By the Sword

by Richard Cohen

  “He was more than a master to me—like a second father,” reminisced Kamuti. “He would give me advice about everything. When I was about twenty—the year before the uprising—he started giving me books I should read. There were many of them, but one I remember was Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, to help me understand the Arab world. Another was Country of the Czar, by Maurice Paleologue. It explained why communism could take hold in Russia, but only there. This book was forbidden reading in Hungary. Béla Bacsi didn’t agree with communism—he made use of it.”

  Bay died in 1999, still hunting into his nineties, having married his girlfriend of thirty years at the age of seventy-five. According to Kamuti, the only time he had seriously thought about leaving Hungary was when he was invited to be the number-one huntsman in New Zealand. But he had turned that down too.

  There was a further piece of accommodation, however. In December 1951 Bay was asked to send twenty-four top fencers and coaches to Moscow to train with the young Russian team. They stayed there for several weeks, while the Soviet coaches watched, made notes, took photographs, and recorded endless reels of film. They made literally hundreds of pictures of Gerevich, including a complete film of his movements. “With infinite patience and industry,” a Hungarian épéeist recalled in 1960, “they worked out a complete choreography of fencing movements and they conducted systematic research—with the help of doctors, psychotherapists, medical sports institutes, etc.—into the motor reflexes, capabilities, reactions and even mental concentration of fencers.”12 The Soviets liked gold medals too.

  Béla Bay, “Uncle Béla,” whose obsession with hunting helped keep him from fleeing to the West. (illustration credit 17.5)

  The Soviet Union entered its first Olympics in 1952. Overall, it ran a close second to the United States in total points, but Soviet fencers were still learning and were content to play the sidelines. By 1955 the Soviet saber team came third at the world championships, and the following year Lev Kuznetsov took the bronze for individual saber, his country’s first Olympic success in fencing. Two years later, at the top-rated Martini Foil competition in Paris, the leading Soviet foilist, Mark Midler (who has made a conscious decision to copy the footwork patterns of the great Hungarian sabreurs), beat the renowned French number two, Claude Netter, 10–0—a result one top coach judged “without parallel in the history of fencing.”13 Then, at the 1960 Rome Games, the fledgling Russian team took eight medals: three gold, three silver, and two bronze. Hungary won four: a gold (Kárpáti) and silver in the individual saber, a team saber gold, and a silver in the women’s team foil. By then there were eighteen principal fencing centers in the Soviet Union and more than 30,000 federation members.

  Béla Bay may have helped save Hungarian fencing, but he also handed over the secrets of its fifty-year supremacy to the Soviets. Between 1960 and 1980, Hungary won thirty-one Olympic medals in fencing, ten of them gold; the USSR won forty-one, seventeen gold. In saber alone, in the four Olympics from 1972 to 1988, Hungary won a silver and three bronzes; the Russian team four golds, four silvers, and two bronzes. Since 1964, the Russian sabreurs have reached every Olympic final—bar 1984, which the Soviets boycotted. The pupil had become the master.

  * Their language is also a factor. Quite unlike any European stock, it is at best cousin to Finnish and Estonian, probably closest to Korean. Polysynthetic and glottal, it effectively gives Hungarians a secret tongue, so that they operate like some public closed society.

  † From the eighteenth century until the 1870s, the curved-blade saber was reckoned a subcategory of the broadsword, and the leg and thigh were thus both valid targets. Most manuals of the time discuss leg cuts. Only around 1870 did views change, the Austrian master Gustav Hergsell, for example, referring to hits below the waist not being used out of politeness (der Anstand). The influential master Luigi Barbasetti echoed this, saying that such cuts should be excluded in all “chivalrous and honorable combat”; but then Barbasetti used the same justification for outlawing cuts to the sword arm. Away from competitive fencing, cavalrymen were explicitly instructed to hit at both an adversary’s sword arm and bridle hand.3

