The Prince's Sword
17th October 1914, Dillbeek
The Prince of Wales was exhausted, he had been run ragged as the Battalion was going to go back into the line in two days. He was with the armourer sergeant working on an idea he had had; he had come to agree with sergeant Barret that carrying the 1897 pattern sword was going to be a problem. His cousin who was commanding a platoon in B company had been commanding the opposition force that C company was training against. He had taken the prince up into an observation post and shown him how much carrying a sword marked him out compared to the other ranks.
Whilst the 1897 was a fine fighting sword it was an obvious telegraph of rank, what he really wanted was a dirk, shorter and handier than a full sword but something he could carry in his left hand whilst he used his pistol in his right. He had been issued a dirk at Osborne and carried one at Dartmouth, but that was back at the palace, what he did have was no concern about was cutting his sword down to something more like what he wanted. The Armourer was horrified, his sword was as fine a weapon as the sword cutlers of Britain could make, his orders were to cut it back to the fuller then grind it to give it a double edged point for the first 3 inches. It was ugly work, but nothing like what he did to the hilt, there he cut the hand guard back almost to nothing, leaving little more than a disk below the ricasso, he then had what remained of the gilding on the pommel and guard covered in black lacquer. When he finished the blade was only twenty inches long, the whole thing much handier and more unobtrusive, it didn’t look anything like an officer’s sword now, it was much more like a slightly longer sword bayonet. Satisfied that he would have a useful fighting weapon, he returned to his billet to enjoy a few hours of sleep before starting the training all over again.
The Prince of Wales was exhausted, he had been run ragged as the Battalion was going to go back into the line in two days. He was with the armourer sergeant working on an idea he had had; he had come to agree with sergeant Barret that carrying the 1897 pattern sword was going to be a problem. His cousin who was commanding a platoon in B company had been commanding the opposition force that C company was training against. He had taken the prince up into an observation post and shown him how much carrying a sword marked him out compared to the other ranks.
Whilst the 1897 was a fine fighting sword it was an obvious telegraph of rank, what he really wanted was a dirk, shorter and handier than a full sword but something he could carry in his left hand whilst he used his pistol in his right. He had been issued a dirk at Osborne and carried one at Dartmouth, but that was back at the palace, what he did have was no concern about was cutting his sword down to something more like what he wanted. The Armourer was horrified, his sword was as fine a weapon as the sword cutlers of Britain could make, his orders were to cut it back to the fuller then grind it to give it a double edged point for the first 3 inches. It was ugly work, but nothing like what he did to the hilt, there he cut the hand guard back almost to nothing, leaving little more than a disk below the ricasso, he then had what remained of the gilding on the pommel and guard covered in black lacquer. When he finished the blade was only twenty inches long, the whole thing much handier and more unobtrusive, it didn’t look anything like an officer’s sword now, it was much more like a slightly longer sword bayonet. Satisfied that he would have a useful fighting weapon, he returned to his billet to enjoy a few hours of sleep before starting the training all over again.