In the next issue another distinguished master, the film fight–arranger Ralph Faulkner, articulated what he saw as the “real” cause of accidents: that the point wasn’t the point, but rather the nature of the activity itself:
If two 180-pound chunks of bone, flesh and muscle come together head-on, with sword arms outstretched and lethal steel aimed at the chest (or elsewhere), something is going to give and it doesn’t matter if the point is round, flat, conical, laminated, pulsated or animated. If the point doesn’t pierce whatever it comes in contact with then the blade will break and the danger will be even greater.16
Meanwhile, people kept on getting killed or mutilated. In 1971 Vincent Bonfil, a friend of mine and a foilist about to break into the British team, was fencing without a plastron when his opponent’s blade broke, entering under his armpit. No doctor was on hand, and within five minutes he had bled to death. In 1977 the top American sabreur was Peter Westbrook, who in his autobiography describes the time he and his Hungarian coach, Csaba Elthes, were practicing a routine drill at the New York Fencers Club:
As I ran at him to perform a new move, Csaba thrust his blade out in front of me. I was supposed to deflect it and hit him on the head, but he did it so fast that I actually impaled myself on the tip of his saber. The blade of a saber is about two-and-a-half feet long and is very flexible. But as I kept advancing like a battering ram, I heard it snap about a third of the way from the tip. Realizing that Csaba now had in his hand not a flexible blade with a blunt tip but a rigid knife with a jagged, razor-sharp tip, I threw my head back to avoid his deadly weapon. That move allowed the tip to project below my mask bib and pierce my throat. It went through my larynx and my oesophagus, an inch-and-a-half of it.…
I felt like there was a big chicken bone stuck in my throat. The next thing I knew I heard a hissing sound, pssst pssst, like when somebody calls to you on the street. I looked around the room. Who was hissing? What was going on? I suddenly realized that the sound was coming from my own throat. That scared me. When I put my hand over the hole in my throat, the hissing sound stopped. As soon as I removed my hand, the hissing continued.17
His master had performed a perfect tracheotomy. Doctors later told Peter that he had been extraordinarily lucky: the neck holds so many blood vessels—not to mention the spinal cord—that if the tip had penetrated a centimeter elsewhere, Peter would have died. Others were equally lucky. During the Olympics of 1980, a Russian foilist was run through the chest with a blade that severed a blood vessel but missed his heart, and a broken blade entered under the bib of a Ukrainian sabreur, again without causing major injury. World or Olympic championships are now obliged to have ambulances standing by, but these are still a second line of care. At the 1985 world championships in Barcelona, a French foilist was impaled by a broken blade entering his thigh, and the official medic on duty, a Romanian, had no idea what to do; the fencer’s life was saved only when a Spanish doctor in the audience leapt from the stands and came to his rescue.a
The watershed proved to be the Rome world championships of 1982. The program had reached its halfway point, with the men’s team foil event. During the match between what was then West Germany and the USSR, Matthias Behr, a team gold medalist for Germany, faced Vladimir Smirnov, the twenty-eight-year-old reigning world and Olympic champion. As Smirnov advanced, Behr—indeed a great bear of a man, six feet, three inches tall and heavily built—went on the attack. The German’s blade broke against the Russian’s guard as he tried to parry and traveled on through his mask. The converging lunges of these two powerful men drove the blade—now in effect a stilletto—through Smirnov’s eye and seven centimeters into his brain.
In the audience was an American team official, Marius Valsamis, a professor of neuropathology from Brooklyn. He was immediately summoned and gave the Russian mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to no avail. Smirnov was rushed to the nearest hospital, the Gemelli clinic, and the blade removed. Both Valsamis and the Russian doctor pronounced Smirnov brain-dead, but Smirnov was a superb athlete whose off-training hobby was karate: his body was still functioning. The authorities kept him on a life-support machine for four days, until the championships were over. The USSR team, fighting without its strongest member, honored his memory by storming to the gold medal.
