By the Sword

by Richard Cohen

  10. Ibid., pp. 142–3, fn.

  11. Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography (condensed ed.) (New York: Scribner’s, 1958), p. 17.

  12. See Donald George Wilhelm, Theodore Roosevelt as an Undergraduate (Boston: J. W. Luce, 1910), p. 57.

  13. F. G. Blakeslee, “Fencing, the Sport of President Roosevelt,” Pearson’s Magazine, November 1904, p. 12.

  14. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 185, 200.

  15. Margaret Truman, Harry S Truman (New York: Morrow, 1973).

  16. Mary Ethel Noland, Oral history interview for the Harry S Truman Library, June 1966, p. 71.

  17. The Academy, October 30, 1875, p. 454; in the papers of R. F. Burton, Huntington Library, Box 15, 1.

  18. Quoted in Baldick, The Duel, p. 115.

  19. Lyle Saxon, Fabulous New Orleans (New York: Appleton-Century, 1939), p. 192.

  20. Ibid., p. 189.

  21. William Oliver Stevens, Pistols at Ten Paces: The Story of the Code of Honor in America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940), p. 130.

  22. David T. Courtwright, Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).

  23. Lyman Beecher, “The Remedy for Duelling,” sermon delivered at the Presbytery of Long Island at Aquebogue, April 16, 1806, in the Huntington Library.

  24. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (London: Penguin, 1984), p. 273, fn.

  25. Chambers, The Field of Honor, p. 77.

  26. Philadelphia Times, January 1884, as related in ibid., p. 113.

  27. Williamson, Bowie Knives, pp. 40–53; see also Raymond W. Thorp, Bowie Knife (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1948).

  28. Kentucky Constitutional Convention Debates, 1849, 82.

  29. Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, 396 (1859); see Clayton E. Cramer, Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence and Moral Reform (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999), p. 88.

  30. Stevens, Pistols at Ten Paces, pp. 39–40.

  31. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, p. 692.

  32. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, August 1836.

  33. See James R. Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), pp. 104–7.

  34. B. C. Chambers, The Field of Honor, p. 144.

  35. Bernice Larson Webb, The Basketball Man: James Naismith (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1973), pp. 125–6.

  36. Alex Solomon, “Did You Know?” American Fencing, August 1954.

  37. This exchange, and the earlier details of the story, were told me by a senior U.S. fencer who overheard the conversation.

  38. Peter Westbrook and Tej Hazarika, Harnessing Anger: The Way of an American Fencer (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997), p. 32.

  39. Joyce Wadler, “A Saber Rattler Teaching Sportsmanship,” The New York Times, September 6, 2000.

  40. Brian Cazeneuve, “Duel Purpose,” Sports Illustrated, November 22, 1999, p. 94.

  CHAPTER 12: SPILLED BLOOD

  1. The Sword, July 1995, p. 5.

  2. Lucius Apuleius, The Golden Ass, chap. 2 (New York: The Modern Library, 1928). For Ludovicus Vives, see www.swordswallower.org/swordswallowing.html.

  3. Unknown magazine; in Box 1, Richard Francis Burton papers for The Book of the Sword, vols. 2 and 3, Huntington Library.

  4. See The Sword, January 1985, p. 18, and Emile Mérignac, Histoire de l’escrime, vol. 2, From Middle Ages to Modern Times (Paris, 1883).

  5. G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown (New York: Avenel, 1990), p. 222.

  6. Bernard Cornwall, Sharpe’s Waterloo (London: Harper Collins, 1990).

  7. Christoph Amburger, Hammerterz Forum (Multi Media Books, 1996), p. 103.

  8. Josef Schmied-Kowarzik and Hans Kufahl, Das Duellbuch (Leipzig, 1896), p. 158.

  9. Dr. Richard Wiseman, Of Wounds, of Gun-shot Wounds, of Fractures and Luxations, 1676, p. 341. He goes on to tell the story of a surgeon who, failing to remove the shaft of an arrow, in despair asked the patient “in what posture of the body he received the Wound. Understanding it was done on Horseback, he placed him in a riding posture, and immediately drew out the Weapon.”

  10. Nadi, The Living Sword.

  11. Burton, The Sentiment of the Sword, p. 105.

  12. A. R. Crawfurd, The Medical Hazards of Fencing, pp. 360–70.

  13. Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (London: Picador, 1993), p. 18.

