C.1. de Bazancourt and Burton - Two Naturalist Curricula

The classical period is distinguished by a very large body of blade actions, ranging from one to four tempos in duration.  This selection is documented in the Academy's Classical Fencing Actions Project, at the time of this post 45 pages in length and continuing to grow.  However, not all fencers and Fencing Masters believed this variety and complexity was necessary or even desirable.  There was a significant movement toward simplification of technique by a group called variously the Naturalists or Naturists.  Cesar Lecat Baron de Bazancourt (1810-1865) and Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) appear to have been in this camp.  Both men were familiar with the sword, de Bazancourt as a military historian and veteran of several campaigns on the staff of Emperor Napoleon III, and Burton as a soldier, explorer, and reputedly Fencing Master.  Both wrote remarkably similar stories about an evening dialog among gentlemen discussing fencing, and both provided curriculum for fencing instruction with the foil that fit the Naturalist model.   

Baron de Bazancourt's Les Secrets de l'Epee was first published in 1862, reprinted in 1875, translated by C. F. Clay in 1900 as Secrets of the Sword, and reprinted by Laureate Press in 1998.  This volume is an important exposition of the arguments for the simplification of fencing instruction and technique, preceding even the classical period, but seen as valuable during it.   In de Bazancourt's system there are four classifications of actions which form the principles of fencing:

(1)  Simple attacks

• Straight thrust
• Disengagement

(2)  Simple parries

• Quarte
• Tierce
• Seconde
• Low Quarte, or Quinte

(3)  Composite attacks

• One-Two
• Beat Straight Thrust
• Beat Disengage
• Feint Disengage
• Feint Cut-Over
• Cut-Over and Disengage in either Tierce or Quarte

(4)  Composite parries

• Counter-Quarte
• Counter-Tierce
• Circle

Note that Quinte and Low Quarte were the same parry in some sources, and de Bazancourt does not distinguish them apart.  The composite parries present a challenge.  Clay's translation describes counter-quarte and counter-tierce as identical to the movement patterns of the cut-over and disengages in the same line.  This is not a common description, and, if accurate, will require some practice to reliably perform.  It would appear to require a fairly high raise of the blade in the coupe, consistent with some of the descriptions of the coupe in the first years of the classical period.  The circle parry appears to be the more common circular parry.

Burton's The Sentiment of the Sword: A Country-House Dialogue was published in 1911 after his death.  It is a copy of the form, story-line, and many of the literary devices of de Bazancourt's work, but with changes to an English environment and the addition of detail and discussion.  Although today we would view this as close to plagiarism, copying the form of other writer's work was not uncommon in the 1700s and 1800s.  Burton adopts the same classifications of actions, arranged differently but makes substitutions in the actual techniques.

ATTACKS

(1)  Simple attacks

• Straight thrust - especially in carte against the right handed opponent
• Disengagement
• Cut-Over

(2)  Compound attacks

• One-Two
• Beat Straight Thrust
• Beat Disengage
• Liement (binding the opponents' blade from high to low line)

PARRIES 

(1)  Simple parries

• Tierce
• Carte
• Seconde (Low Carte)

(2)  Compound or counter parries 

• Counters or Demi-Circle (half-circles in Tierce and Carte)
• Full Circles

When we compare the two curricula, we find that:

• The simple attacks are the same with the addition of the coupe by Burton. 
• The simple parries both include fourth and third, de Bazancourt has what appears to be a traditional second, and both have a form of low fourth.
• The greatest variance is in the compound attacks with one-two, beat straight thrust, and beat disengage being common to both.  Burton adds the bind.  De Bazancourt two attacks prepared by feints and the action which is later termed Tour d'Epee, the coupe-disengage.
• The compound parries both include the circular parry, but appear to vary on what a counter parry is.

In summary, both of these approaches share a significant portion of the same techniques.  Both generally consider the same types of actions as simple or compound/composed.  The high number of techniques is 15 (de Bazancourt) and the low 12 (Burton).  And two experienced and reputedly quite skilled fencers believed that this limited set of techniques was sufficient to be successful in classical period fencing.  If you are looking for a curriculum to teach as the core of a classical fencing program, these may be a useful starting point.

Copyright 2019 by Walter G. Green III.
  

de Bazancourt and Burton - Two Naturalist Curricula by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

18.3. Colmore Dunn on False and Decoy Attacks

H. A. Colmore Dunn was an amateur fencer and a member of the Inns of Court School of Arms.  That said, he was also is the author of Fencing, a quite useful book that provides a thorough discussion of fencing technique in the late 1880s.  This text was published in a number of different editions including in 1889 as Fencing in London and 1891 as Dunn's Fencing Instructor in New York.