Three elements came together to cause the Smirnov catastrophe: Behr’s blade being under enormous stress when it broke, the stump still in his hand discharged stored energy like a spring suddenly released. That it struck Smirnov’s jacket at the same time as the Russian drove himself forward initiated a compound process of cutting and thrusting. The tip would have been snapping back toward repose with maximum potential from the whole stump’s deformation. Behr would not even have been aware that he had hurt his opponent; indeed, those watching recall him turning round and walking toward his end of the strip, quite unaware of Smirnov stretched out behind him. Little force is needed to stick a knife into soft tissue: in this case it was as if the Russian had dropped from a second-story window onto a smashed metal fencepole.
There had been dreadful fatalities beforeb but none so horrible or to such a famous athlete. The Italian examining magistrates determined that there was no proper regulation of the sport and threatened to charge the organizers of the championships—the FIE and the Italian Fencing Federation—with manslaughter. The danger of the international fencing body being prosecuted en bloc was avoided, but only after promises to make significant changes.
A full two years later, a special meeting in Paris to examine safety measures led to changes in the standards for masks: minimum and maximum thicknesses for the wire and a maximum hole size for the mesh were stipulated. The problem of clothing safety seemed to defy solution, and for a while it looked as if there was no material both suitable and able to meet the safety requirements. The answer was Kevlar, a trade name like Hoover or Kleenex, a lightweight, high-strength material used in everything from ropes and car tires to composite plastics such as fishing rods, sailing masts, bulletproof vests, and the shells of U.S. Army battle helmets. Kevlar has almost miraculous qualities: with five times the tensile strength of steel, it has half the density of fiberglass. It was discovered in 1966 by Stephanie Kwolek, a scientist who had joined the U.S. chemical giant DuPont to fund her way through medical school. After six years in development, it was launched onto the market in 1971—eleven years before Smirnov was killed.
New clothing made from Kevlar and ballistic nylon was approved for international fencing competition. Then on French television a reporter held up a sample jacket and thrust a fountain pen straight through it. The designers went back to the drawing board. Subsequently, cloths of (heavy-duty) woven Kevlar yarn and composite woven and knitted materials were used to make clothing pen-proof; then, some years later, it was discovered that Kevlar could be weakened by sunlight and by certain detergents and bleaches. It has now all but been replaced by the newer polyethylene fibers such as Dyneema™ and Spectra™, which are even stronger and do not degrade under washing or drying in the sun. Fencing kit is now also made from high-density composite woven cloths originally developed for stab-resistant police wear.
As for the blades, the federation looked for a material that could withstand repeated bending without breaking. Barry Paul—marking the third generation of his family to head up Leon Paul, as well as being on the British team for many years and having been a close friend of Vincent Bonfil—is heavily involved in the FIE’s quest. Visiting him at his works headquarters in north London, I asked whether such a metal or alloy yet existed. “No,” he told me, “and when a prototype composite fail-safe blade with a relatively soft inner core was developed, it proved so expensive it was never put into production.” Maraging steels developed for military use, specifically in jet engines, were found to have the necessary attributes and lasted a long time before failing, but “in the end they too would break, and people would still be killed.” Since maraging steel contains no carbon, he explained, it is questionable even to classify it
as steel—the “clash of steel” may be a sound of the past. As Barry took me around his factory, he elaborated on what the alternatives might be. Fiberglass blades have their advantages, he conceded, but they neither sound nor feel right, and when they break tiny glass splinters inflict particularly nasty injuries. He and other manufacturers are now experimenting with certain superalloys again derived mainly from the aircraft industry.
Since 1984, further improvements have been introduced, but new problems have kept them company. To make fencing more TV-friendly, the FIE has promoted see-through masks, but competitions revealed that poor production (by one of Paul’s rivals) caused the visors to crack around their fixing holes, precipitating a fencers’ revolt. More stringent testing is under way. Across five seasons of U.S. fencing (2003–2008), for instance, involving almost 80,000 male and female participants of all ages and skill levels, the rate of time-loss injury (i.e., one severe enough to cause withdrawal from competition) was 0.3 per 1,000 athlete exposures. Fencing-unique injuries, specifically puncture wounds, accounted for less than 3 percent of reported events, and none resulted in permanent damage. There has not been a single reported fatality in the history of U.S. fencing.