  14. Richard Francis Burton, Box 1, Huntington Library, op. cit.

  15. American Fencing, Summer 1962.

  16. Letter in American Fencing, Winter 1962.

  17. Westbrook and Hazarika, Harnessing Anger: The Way of an American Fencer, pp. 97–8.

  CHAPTER 13: SCARS OF GLORY

  1. Twain, A Tramp Abroad, pp. 27, 31.

  2. William Howitt, Student Life in Germany (London: Routledge, 1849).

  3. Robert Southcombe, “Fencing and Fascism,” The Sword, Summer 1977.

  4. Twain, A Tramp Abroad.

  5. J. M. Hart, German Universities: A Narrative of Personal Experience, Together with Recent Statistical Information, Practical Suggestions, and a Comparison of the German, English and American Systems of Higher Education (New York: Putnam, 1874), pp. 73–4.

  6. Ibid., p. 79.

  7. Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel (London: Penguin, 1999).

  8. See Peter Gay, “Mensur—The Cherished Scar” in The Cultivation of Hatred (New York: Norton, 1989). Gay argues that the German student duel is the perfect example of the clash between two basic drives in man, that toward physical aggression and that to control such urges.

  9. R. B. Haldane, An Autobiography (London: Hodder, 1929), p. 14.

  10. Isabel Lady Burton, The Life of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (New York: Appleton, 1893).

  11. John Lothrop Motley, Morton’s Hope, or The Memoirs of a Provincial (New York: Harper, 1839), two vols.

  12. Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters (London: Secker, 1990), pp. 103–4.

  13. R. G. S. Weber, The German Student Corps in the Third Reich (London: Macmillan, 1986), p. 28.

  14. Jerome K. Jerome, My Life and Times (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1926), p. 207.

  15. Desmond Stewart, Theodor Herzl (New York: Doubleday, 1974), p. 84. In 1904, a Jewish student was four times as likely to be involved in a duel as his Gentile counterpart.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Marianne Weber, Max Weber: A Biography (New York: Wiley, 1975), p. 69.

  18. Pall Mall Gazette, March 12, 1890.

  19. See John Van der Kiste, Kaiser Wilhelm II: Germany’s Last Emperor (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), p. 20.

  20. St James’s Gazette, May 9, 1891.

  21. Weber, The German Student Corps in the Third Reich, p. 162. The Corps in particular were organized democratically, according to accepted constitutions—hardly a good philosophical match for the hierarchic Fuhrerprinzip of the Nazis.

  Horst Wessel, the Nazi martyr, was a member of two Corps before organizing Hitler’s Stormtroopers in the communist workers’ districts of Berlin; in 1930, aged twenty-two, he was killed, supposedly by communists, and a poem he had written became the official anthem of the Nazi Party. While photos of his elaborate funeral and subsequent memorial services show a “grief-stricken” Hitler surrounded by Corps students decked out in full regalia, the Nazis themselves took great pains to point out that Wessel’s stature in their pantheon was “not because of, but despite the fact that he was a Corps student.”

  22. Sylvia Sprigge, “The German Scene,” Encounter, November 1954.

  23. Christoph Amberger, The Secret History of the Sword (Baltimore: Hammerterz Forum, 1996), pp. 52–3.

  CHAPTER 14: THE FASCIST SPORT

  1. Peter Padfield, Himmler: Reichsführer SS (London: Macmillan, 1990), p. 56.

  2. Paul Preston, Franco (New York: HarperCollins,
1993), p. 10.

  3. R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini (New York: Arnold/OUP, 2002), p. 106.

  4. Richard Collier, Duce!: The Life of Benito Mussolini (London: Collins, 1971), p. 57. See also Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981).

  5. C. Dall’y Ungaro, Mussolini e lo Sport (Mantua, 1928), p. 8. See also R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini (New York), pp. 109 and 211.

  6. Benito Mussolini, My Autobiography (New York: Scribner’s, 1928).

  7. Aldo Santini, Nedo Nadi (Livorno: Belforte Editions, 1989).

  8. Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975).

  9. Sir Oswald Mosley, My Life (London: Nelson, 1968), p. 292.

  10. Ibid., p. 368.

  11. André Brissand, The Nazi Secret Service (London: Bodley Head, 1972).

  12. Charles Wighton, Heydrich (London: Odhams, 1962).

  13. G. S. Graber, The Life and Times of Reinhard Heydrich (London: Hale, 1981).

  14. Wighton, Heydrich, p. 30.

  15. Padfield, Himmler, p. 379.

  16. From a short story by Wojciech Zabłocki, who had been told the tale directly from Koza-Kozarski.

  CHAPTER 15: THE WOMAN WHO SALUTED HITLER

  1. From a newspaper clipping in Helene Mayer’s personal scrapbooks, now in the possession of her sister-in-law, Erica Mayer.