One of the interesting discussions in Colmore Dunn's text is that he identifies two categories of actions that are not intended to hit, but that create the conditions for subsequent blade action to score.  These he classifies as False Attacks and Decoy Attacks.  This is an early discussion of the False Attack, and indeed in this volume the False Attack is not the False Attack of later fencing.  And therein follows a detailed analysis of the Decoy Attack.

First, the False Attack.  Colmore Dunn's False Attack is the feint of a compound attack.  We normally do not consider a feint to be a false attack.  However, if we look at how a false attack is described in a convenience sample of texts (in other words the first four books pulled from the book case), we see:

Louis Rondelle's Foil and Sabre: A Grammar of Fencing (1892):

• The False Attack - Is a movement feigning the real attack, and is employed in order to bring about an attack on one's self, or to disconcert the adversary and entice him to make irregular movements which can be taken advantage of.

Fencing (the 1908 translation of the Ministry of War text for the Amateur Fencers League of America:

• The "fausse-attaque" is a simple or composed attack, more or less pronounced, but never completely developed.  Its object is to disconcert the adversary, to discover his plans and his favorite parries; to baffle the former, and to deceive the latter, …

Joseph Vince's Fencing (1937):

• These are actions which have the appearance of real attacks.  However, they are not carried through to completion.  The purpose of a false attack is to make an opponent believe that the action is real, inducing him thereby to disclose his reactions, either by revealing his preferred parries, which can then be deceived, or by inducing him to make a parry and riposte, against which a counter parry and counter return can be utilized.

Clovis Deladrier's Modern Fencing (1948):

• The false attack is an attack made in one or several movements without any intention of touching the opponent, accompanied by a simulated lunge in which the right foot is brought forward a short distance.    

Colmore Dunn has a point.  Feints are executed to resemble the start of a real attack.  They are more or less obvious, but in and of themselves never develop into real attacks to touch the opponent.  They make the opponent reveal his preferred parry or reaction, and allow the fencer to deceive that parry or exploit the reaction.

When it comes to the Decoy Attack he describes this action as: "These are false attacks, but are not designed to serve the same purpose as the other kind of false attacks which we have dealt with under the heading of feints, but are intended to set your adversary on the move to attack you, so that you may take advantage of any unsteadiness on his part to deliver an effective return, such as one or other of the various ripostes."

The essential difference is that a False Attack as feint is an integrated preparatory part of a first intention action intended to hit.  A Decoy Attack is a second intention false attack intended to draw an opponent's action that can be hit.

Colmore Dunn recognizes that both the False Attack and the Decoy Attack create a decision making problem for the opponent.  Committing a parry and riposte against his False Attack is a reasonable course of action.  But against his Decoy Attack committing the parry and riposte is exactly what the opponent desires so that he can parry and counterriposte to hit.  He suggests that wider actions by opponents are more likely to be Decoy Attacks, and narrower ones to only generate a sufficient opening to hit with the final attack are more likely to be False Attacks. 

Why is this discussion important?  Very often we think about fencing in stovepipes.  The same physical action is assigned to multiple stovepipes, given different names, and taught as though they are different things.  For example, the change of engagement, circular parry, change parry, and change beat are all circular blade movements differing essentially only in the degree and purpose of blade contact.  Instead we view them as distinct actions of preparation, defense, or offense.  

When we read the full descriptions of false attacks in the four sources quoted above it becomes clear that feints and false attacks are considered by the authors to be very different things.  Colmore Dunn has done us a service of pointing out that they have much in common and that both exist to create the opportunity to hit because of the opponent's attempts to parry our attacks.  It is tempting to regard differences in terminology in earlier sources to be just the use of a different name for something you already understand or as a lack of sophistication.  Instead they are important windows into the development of fencing doctrine in the classical period.

Copyright 2019 by Walter G. Green III

Colmore Dunn on False and Decoy Attacks by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

14.2.6. Finckh's Engagements

Alfred E. Finckh, MB completed a monograph in 1946 titled Academic Fencing.  Finckh, who served at the time as the President of the Australian Amateur Fencing Association, viewed himself as a revolutionary.  His work was inspired by the French Ministry of War Reglement d'Escrime of 1908, Maestro di Scherma Masaniello Parise's 1904 A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Fencing, and Count de Bazancourt's The Secrets of the Sword (Clay's 1900 translation).  And then, somewhere in the period before 1928, Finckh developed his own system of fencing.

