B.1. One to Best of Five Touches in Epee

Classical Epee started its existence as a sport in the aftermath of the revolution in preparing fencers for the duel in the late 1800s.  A gradual realization that foil did not address the actualities of combat in the duel led to calls, starting with de Bazancourt in 1862 (Clay's 1900 translation), for increased realism in fencing training.  In the late 1800s Maitres Jules Jacob, Claude La Marche (1898, House's translation), Ambroise Baudry, Anthime Spinnewyn, and others introduced training for the duel with the epee of the salle, a rebated version of the epee of the terrain.  Fencer's being fencers, the epee of the salle quickly became a weapon of competition, with epee clubs, such as the Societe d'Epee de Paris and The Epee Club of London, emerging to engage in epee training and competition (Fare, Fildes, and Gray's 1902 history The Epee Club - 100 Years provides an excellent chronicle of one such club and of the development of epee). 

Epee as a sport at the first retained the character of the duel, fenced outdoors on a gravel path, with various lengths of pistes up to 40+ meters, variable time periods, priority determined by who lands first, and for one hit simulating the duel to first blood. These five characteristics shape the tactics of the bout, providing the time and space to allow the fencer to look for the one best opportunity to attack and hit without sustaining a hit in the process.  

However, two of these also were characteristics that conspired to limit the appeal of epee of aficionados, a suboptimal characteristics for a sport where growth was desirable.  First, longer, or even no, time limits allowed long, boring bouts, a buzz kill for spectators.  Second, the one touch was generally acknowledged to allow a certain element of chance in the outcome.  As a result, if we concentrate only on the number of touches required for victory, we see three periods:

• First - late 1880s to approximately 1909 - epee fenced for one touch.
• Second - 1909 to approximately 1932 - epee fenced for the best of three touches. 
• Third - 1933 to the end of the classical period - epee fenced for the best of five touches.  

The introduction of electric scoring in 1932 significantly changed the tactical culture of the epee.  Rene Monal of France, a leading epeeist who specialized in the attack by fleche, was one of the first to understand that epee had changed from hitting without being touched in return to hitting more that 1/25th of a second ahead of one's opponent.  This inevitably led to fencers adopting tactics that would not have been adopted in the duel with the sharp epee of the terrain. 

Not everyone embraced these changes as progress.  Maitre Felix Grave (1934), a holder of the Diplomas as Maitre of both the Academie d'Armes of Paris and the Academie d'Epee of Paris, acknowledged that a fencer's opponent could win by scoring a lucky touch.  But then so could the fencer win against an opponent by a lucky touch.  In the long run, such touches should even out, and the better fencer will most probably win.  Grave believed that the one touch bout demanded the greatest alertness and subjected the fencer to the greatest stress throughout the bout.

The classical epee fencer can maintain reasonable fidelity to the period by fencing to one touch, best of three, or best of five.  However, the closest simulation to the conditions of the duel remains fencing for a single touch.  

Copyright 2018 by Walter G. Green III.

One to Best of Five Touches in Epee by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.