  ‡ In several countries, fencers exercising with heavy practice sabers worked out side by side with the new breed of sabreur using the lighter weapon. The contrast between the two was highlighted at the turn of the century, when the Italian maestro Giuseppe Magrini introduced the sporting saber to England. He appeared for his first exhibition bout resplendent in black satin breeches and silk stockings, holding a fragile-seeming silverplated saber. His opponent, an army officer, wore heavy canvas shin guards and a cagelike mask, and clutched a blunted cavalry sword. At the command “Play” Magrini executed several lightning feints, ending with a delicate cut across his opponent’s chest. After one wild attempt to follow the blade, the officer abandoned defense and slashed at the Italian’s head. His blade curled over Magrini’s mask to hit him solidly on the back of his scalp. After this experience was repeated Magrini took off his mask and with deliberate calm said, “Thank you, sir. You are a very much better man than I.”

  § Each actor was given a real-life sabreur with whom to train. Ralph Fiennes took lessons from Szepesi himself (who was given the part of the presiding referee for the gold-medal bout) and was taught to fence both right- and left-handed, as he does in the film, but once swapped hands in midlesson. “That was a very bad idea,” says Szepesi; as a result that day the actor was unable to fence effectively at all. Fiennes took to the sport, however, and Szepesi later asked me to arrange for him to have further instruction in London. He was to fence in both The Avengers and, onstage, in Coriolanus.7

  ‖ Kárpáti owned a substantial collection of classical and semiclassical records and for several years hosted one of Hungary’s most popular radio shows. He also wrote a lecture series on the relationship between music and fencing footwork. He once withdrew from an army tank exercise in order to take part in a saber competition. He later ran into his commanding officer, who began, “Do you realize I am COLONEL KOVACS?” Hungary’s fencing hero replied, “Yes, and I am MAJOR KARPATI.” No further action was taken.11

  a In 1958 at the world championships in Philadelphia the Soviet team reached the saber final to face Hungary. The Hungarians crushed them, not only winning easily but talking and joking among themselves even on the piste, as if their opponents were of no concern. When the Soviet manager asked Bay to give up a few bouts to his team, he was turned away with contempt.

  In those days the team event was held before the individual—the order being reversed only in 1963. Five fencers of Hungarian origin who had moved to the United States and renounced their citizenship had entered the championships. At the FIE congress, held the day before fencing began, the Hungarian delegation objected, arguing that the fencers were not stateless, as they claimed, since Hungarian citizenship could be voided only with the consent of the Hungarian government. The U.S. delegation pointed out that an individual’s right to renounce allegiance to a government was fundamental in most legal systems, and particularly in the United States. The U.S. had accepted the statelessness of the fencers concerned, and as the championships were being held on American soil the FIE would have to accept that ruling. A vote was taken, and the applicants were declared stateless. In an effort at compromise, the FIE now ruled that only three stateless fencers would be allowed to compete per weapon, based on an ad hoc selection principle. The Hungarians accepted this decision. Three days later, however, after a telephone call from Budapest, the Hungarians withdrew from the two events still to be fought, saber and épée, which included stateless fencers.

  John Updike’s drawing of two Stone Age figures observing the courtesies. In every age, it is possible to honor fair play. (illustration credit p6)

  Sow an action and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  Better a fallen star than never a burst of light.

  —OSCAR W
ILDE

  ONE BLUSTERY DAY IN BUDAPEST IN THE AUTUMN OF 1991, A predominantly male gathering was making its way to the main crematorium in the city. The mourners were well dressed for a cross section of the citizenry, for they belonged to an unusual elite. Most were Hungarian fencers or ex-fencers, though a delegation from the Polish Fencing Federation had made the journey from Warsaw, and there were Italians too, some Germans, even a Romanian. The dead man’s widow was there, of course, as was his daughter. Conspicuous by their absence were any representatives of the Hungarian Federation. Someone else was absent, perhaps the person closest of all to the man being buried. But we will come to him later, and the role he had played in sending his patron into exile.

  They had come to pay their respects to one of the greatest Hungarian masters, János Kevey. Two years after the end of World War II, Kevey had left his country to teach in Poland, where he initiated a saber revolution that finally put an end to Hungary’s hegemony. But that is only part of the reason why no Hungarian officials came to honor him.