Finch approaches the theory of fencing by dividing his technical work into sections on elementary training, deflections, parries, parrythrusts, the defense, and the attack.  The Deflections are opposition actions.  In the attack, they are executed with a fully extended arm to deflect the opponents blade by taking the opponent's foible with the forte to clear the line and allow a hit with a thrust.  The thrust is either a straight thrust or a thrust with a rotation of the forearm combined with a turn of the wrist. These actions are termed Engagements.  On the defence they are executed with a bent arm to prevent the opponent's attack landing and are termed Parries.

Finckh believed that coming on guard with an engagement of blades at medium or short distance in the position of 4th parry was unrealistic and a significant cause of disorderly fencing.  He argued that  the International rules specified a distance apart of 13 feet 2 inches when ready to fence; hence it made no sense to train fencers for blade to blade traditional engagement.  In his system engagement becomes a sequenced action similar to the family of opposition thrusts.  Note that the reference to 4th parry in coming on guard is archaic, certainly by 1946, but almost certainly so by the time he had composed most of the manuscript in the 1920s.  

As noted, Finckh's Engagements are executed with a fully extended, stiff, straight arm, and without any fingerplay.  The sequence starts with a full extension of the arm and blade in a  straight line, followed by the rotation and wrist movement into the position of deflection with what Finckh terms is a "snap." The thumb and all of the fingers must maintain a firm grip with the direction of blade movement controlled with the wrist and forearm. Contact with the three aid fingers on the grip is never relaxed, even if the pommel leaves the hand as the wrist turns.  There is no fingerplay.  The sudden, precise bend of the wrist is used to displace the opponent's blade.  He uses hand positions in supination, pronation, and a close approximation of Italian First hand position (see post 0.2.2. "Italian Hand Positions," November 2018).

Note that throughout Finckh's text the emphasis is on a solid grip with the blade controlled by wrist and forearm motion.  Finckh believed that fingerplay was a source of weakness that could lead to a loss of control.

The engagements are, in the order in which Finckh lists them:

Fourth - the 4th Engagement deflects the opponent's blade upward in the inside line.  To execute the engagement the straight thrust is extended horizontally at shoulder height with the hand in supination. Make a quick clockwise rotation of the forearm raising the hand approximately 5 inches diagonally to the inside and simultaneously bending the wrist down and to the outside.  This directs the blade downward and toward the outside; in all of this the position of the point should not move. 

Third - the 3rd Engagement deflects the opponent's blade to the outside line.  When on guard with the arm fully extended and the hand in supination, execute the engagement by rotating the forearm counterclockwise until the hand is in pronation with the wrist bent to the inside with the hand slightly lowered ads the grip and pommel are lowered in the rotation.  The knuckle of the little finger should be slightly lower than that of the index finger.  The point remains in place, with the guard at the outside edge of the target at armpit level.

First - the 1st Engagement deflects the opponent's blade vertically in the high line.  From the position of a horizontal thrust with the hand in supination, rotate the forearm counterclockwise for three quarters of a turn so that the nails face to the outside.  Simultaneously the hand is raised vertically and turned downward so that the guard is in front of the face.  The point remains in place.

Second - the 2nd Engagement deflects the opponent's blade to the outside low line.  This engagement starts with a thrust to the low line with the point no lower than a few inches below the position when on guard.  Note that Finckh uses a guard position with the forearm parallel to the ground, hand in supination.  Rotate the forearm counterclockwise into pronation as the hand moves to the outside and the wrist bends to the inside.  The blade and arm viewed from the side appear to be in a straight line; the hand moves to the outside but is not raised.  The point remains in place.

Seventh - the 7th Engagement deflects the opponent's blade to the inside low line.  Again this engagement is executed from a low thrust, with a straight arm.  A slight clockwise forearm rotation with a bend of the wrist toward the outside places the center of the guard on the inside edge of the target.  The blade and arm viewed from the side appear to be in a straight line; the hand moves to the inside but is not raised.  The point remains in place.

Finckh provides an extensive description of the application of these techniques which will be addressed in a future blog post.

Copyright 2018 by Walter G. Green III

Finckh's Engagements by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

14. Classifying Foil Actions on the Blade

Fencing texts in the 1880s and later develop schemes of classification for fencing actions, either explicitly or as the result of organizing the contents logically.  These taxonomies serve several useful purposes.  As noted they help the author organize the material in the text by grouping like actions together.  Similarly they organize the techniques for inclusion in instructional curricula.  And, probably most importantly, they reveal something about how the authors view the tactical application of the techniques.  

