The first mention of the sabre in print comes in Marcelli's manual (1686). Originally the heavy, curved, weapon with which the Household Cavalry is still equipped today, it became known in western Europe during the eighteenth century as a result of the contact with the Hungarian light horsemen (hussars) who had originally derived the weapon from the oriental scimitar of the Ottoman Turk.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries cavalrymen of all nations practiced sabre fencing.
The French cavalry commander General Chablis commented:
In the eighteenth century the court-sword was regarded as essentially the gentleman's sword
and from association the foil received the same prestige in the fencing salle. The sabre was
originally considered to be a rather crude affair for the military. The Napoleonic wars aroused
a passing enthusiasm for edged weapons, primarily due to army and naval officers having to
be trained in its use for practical application in battle.
George Roland poured scorn
on the sabre, and most traditionally minded foilists affected to regard it with disdain. Only at the
nineteenth century's end did such great Italian masters such as Radaelli and Magrini confer
respectability on their chosen weapon, since then it has gained steadily in popularity, even
though the Italian style has given way entirely to Hungarian influence.
The present day weapon is extremely light and flexible. The sabre is unique as it is the only
weapon which the edge is also counted as an offensive area, ie the sabre truly is the 'cut and
thrust' of fencing weapons. Hits can be scored with the entire length of the cutting edge (the
fore-edge) and the top third of the back edge as well, both coming to a point which is also
used. The contemporary blade is entirely straight. Until recently there were many variations
of sabre design in fencing, with curved blades not being uncommon as long as the vestigial
curve did not deviate more than 40mm from the straight line. The curved, triangular guard,
reminiscent of the old basket-hilted swords, must now be absolutely smooth; whereas just as
blades differed, guards (or coquilles) were often perforated, grooved, patterned or embossed.
The technique in making a hit at sabre, ie the characteristic sabre cut has been the subject of
controversy and has undergone sundry vicissitudes over the years. The military pushed the
forearm slash, delivered from the elbow, or even the shoulder. However the Hungarian masters
revolutionised sabre-play. The great Keresztessy of Budapest, preferred the use of the wrist,
the first step toward modern technique. In the mid nineteenth century the Italian master
Barbasetti took charge of the Austrian army, and he insisted in a return to the forearm method.
The school of technique advocating action from the elbow became know as the Italian method,
and in many ways Barbasetti's action can be viewed as a retrograde step in the development
of sabre fencing. Ironically it was left to Santelli, an Italian expatriate to introduce to Hungary
the classic wrist and finger action which has become universally adapted as sabre technique
and has facilitated the speed and rapid inter-exchange of attack and defence characteristic of
modern sabre fencing, known as the Hungarian method. Modern sabre fencing has rules and
conventions similar to that of foil they were framed in Paris in 1914 by a committee under the
chairmanship of Dr Bela Nagy, president of the Hungarian Fencing Federation, and since have
only been modified in detail