Bayonets' Use

[Darrell]

Murdoc has been running a series of Saturday articles about the Civil War. In today's installment he talks about whether the bayonet was really used much:

In American Civil War literature, no single item of equipment has had such a poor treatment as the bayonet. First appearing in the 17th century, the first known examples were said to have derived their name from the French Town of Bayonne, where it is alleged they were developed. Hard to say for certain.

What can be said for certain is that, by the time of the Civil War, the bayonet was still seen as an integral part of the Infantryman’s kit, and many descriptions of both fact and fantasy were given of bayonet charges, coupled with cries of “Give ‘em the cold steel, boys!” by writers and politicians alike.

However, after the civil war, and interesting thing happened. Historians started to report that, despite all it’s reputation, the bayonet was hardly used at all! How could this be? How could so many period letters and accounts be so wildly inaccurate?


The allegation of the rarely-used bayonet is a case of examining a fact out of context. The claim is based upon fact: The Surgeon General of the Army of the United States, in 1870, caused a series of books to be printed entitled The medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion, (1861-65) . These books, in several volumes, outlined all of the actions, capabilities, results, orders and letters of both armies during the course of the war. Among the many fascinating tidbits is a table of types of wounds treated in Federal Hospitals. Fewer than 1,000 bayonet wounds are listed.

Historians jumped upon this and began to proclaim that far, from being the decisive weapon, the instrument of close-order combat, the bayonet was by and large an impediment to the soldier, who had little use for it other than as a tool about camp or bivouac. Other writers, following the initial wave of books and articles, continued to report the same, and it has influenced many an arm chair general’s discussions of ACW period combat.

Yet, there remains all those pesky letters, diaries, and other contemporary accounts...

He goes on to make the point (no pun intended) that bayonet wounds were usually fatal, hence their underreporting in the tables mentioned above. Interesting read.

http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/00 ... #more-6712

[randy]

And then the psychological effect of your opponents formed and bayonets fixed may cause injuries and death indirectly. Like slowing down your advance into that cold steel and staying in the beaten zone longer, increasing the odds of being shot.

And I wonder how many French Cavalry men suffered injuries up to and including broken necks when their mounts took a good look at the prickly hedge of a well formed British square they were charging and basically said "NFW" and made a unilateral command decision to take another route.

I like how David Drake and Eric Flint described it:

Imagine three thousand Persian lancers, thundering up to a wretched little earthen wall, guarded by not more than a thousand terrified, pathetic, wretched infantrymen. They sweep the enemy aside, right? Like an avalanche!

Well, not exactly. There are problems.

First, each cavalry mount has been hauling a man (a large man, more often than not) carrying fifty pounds of armor and twenty pounds of weapons—not to mention another hundred pounds of the horse's own armor. At a full gallop for half a mile, in the blistering heat of a Syrian summer.

So, the horses are winded, disgruntled, and thinking dark thoughts.

Two—all hearsay to the contrary—horses are not stupid. Quite a bit brighter than men, actually, when it comes to that kind of intelligence known popularly as "horse sense." So, when a horse sees looming before it:

a) a ditch

b) a wall

c) lots of men on the wall holding long objects with sharp points

The horse stops. Fuck the charge. If some stupid man wants to hurl himself against all that dangerous crap, let him. (Which, often enough, they do—sailing headlong over their horse's stubborn head.)

It was the great romantic fallacy of the cavalry charge, and Belisarius had been astonished—all his life—at how fervently men still held to it, despite all practical experience and evidence to the contrary. Yes, horses will charge—against infantry in the open, and against other cavalry. Against anything, as long as the horse can see that it stands a chance of getting through the obstacles ahead, reasonably intact.

But no horse this side of an equine insane asylum will charge a wall too high to leap over. Especially a wall covered with nasty sharp objects.

And there's no point trying to convince the horse that the infantry manning the wall are feeble and demoralized.

Is that so? Tell you what, asshole. Climb off my back and show me. Use your own legs. Mine hurt.

An Oblique Approach by David Drake & Eric Flint - Baen Books - Chapter 8

[Aglifter]

Erm.... Horses, if well trained, will go exactly where a rider tells them. Much of it is confidence in the rider as well, though. Nor is a half-mile run normally that far for a horse - could be bad footing, etc.

[Whirlibird]

The French Cavalry was specifically mentioned.....


In more recent times the only use for a bayonette was seen on a rifle range a decade or so back. The shooter had his SKS out and ran out of ammo. He popped out the spike bayo and stuck the carbine right into the ground, action open.
He walked back from the firing line saying 'Gotta get more ammo' and walked to his car.