Compared to their predecessors 150 years ago, fencers are bigger and fitter and weigh more; they deploy more force in their swordplay, and action time has been reduced: all thus imparting a greater potential for deadliness. “Yet there are so few injuries,” Barry told me, “that most insurance companies don’t even offer coverage—the research figures are too small for them to reach any conclusion.” He picked up a brand-new blade and bent it on the floor till it formed a deep bow. “We’re pretty close to the time where safety precautions won’t get any better,” he concluded, letting the blade spring back in his hand. “At a certain point, either you destroy the sport or you accept a degree of risk. Fencing is a combat sport. People will get injured.”
* “I saw with these eyes a Juggler that swallowed a two-hand sword, with a very keene edge, and by and by for a little money that we that looked on gave him, hee devoured a chasing speare with the point downeward. And after that hee had conveyed the whole speare within the closure of his body, and brought it out againe behind, there appeared on the top thereof (which caused us all to marvell) a faire boy pleasant and nimble, winding and turning himself in such sort, that you would suppose he had neither bone nor gristle, and verily thinke that he were the naturall Serpent, creeping and sliding on the knotted staffe, which the god of Medicine is feigned to beare.”2 Vives for his part recorded, “to the great fear and horror of spectators, [he would] swallow swords and vomit forth a power of needles, girdles, and coins.”
† There are some exceptions. The eighteenth-century French traveler M. L. Jacolliot was at the court of the Rajah of Mysore when he witnessed a squad of elephants trained in fencing by a master who had taught them foil, which would fence between themselves and the local soldiery. Each elephant would attack by extending its trunk and parry by retracting it. According to Jacolliot, it was almost impossible for even the most skillful man to hit them anywhere other than on the trunk, and that only rarely. As soon as foils were crossed, the elephant would shoot out his trunk at great speed and its opponent would be hit on the chest. At times they would toy with their adversary and, without bothering to make a hit, would envelop the other foil with such rapid circular movements that no attack was possible.
“One day,” Jacolliot recorded, “the Rajah armed two elephants with real swords. Immediately they attacked one another furiously and it was extremely difficult to separate them. When this was finally achieved, they were already severely wounded. It appeared … that despite their fury these elephants continued to observe the rules taught by their master.4
‡ This was a widely accepted view, not just Nadi’s special pleading. Burton reflects, “Many men attend the schools for years and never take the trouble of trying the experiment how they would react if opposed to a vigorous and resolute man who has never had a sword in hand. The attack—I would call it the wild-beast style … may sometimes succeed by chance. I have heard of an English naval officer who, utterly ignorant of the foil, when placed before his opponent began to use it like horsewhip, and succeeded.”11
§ It would be wrong to present fencing as other than a very safe sport; but as recently as 1983 Britain suffered its only fatal accident, when a modern pentathlete died after his opponent’s épée blade broke on his chest, the broken end lifting the bottom edge of the bib of his mask, transfixing the trachea and left common carotid artery. Commenting on his death, Raymond Crawfurd noted that fencing ranks fifth in the league table of incidence of sports injuries (not fatalities) after soccer, Rugby Union football, and women’s and men’s hockey.12
‖ Eye injuries are particularly gruesome. In his account of the death of Christopher Marlowe his biographer Charles Nicholl records the evidence given at the inquest: “The dagger aforesaid of the value of twelve pence, gave the said Christopher a mortal wound above his right eye, of the depth of two inches and of the width of one inch.” From this wound Marlowe “then and instantly died.” “Judging from this description,” comments Nicholl, “the point of the dagger went in just above the right eyeball, penetrated the superior orbital fissure at the back of the eye socket, and entered Marlowe’s brain. On its way the blade would have sliced through the major blood vessels: the cavernous sinus, the internal cartorid artery. The actual cause of death was probably a massive haemorrhage into the brain, or possibly an embolism from the inrush of air along the track of the wound.”13
a Until 1966, in Michigan, it was a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a $500 fine to “be present at the fighting of a duel with deadly weapons as an aide, or second or surgeon.” The statute made no distinction between dueling and fencing, so for a fencer to wear a mask, glove, and jacket would be an admission that he was using a “deadly weapon” under the law. An alert law student spotted the ambiguity, and the statute was changed.
