- 

 diately follow it, and though the 

 central point of the circle on the 

 compass may shift from breast to 

 throat, or breast to knee, the rela- 

 tive movements of the subsequent 

 final attack or defence will remain 

 the same. To make any movement 

 outside the imaginary circle, with a 

 radius of about fifteen inches at 

 most, would obviously be dangerous. 



The easy way in which diagrams 

 and mathematics can be applied to 

 perfect swordsmanship was the pit- 

 fall in the progress of the art of 

 fencing with the point. It resulted 

 in vast and complicated encyclo- 

 pedias which were of little prac- 

 tical use, if any, in a real fight. 

 The riposte, perhaps the most 

 deadly stroke of all, was only " in- 

 vented " after duelling had been 

 largely discontinued ; and the basic 

 principle of all first-rate exercise in 

 the early days of fencing was en- 

 tirehr lost sight of ; indeed, it has 

 only emerged into general view in 

 the last generation. The principle 

 may be briefly stated as the em- 

 ployment, in any sudden action, 

 which may in this case involve life 

 or death, of the simplest, most 

 direct, and most instinctive move- 

 mentinstinctive in the special 



sense of the result of putting into 

 unconscious practice a series of 

 simple and perfectly executed 

 movements originally learnt with 

 more or less difficulty. 



In the thrust the knuckles must 

 be turned toward the ground if the 

 point is to be straight, the head 

 must be erect, the point of the toe 

 in a direct line with the point of the 

 sword, the shoulders at once loose 

 and low, the left foot exactly at 

 right angles to the right. Unless 

 these things at least have become 

 instinctive (in the sense defined), 

 it is useless to try fencing either 

 with foil or sword even in any 

 friendly competition. But these 

 things being granted, an illimitable 

 field for activity, for delicate speed, 

 for subtle character, for courage, 

 for patience, opens up before the 

 courteous swordsman. No game in 

 the world enables you so quickly to 

 take the measure of your man. The 

 sword becomes a nerve stretching 

 from your heart right down to the 

 searching, pulsating point in front 

 of you. It feels the opposing blade. 

 At last it seems as if you might 

 fence blindfold, so extraordinarily 

 is that sixth sense developed which 

 deals with " time, distance, and 

 proportion," as you fight. The 

 parry that fails to find your adver- 

 sary's sword automatically repeats 

 itself. The thrust that meets his 

 guarding blade slips almost uncon- 

 sciously the other side of it. 



French and Italian Schools 

 It is held that the French school 

 of foil and epee -play is invariably 

 the best, in spite of occasional bril- 

 liant exceptions like the brothers 

 Nadi at Antwerp in 1920, while the 

 Italian school of sabre leads the 

 world in that deadly and beautiful 

 weapon, the sciabola. This is as 

 light as an epee de combat and 

 almost as deadly with its point, 

 while the swift play of its edge adds 

 great variety and excellence to any 

 contest. It is the combination of 

 edge with point which is the su- 

 preme beauty of this weapon, and 

 those who know only either single- 

 stick or heavy sabre could never 

 appreciate the subtle, swift, and 

 delicate play required of the first- 

 rate swordsman in the Italian 

 school of sabre. 



Bibliography. A Bibliography of 

 Fencing and Duelling, C. A. T. 

 Thimm, 1896 ; L'Escrime, J. Joseph 

 Renaud, 1911 ; The Sword and the 

 Centuries, Alfred Hutton, 1901 ; 

 Secrets of the Sword, Barancourt, 

 Eng. trans. C. Felix Clay, 1900 ; The 

 Works of George Silver, 1599, ed. 

 Cyril Matthey, 1898; Schools and 

 Masters of Fence, Egerton Castle, 

 1892 ; Cold Steel, Alfred Hutton, 

 1889 ; Fencing (with Boxing and 

 Wrestling), W. H. Pollock, in The 

 Badminton Library, 1889. 