  2. Ellen Preis, Olympiasieg (Vienna: Payer, 1936), p. 72.

  3. “Maxine Mitchell, Grand Lady of Fencing,” American Fencing, December 1989–February 1990, p. 7.

  4. Richard Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 76.

  5. Milly Mogulof, Foiled! Hitler’s Jewish Olympian—The Helene Mayer Story (Oakland, Calif.: R. D. R. Books, 2002). This study was my main source for the chapter, but on the Nuremberg laws see also David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker (New York: Ecco Press, 2001), p. 114 and 107.

  6. In the French daily newspaper Pariser Tageblatt, date unknown.

  7. Interview with Gretel Bergmann, Queens, New York, 2001. Then eighty-four, she would have gone on for longer than the two hours she did but had to leave for her weekly ten-pin bowling session.

  8. Interview with Paul Jenkins, Los Angeles, September 2000. His source was Hans Halberstadt, a native of Offenbach who represented Germany at the 1928 Olympics, where he first befriended Mayer. He was harassed by the Nazis and briefly imprisoned in Buchenwald before moving to San Francisco, where he founded his own club and where throughout her time in America he was Mayer’s coach.

  9. Adrienne Blue, Faster, Higher, Further: Women’s Triumphs and Disasters at the Olympics (London: Virago, 1988).

  10. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, p. 182.

  11. Susan D. Bachrach, The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000).

  12. Interview with Erica Mayer, Frankfurt, October 2000.

  CHAPTER 16: THE CHAMPIONS

  1. Vittorio Lambertini, Trattato di scherma (Bologna, 1870); quoted in William Gaugler, Fencing Terminology (Sunrise, Fla.: Laureate Press, 1997), p. 19.

  2. Quoted in William M. Gaugler, The History of Fencing (Sunrise, Fla.: Laureate Press, 1998), p. 281.

  3. Quoted in Lauriano Gonzales, Greco uomini e maestri d’armi (Rome, 1992).

  4. Luigi Barbasetti, La scherma di spada (Milan, 1902).

  5. Aldo Santini, Nedo Nadi; see also Roma Nadi, Biography of Nedo Nadi.

  6. Aldo Nadi, The Living Sword (Sunrise, Fla.: Laureate Press, 1995); his other work, On Fencing, first published in 1943, has only recently been reprinted (Laureate Press, 1995), its original copper plates having been diverted to arms manufacture during the Second World War.

  7. Leo Nunes, American Fencing, December 1953.

  8. Aldo Nadi, “On Professionals,” American Fencing, September 1952.

  9. Nadi, The Living Sword, p. 268. Aldo Nadi’s work was written by him in sometimes awkward English. I have applied some slight editing, to make it easier for the reader. However, the page references are to the Laureate Press edition.

  10. Eduardo Mangiarotti, letter to the author, May 17, 2001. See also Eduardo Mangiarotti and Aldo Cerchiari, La vera scherma (Milan: Longanesi, 1966).

  11. Christian D’Oriola, letter to the author, June 11, 2000.

  12. Gillian Donaldson, née Sheen, in conversation with R. C. Winton, “50 Years Ago,” The Sword, 1998, p. 24.

  13. C. L. de Beaumont, in American Fencing, December 1955.

  14. Julius Alpar, “A Fencing Master’s Impressions of the 1958 World Championships,” American Fencing, February 1959.

  15. “An Interview with Christian d’Oriola,” The Sword, Spring 1975, pp. 14–16.

  16. Nadi, The Living Sword, pp. 381 ff.

  17. This is Cavaliere Morelli Tia, Lame, incrociate scherma e duello (Crossed Swords, Fencing and the Duel) (Bari: Edizione Albo d’Oro degli Schermitori, 1904).

  18. Escrime, September 2001, p. 40.

  19. Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History (New York: Knopf, 1981), p. 27.

  CHAPTER 17: EXODUS

  1. Christopher Felix, The Spy and His Masters (London: Secker, 1963), p. 174.

  2. Giuseppe Radaelli, Istruzione per la scherma di spada e di sciabola, 1876. See also Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, La scherma di sciabola (Rome, 1910).

  3. Amberger, The Secret History of the Sword, p. 11.

  4. See Marcello Garagnani, L’Escrime Française, February 1957, no. 111.

  5. Lajos Csiszar, “Hungarian Sabre Fencing—Its Notable Success,” American Fencing, February 1950.

  6. See John Lukacs, Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), p. 184.

  7. László Szepesi, “Saber in Sunshine,” privately circulated memoir.

  8. Noel Barber, Seven Days of Freedom: The Hungarian Uprising 1956 (New York: Macmillan, 1973), p. 216; see also “The Exodus from Hungary,” United Nations Review, 1957.