This blog post examines one specific area of classification, actions which involve the use of the fencer's blade to move the opponent's in foil.  Today these are generally termed "attacks on the blade" and "takings of the blade." Some modern coaches have argued that the use of "attacks on the blade" is an incorrect description of what happens, because you cannot attack a blade, only the opponent.  As the sources below indicate, this is a modern conceit.  The classical fencing masters had no doubt that their actions attacked the blade; one went so far as term the blade action as an "assault on the blade."  

The distinguishing characteristics of these types of actions is blade contact with the opponent's blade to remove or control it.  Attacks on the blade essentially achieve this by some degree of percussion, with contact being relatively brief.  Takings of the blade are often termed "transports" in modern terminology, a term that accurately describes the use of leverage and to move the opponent's blade to a new location.

In examining the allocation of actions to categories it is important to understand that there is considerable flexibility in what actual activity is meant by these actions.  For example, a Graze may be anything from a Glide (a thrust with opposition of varying degrees) to a Froissement (a forceful  expulsion of the opponent's blade from the line). 

It is also important to note that attacks on and takings of the blade were most commonly considered preparations of the attack.  Preparation covers a range of events that create conditions which allow the attack to succeed.  In these cases the attack or take removes or controls the opponent's blade so that a simple or compound attack may score.

The following is a convenience sample of sources that created categories for attacking actions.  Not all classical period texts separated attacks into easily identifiable categories, but the following ones did, either as a single category for actions against the opponent's blade or for two categories.

H. A. Collmore-Dunn's 1889 text Fencing identifies a single category with six techniques:

(1)  Force Attacks (actions that assault the opponent's blade to disturb his defence)

• Beat
• Press
• Re-Beat (a Beat in one line and then in another)
• Graze
• Bind
• Flanconnade (mentioned as a type of Bind)

Master of the Sword George Heintz Sr.'s 1890 text Theory of Fencing with the Foil, In Form of a Catechism identifies one category and seven techniques: 

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Pressure 
• Beat
• Graze (Expulsion)
• Chassey (see blog post on Heintz's Chassey)
• Counter Beat
• Counter Chassey (see blog post on Heintz's Chassey)
• Encircling (description appears to be an Envelopment)

Maitre d'Armes Louis Rondelle's 1892 text Foil and Sabre: A Grammar of Fencing identifies one category and five techniques:

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Press
• Traverse (Expulsion)
• Bind
• Cross (Croise)

The Amateur Fencers League of America's translation of the 1908 French Ministry of War's Manual of Fencing identifies two categories and eight techniques:

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Press
• Froissement (Expulsion)

(2)  Prise de Fer

• Opposition
• Liement (Bind)
• Envelopment
• Croise (suggested for use primarily in the riposte)
• Coule (Glide)

Maitre d'Armes Ricardo Enrique Manrique's 1920 text Fencing Foil Class Work Illustrated identifies one category and eight techniques:

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Double Beat
• Press
• Glide
• Traverse (Expulsion)
• Low Thrust
• Bind
• Croise

Manrique also includes the Time Thrust and Stop Thrust with attacks on the blade, but this appears to be an error in editing.

Maestro de Armas Julio Martinez Castello's 1933 text The Theory and Practice of Fencing identifies one category with six techniques:

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Press
• Expulsion
• Glide
• Bind
• Envelopment

Maestro Di Scherma Luigi Barbasetti 1934 text (originally written in the late 1890s) The Art of the Foil identifies two categories and seven techniques.

(1)  Actions Against the Blade of an Opponent

• Graze (thrust with the opponent's blade bound)
• Change Graze
• Flanconnade
• Deviamenti (a Press and Graze) 

(2) Beats

• Simple Beat
• Counter-Beat (a Circular Beat against the blade in line)
• Change Beat 

Maitre d'Armes Felix Grave's 1934 text Fencing Comprehensive identifies two categories and six techniques:

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Press
• Graze (Expulsion)

(2)  Actions that may be Attack, Counter-Attack, or Parry

• Bind
• Croise
• Enveloppe (not an Envelopment, rather a vertical displacement from high to low line against the high line disengage or coupe)

Joseph Vince's 1937 text Fencing identifies two categories and six techniques:

(1)  Actions that maintain contact with the blade until the action is complete.

• Glide
• Bind 
• Envelopment

(2)  Actions that strike the blade aside.

• Pressure
• Beat
• Pressure Glide (Expulsion)

G. V. Hett's 1939 text Fencing includes two categories, six techniques, and one unattributed technique.  Hett was an experienced British International.