  KEVEY’S STORY IS A COMPLICATED ONE. GERMAN BY BIRTH—“Richter” was his family name when he came into the world on February 28, 1907—his parents soon took up Hungarian citizenship and adopted the name “Kevey,” from Kevevara, the village in southern Hungary where they lived. In the early 1930s János studied law and fenced. He was universities champion at foil and saber and went on to represent his country at the Student Games in Darmstadt, where he won a saber team gold. Thereafter he trained as a coach in the Budapest Military Academy and early in his career survived a vicious duel. In 1938 he spent a year teaching in Poland, training its national saber team.

  By 1939 Kevey found himself in the army, where he became aide-decamp to Miklós Horthy, a determined anti-Semite, whose fascist views he shared. He continued to fence and in 1940 won the Hungarian épée championship. When the country was overrun by German troops he fought on the side of his new masters. In 1945 the Soviet forces took Budapest and Kevey changed allegiance again, being appointed a major in the New Democratic Army. However, in the months after the capitulation the Russians instigated a series of political trials, and Horthy was prosecuted for war crimes, in particular for his actions against Jews during Hungary’s alliance with the Nazis. As soon as the archives were examined, Kevey was indicted as well and summoned to court as a witness for the prosecution. Alone of those who testified, he declared his commanding officer innocent. It did little good: Horthy was executed soon afterward. Kevey was charged with collaboration and sentenced to several months in prison.

  He spent this ample opportunity for reflection in reviewing the way saber had been taught, and decided that a new method was possible, based on a limited repertoire of fast, simple movements and above all on mobility. He would organize all attacks around the flèche. No one knows whether he persuaded his fellow prisoners to be his guinea pigs, but once his sentence was over he walked out of prison eager to put his theories into practice. However, there was no work for him in Budapest, where he was viewed as a traitor. Luckily for him, others felt differently. Following the invasion of their country in 1939, many Polish officers had escaped to Hungary, keen to continue fighting the Germans. When Hungary came into the war on the German side, Kevey had been one of those who helped hide these officers; after 1945 a number of these men won high office in Poland and proclaimed him a hero.

  Poland was desperate to reconstruct itself. Thousands of young men and women saw sport as the key to a new life, and the Polish government, initially less under Moscow’s sway than other Eastern European countries, was open to new ideas. Within the world of fencing, foil was generally considered a weapon for girls and beginners; épée, in Poland as in Hungary, was introduced comparatively late, whereas saber had a long history as a traditional weapon of the Polish cavalry. Young Poles eager to take up fencing were encouraged to turn to saber, and in 1947 Kevey was invited to take over the national team.

  He was not content to bring together a new cadre of athletes; over time, he inveigled the best of the younger fencers throughout the country to leave their current masters to come to his special training camps in Warsaw. Once he had drawn together a group of the quality he wanted, he told them what he had in mind. To emulate the Hungarians would take at least twenty years: there was no shortcut to perfect technique. But he did have a shortcut to success. The Hungarians were vulnerable to speed, and by working on a limited range of quick strokes he would give his squad the edge to win.

  One of his pupils, Wojciech Zabłocki, an architect in training from Kraków, remembers Kevey teaching them to make direct attacks from relatively close in, flèching so quickly that it was impossible to parry. Kevey progressively extended the distance while keeping the tactics. “I used to practice thousands of flèches against the wooden door of my room. The door ended up partly destroyed, and I hurt myself too,” recalls Zabłocki. “As I was light and had strong legs I developed a flèche that was horizontal, and Kevey adopted this for his school. We took photos that amazed everyone—but this was partly because the camera was down low so the flèche seemed exaggeratedly high.”1

  The training program upon which Kevey insisted was exacting, but at first there was little to show for it. From 1948 to 1956 the medals went the way they always had—to Hungary, then Italy, with the occasional French intervention. Poland was improving, but slowly, and to complicate matters a new rival appeared: the Soviet Union. To win, the Poles were going to have to beat the Russians too—only the Russians were their overlords and expected them to share their new techniques.