  9. Julius Palffy-Alpar, Sword and Masque (London: Davis, 1967).

  10. Dr. Béla Bay with Anna L. Reti, Paston es paston kivul (Budapest: Sportspropaganda, 1979).

  11. Rudolf Kárpáti, Karddal a vilag korul … (Budapest: Sport Budapest, 1965).

  12. N. Norman Shneidman, The Soviet Road to Olympus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), and Sandor David, Arany evitzedek (Budapest).

  13. Francis Zold, “Today’s International Fencing Scene,” American Fencing, December 1960.

  CHAPTER 18: THE BURDEN OF GOLD

  1. Wojciech Zabłocki, letter to the author, January 2000.

  2. C. L. de Beaumont, “Commentary on 1957 World Championships,” American Fencing, December 1957, p. 6. See also “Memoire 3,” L’Equipe, October 28, 2001.

  3. Zbigniew Czajkowski, letter to the author, March 11, 2001.

  4. Jerzy Pawłowski, Trud olimpijskiego zlota (The Burden of Olympic Gold) (Warsaw, 1972).

  5. “The Broken Sabre,” Time (European ed.), August 25, 1975. See also Sportowiec (The Sportsman), August 1975.

  6. Marius Valsamis, conversation with author, November 1999.

  7. Witold Woyda, conversation with author, May 2001.

  8. In his memoir, Szermierka na Szable (Warsaw, 1952), Kevey places the bout in 1949, with a nineteen-year-old Zabłocki as protagonist, beating not Horvath but Gerevich 5–3. Both Pawłowski and Zabłocki, however, agree on the version of the story quoted here. As Kevey’s account comes first, it probably was an early run of the same tactic—one which Pawłowski later typically embroidered.

  9. Phillip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (London: Penguin, 1975).

  10. Phillip Agee, On the Run (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1987), pp. 138–9, 174–5. See also Wendell L. Minnick, Spies and Provocateurs (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992), p. 174.

  11. Time, August 25, 1975.

  12. Neue Züricher Zeitung, sometime in 1975; see Richard Cohen, “The Polish Connection,” The Sword, “The Broken Sabre.” Spring 1977, p. 18.

  13. Jerzy Kosinski, Blind Date (New Yo
rk: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), pp. 151 ff.

  14. Der Spiegel, 1975.

  15. “Der Spion, der in der Kalte blieb-,” interview with Roman Zajkowski, Sport am Montag, October 28, 1991.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Walter Köestner, in conversation with the author, March 2001.

  18. Iwona Jurczenko, “Szczery szpieg,” Pravo i zycia (Truth and Life), May 2, 1992, p. 20; see also Ciag Dalszy, 18 April 1976, Proces Szpiega by Maria Osiadacz.

  19. Jerzy Pawłowski, Najdluzszy pojedynek (My Longest Duel) (Warsaw: Druk I Oprawa, 1994).

  20. Letter from Wolfgang P. Lange, to Der Spiegel, January 2, 1990.

  21. Simon Barnes, The Times (writing about the Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina), September 2000.

  CHAPTER 19: HONOR BETRAYED

  1. Steven Ungerleider, Faust’s Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001).

  2. Burton, The Sentiment of the Sword, p. 69.

  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh ed., 1911, “Epée.”

  4. Malcolm Fare, Luke Fildes, and Edmund Gray, The Epée Club: 100 Years, p. 59.

  5. See Simon Barnes, The Times, April 2, 1997.

  6. Brigadier General R. J. Kentish, “Disqualify Us at Your Peril,” The Independent, August 6, 1992. See also Curtis Ettinger, American Fencing, April 1958, p. 12.

  7. Walter Köestner, conversation with the author, March 2001.

  8. Sandor David, Arany evtizedek (Budapest, 1986).

  9. See Peter Jacobs, “The Scandal of the Combines,” The Sword, Summer 1971, pp. 9–12.

  10. “Contretemps,” “The Sheriff of Dodge City,” The Sword, Spring 1977, pp. 14–15.

  11. Guido Malacarne, Letter to the Editor, The Sword, Spring 1977, pp. 3–4.

  12. In an interview for the BBC in a program on Olympic Games cheating, broadcast on Christmas Day 2000, narrator Kevin Mosley, series producer Ian Bent.

  13. The Times, November 10, 1994. The editorial arose from accusations that the ex–Liverpool goalkeeper, Bruce Grobbelaar, had taken bribes to let the ball into his net. “For a sportsman to play to lose is the ultimate professional foul.”