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Battement (Beat)
• Pression (Press)
• Froissement (Expulsion)

(2)  Prises de Fer

• By Opposition
• Liement (Bind)
• Enveloppment

(3)  Coule (Glide)

Deladrier 1948 text Modern Fencing identifies two categories and five techniques:

(1)  Preparations Striking the Blade

• Beat
• Expulsion

(2)  Preparations Maintaining the Blade

• Press
• Opposition
• Glide

Deladrier's categories are similar to those of Vince, and this is the only observed classification that puts the Beat and Press in different categories.

R. A. Lidstone's 1951 text Fencing identifies two categories with eight techniques: 

(1)  Attacks on the Blade

• Beat
• Press
• Graze
• Froissement (a Beat or Press and a Graze)

(2)  Prise de Fer

• Graze (when used to open a closed line)
• Bind
• Croise
• Envelopment

So what does this inventory of how authors addressed the classification of attacking actions against the opponent's blade tell us?  There is one obvious outcome; many author's obviously like the term Fencing for the title of their magnum opus.  But we can derive more information than that from this catalog.

First, older sources tend to address all offensive blade techniques against the opponent's blade as "Attacks on the Blade."  The 1908 French Ministry of War manual is the first source that this survey identified as introducing two categories of actions: the Attack on the Blade, and the Prise de Fer, or Taking of the Blade.

Second, the term "Attacks on the Blade" remains in use as a generic term as late as Castello's 1933 text.  The use of two categories did not immediately become the standard theoretical construct in the classical period.

Third, overall the term "Attacks on the Blade" is the most common characterization of these techniques.  When a second category is introduced, "Prise de Fer" (typically termed a Taking of the Blade) is the second most common category name.  When the techniques are listed in a text, typically attacks on the blade precede prise de fer or takings of the blade.

Fourth, when only one category is present, the selection of techniques included is (in order of the times the technique was included in one of the 5 texts):

5 times - (a) Beat, (b) Press (or Pressure)
4 times - (c) Bind, (d) Expulsion (or Traverse or Graze or Froissement)      

3 times - (e) Re-Beat (or Double Beat or Counter-Beat), (f) Graze (or Glide, not the Graze that is an Expulsion)
2 times - (g) Envelopment (or Encircling), (h) Croise (or Cross)
1 time - (i) Chassey, (j) Counter-Chassey, (k) Low Thrust, (l) Flanconnade

Fifth - when two categories are present, the selection of techniques included is (in order of the times the technique was included in one of the 7 texts):

7 times - (a) Beat (or Battement or Simple Beat), (f) Graze (or Glide, not the Graze that is an Expulsion, or Coule)
6 times - (b) Press (or Pressure or Pression), (d) Expulsion (or Traverse or Graze or Froissement)
5 times - (c) Bind (or Liement)
4 times - (g) Envelopment (or Encircling)
3 times - (h) Croise (or Cross), (m) Opposition
1 time - (e) Change Beat (or Re-Beat or Double Beat or Counter-Beat) (l) Flanconnade, (n) Enveloppe, (o) Counter-Beat (different technique from Change Beat), (p) Change Graze, (q) Deviamenti

It is important to note for both groups of techniques that technique names are variable and may have different meanings.  Sometimes there is no effective difference in the technique, sometimes there are subtle differences, and sometimes the same word may be used for completely different techniques.   For example, the Graze, Coule, Glide, and a thrust in Opposition are essentially the same action, perhaps with differences in the amount of leverage applied or in the degree of deviation of the opponent's blade.  In contrast the Graze as a Traverse, Froissement, or Expulsion is usually described in very different terms.

Sixth - if we merge the two lists and use the classification criteria that Vince and Deladrier apply, the primary techniques in each group are:

(1)  Preparations that strike the blade and displace it (Attacks on the Blade):

• Beat - included 12 times (100%)
• Press - included 11 out of 12 times (92%)
• Expulsion - included 10 out of 12 times (83%)
  

(2)  Preparations that maintain contact with the blade throughout the action (Takings of the Blade):

• Graze, Glide, Coule - included 10 times (83%)
• Bind - included 9 times (75%)
• Envelopment - included 6 times (50%)
• Croise - included 5 times (42%) 

Seventh - the Expulsion (Traverse, Graze, Froissement) is commonly covered in period texts from early in the period to late.  Although it is not unusual for the authors to have described it as a violent, often uncontrolled action, with the implication that it was not an ideal technique, It was taught in 83% of the manuals examined.  This suggests that it clearly has a role in modern study of classical fencing.

It should be noted that data from other authors not included in this study or from texts that did not specifically classify actions in the way these have may well result in different preferences for specific techniques.  The examination of the texts focused on the primary technique discussed, not on multiple tempo extension of the technique. 

Copyright 2018 by Walter G. Green III

Classifying Foil Actions on the Blade by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.