  In February 1952 Kevey took a squad to Moscow to demonstrate his training methods. On arrival he was enthusiastically feted—flowers, banners, cheering. As the team negotiated the welcoming throngs, Kevey suddenly paled; several of the team thought he was going to faint. That evening he explained that he had recognized a man in the crowd as the officer who had interrogated and beaten him in prison. Throughout the rest of the visit the normally assured coach was terrified that he might be arrested again. Nothing happened that time, but several years later, the day after Warsaw honored him with a state award for his services to Polish sport, Kevey learned that the Hungarian government had demanded his extradition for complicity in German war crimes. Again he was fortunate: the president of the Polish Committee for State Sport was a friend, and the request was ignored.

  It is hard to underplay Kevey’s impact upon his contemporaries. He had the build of a stocky boxer, surmounted in middle age by a shock of perfectly white hair over a broad, heavily lined face. He was a dominating figure, full of life, who liked to control those around him, an insatiable womanizer who always seemed to be married to a different rich wife. Paradoxically, he would not allow his fencers any sexual activity in the week preceding competition, although he advised it the night before, “to help quicken them.” He would monitor his protégés’ food and drink. They could take salt but not sugar, while alcohol, coffee, and other stimulants were forbidden. In training camps he would wake his pupils at five or six in the morning and order them to go swimming, even in winter, in the ice-cold water of a nearby lake. In a short memoir of his teacher, Wojciech Zabłocki describes him discounting other coaches, claiming any success as his own, and becoming “father, mother, creator—God.”

  By 1953 results started to roll in. At the Under-21 world championships in Paris, Zabłocki took first place. The silver went to Jerzy Pawłowski, a legal student tied to the army. At the senior world championships in Brussels, Poland took a bronze team medal, its first success since 1934. At the next championships, in Luxembourg, Pawłowski came fourth behind three Hungarians. The following year, in Rome, it was Zabłocki’s turn—fourth again. In Melbourne in 1956, Pawłowski was runner-up to the great Hungarian Rudolf Kárpáti. The Poles also took the team silver, ousting Italy. Kevey immediately asked for a pay raise but was told that, though his work was greatly appreciated, he was asking for a higher salary than the new first secretary, Władysław Gomułka.

  Howev
er playful this repulse, Kevey knew that for his Polish masters the goal was gold, a dream as elusive as ever. The idea began to circulate that maybe Kevey, so long seen as the solution, was in fact becoming the problem. One team official was told by a discerning German coach, “I’m surprised such intelligent youngsters put up with such stupefying training.” The message was passed on.

  Kevey’s young charges were becoming restless, but what could they do? “The only way to get rid of him was to lose,” admitted one. “But we wanted above all to win.” Kevey realized that his fencers no longer trusted him and began to exercise his authority more heavily. At the 1957 world championships came the victory for which he had been longing. In the eight-man saber final were two great Hungarians of the old guard, Kárpáti and Kovács, and two newcomers, Horváth and Mendelényi. Overconfident and focused on securing all four top places, the senior Hungarians gave their bouts to their younger colleagues, and although Kárpáti easily beat Pawłowski he was saddled with two “losses” and had to watch as the young Pole beat his three countrymen to take the title outright—Hungary’s first loss since 1920 and Poland’s first victory ever—so unexpected that the organizers had not laid in a recording of the Polish national anthem.2

  The following year Kevey was convinced that his team would take the gold—but it lost to the Russians in the semifinals, and managed only a bronze (Twardokens) in the individual. Kevey called a press conference, at which he roundly berated his team. Accusing them of “immoral behavior,” he declared, “They didn’t want to use my methods.” Spearheaded by Pawłowski, the saber squad wrote a letter to its association saying they no longer wanted Kevey as their coach. So public a declaration of disillusionment could not be ignored. By 1958 Kevey’s contract had been abruptly terminated, and he was on the move again, this time to Italy.