b In July 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts, Professor Castaldi was giving one of his pupils, Dr. Terry, a well-known surgeon, his weekly lesson when the master’s blade broke and drove through Terry’s mask, inflicting a flesh wound near the nose. Terry got a new mask and Castaldi a new weapon; the lesson continued. Within a few moves Castaldi’s second blade broke, the jagged end going through Terry’s mask and right eye into his brain. He died three hours later without recovering consciousness.
For what’s more honorable than scarrs
Or skin to tatters rent in Warrs?
—SAMUEL BUTLER, Hudibras, 1658
I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see pursued. The students at Heidelberg, with their sword-slashed faces, inspire me with sincere respect.
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The Soldier’s Faith, 1895
THE SCENE: A SOCIETY CAFÉ IN BERLIN, EARLY IN THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP.
BRITISH VISITOR: Dueling’s very popular here, I believe?
YOUNG WOMAN [DEBORAH KERR]: Oh yes. It’s a proud father that has a scarred son, and vice versa. German girls find scars very attractive. A book was recently published on the German colonies in which it was specifically stated that one of the advantages of possessing dueling scars was that the natives of Africa look with more respect on a white man who bears them than on those who do not.
In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s famous 1943 film, Roger Livesey plays a young British diplomat visiting Berlin in 1902, who finds himself challenged to a duel by a Prussian officer. Livesey stands by bemused as the opposing seconds produce a rule book for the bout. His equanimity is somewhat shaken when he hears his second offhandedly remark, “I heard of one chap whose nerve broke.… I say, I hope our chap doesn’t get killed. Create an awful stink if he does.” The chosen weapon is a cavalry saber, and both men end up in the hospital—where they become firm friends.
Unlike most films featuring swordfights, the details here are well researched, but above all the encounter
captures the extraordinary enthusiasm Prussians displayed for dueling, setting to with gusto as the practice was winding down elsewhere. They even adapted a form of fighting that had originated in late-medieval France to develop their own weapon, the Mensur (a word derived from the “measure” or space between fencers), by the sixteenth century almost unknown outside the student fraternities of Germany and Austria-Hungary, where it has persisted for more than three hundred years. It is either gruesome and barbaric or fascinating and a true test of courage, depending on one’s point of view.
Up till the early 1700s student fights were rough affairs, involving cudgels, daggers, and whips. Those who fought duels were known contemptuously as “Knoten,” lumps, not yet licked into shape, possibly after “Knotenstock,” a gnarled cudgel. At some point in the early eighteenth century codes of behavior were developed, the sword replaced the cudgel, and a special vocabulary was introduced: students were “frogs,” “mules,” “camels,” “fat foxes,” “burnt foxes,” “mossy heads.” Challenges required little more than a simple insult. By the 1730s two methods were commonly employed. One could place a light in one’s window or carry a lantern, either of which would constitute a challenge. If the light were not put out on request, it would be pelted with stones, which would usually provoke a duel. Alternatively, the challenging student would approach his adversary and cry out “Pereat,” to which the correct reply was “Pereat contra,” which established that both men were ready to fight. These “Rencontres” died out around 1780, and a new and broader code, the “Komment,” took their place. This decreed that no formal duel or Mensur could be fought without just cause. A maximum and minimum number of rounds were set out, as was how to fix a venue and time. However, the formalities were frequently ignored, and simply calling one’s opponent “dummer Junge” (“young fool”) was generally sufficient to start a fight.
By the Sword Page 39