Everybody had to stop shooting and just watch him as he came back with a "What?"

[randy]

Nor is a half-mile run normally that far for a horse

Under what conditions? Running free on the plains or large pasture? Or with a jockey or a person in light clothing?

From the example given:

First, each cavalry mount has been hauling a man (a large man, more often than not) carrying fifty pounds of armor and twenty pounds of weapons—not to mention another hundred pounds of the horse's own armor. At a full gallop for half a mile, in the blistering heat of a Syrian summer.

As for the other, I do know that there very few (if any) instances in history where a well formed and disciplined square of infantry armed with pikes/bayonets were broken by cavalry charges. When they failed it was due to the will of the soldiers in the square breaking (either through poor training, lack of discipline, or just plain giving up) or because the squares were broken up by artillery, musketry/archery, or other infantry formations.

Whether due to common sense of the Cavalry troops (who tended to be officered and manned by aristocrats. Common Sense, yeah, right), or them being just smart enough to let the horses have their head in such a situation and go with it, formed groups of men standing their ground with edged weapons do not, in general, get ridden over by cavalry charges.

[Aglifter]

I'm not doubting that a properly arranged group of infantry can't hold against a calvary charge.

But it's not because a half mile gallop winds a horse, even w. an armored rider -- that weight doesn't sound too far off what a cattle horse might have on it, or that the horse wouldn't obey the rider.

I suspect it has much more to do w. the pikes/othr barriers being longer than a horse can jump, and if the calvary did leap into the barrier, they just ended up stuck in a barrier, on top of a dieing horse.

*Presumably the horses would have been conditioned for such a load

[Cybrludite]

In more recent times the only use for a bayonette was seen on a rifle range a decade or so back. The shooter had his SKS out and ran out of ammo. He popped out the spike bayo and stuck the carbine right into the ground, action open.
He walked back from the firing line saying 'Gotta get more ammo' and walked to his car.

Everybody had to stop shooting and just watch him as he came back with a "What?"

Good to know I'm not the only one who does that. On a more serious note, during their last deployment, the Blackwatch executed a bayonet charge near Basra when some of Mookie Al-Sadr's boys tried to ambush them. The sight of a bunch of pissed-off Scots charging with stabby-bits on their assault rifles was enough to break the will of the ambushers, despite them having superior numbers.

[MiddleAgedKen]

I'm not doubting that a properly arranged group of infantry can't hold against a calvary charge.

But it's not because a half mile gallop winds a horse, even w. an armored rider -- that weight doesn't sound too far off what a cattle horse might have on it, or that the horse wouldn't obey the rider.

I suspect it has much more to do w. the pikes/othr barriers being longer than a horse can jump, and if the calvary did leap into the barrier, they just ended up stuck in a barrier, on top of a dieing horse.

*Presumably the horses would have been conditioned for such a load

It is the presence of the barrier, as Aglifter suggests. Not a new phenomenon, either. Back in the first half of the 18th Century a French officer named Puysegur noted, "If the infantry understands its force, the cavalry can never break it." (edit to add) Not only do the horses not care to run into the pointy things, really disciplined infantry will hold fire until the last instant and "give them a volley in the nose" (at about 20-40 yards, where even smoothbore muskets will do gruesome execution when fired in large numbers).

As for the relative paucity of bayonet wounds, there's an additional reason. The infantry charge to contact generally ended short of actual contact, at least in the open. The attacker's charge would falter and perhaps degenerate into a firefight, or the defender would give way...unless they were defending earthworks, or a wall, a fence, a building.

[Mike OTDP]

Yup. Remember, the bayonet is a moral weapon - it attacks the cohesion and will of the opponent and lets you push them where you will.

See Brent Nosworthy's works for more details. "With Musket, Cannon, and Sword" is HIGHLY recommended.

[toad]

Deep thrusts with a bayonet were more prone to infection than bullet wounds.
Of course if you were gut shot during the days before "modern" medicine your odds of surviving were low.
One of the worst bayonets to get stuck with was the French triangular one. It would leave a flap of skin that would tend to seal the wound. It would go "bad" more often than the blade type bayonet.

In my research on the K-31 bayonet I found that the Swiss followed a principal that a number of European countries used in that era. That is the bayonet would not have a edge and sharpening one was discouraged. In fact the Swiss encouraged there soldiers to get their bayonets chrome plated.