A bayonet (from Old French bayonette, now spelt baïonnette) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped melee weapon designed to be mounted on the end of the barrel of a rifle, carbine, musket or similar long firearm, allowing the gun to be used as an improvised spear in close combats.[1]
The term is derived from the town of Bayonne in southwestern France, where bayonets were supposedly first used by Basques in the 17th century.[2] From the early 17th to the early 20th century, it was an infantry melee weapon used for both offensive and/or defensive tactics, usually when charging in mass formations or human wave attacks. Today, it is mostly considered an ancillary weapon, usually of last resort, and is rarely used (if wielded at all), although it is still displayed routinely for ceremonial purposes.
The term bayonette itself dates back to the 16th century, but it is not clear whether bayonets at the time were knives that could be fitted to the ends of firearms, or simply a type of knife. For example, Cotgrave's 1611 Dictionarie describes the bayonet as "a kind of small flat pocket dagger, furnished with knives; or a great knife to hang at the girdle". Likewise, Pierre Borel wrote in 1655 that a kind of long-knife called a bayonette was made in Bayonne but does not give any further description.[3] There are some accounts that place the invention of the bayonet in either France or Germany as early as 1570.[4]
The first recorded instance of a bayonet proper is found in the Chinese military treatise, Binglu published in 1606. It was in the form of the Son-and-mother gun, a breech-loading musket that was issued with a roughly 57.6 cm (22.7 in) long plug bayonet, giving it an overall length of 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) with the bayonet attached. It was labelled as a "gun-blade" (simplified Chinese: 铳刀; traditional Chinese: 銃刀; pinyin: Chòngdāo) with it being described as a "short sword that can be inserted into the barrel and secured by twisting it slightly" that it is to be used "when the battle have depleted both gunpowder and bullets as well as fighting against bandits, when forces are closing into melee or encountering an ambush" and if one "cannot load the gun within the time it takes to cover two bu (3.2 meters) of ground they are to attach the bayonet and hold it like a spear".[5][6]
Early bayonets were of the "plug" type, where the bayonet was fitted directly into the barrel of the musket.[7][8][9] This allowed light infantry to be converted to heavy infantry and hold off cavalry charges. The bayonet had a round handle that slid directly into the musket barrel. This naturally prevented the gun from being fired. The first known mention of the use of bayonets in European warfare was in the memoirs of Jacques de Chastenet, Vicomte de Puységur.[10] He described the French using crude 1-foot (0.30 m) plug bayonets during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).[10] However, it was not until 1671 that General Jean Martinet standardized and issued plug bayonets to the French regiment of fusiliers then raised. They were issued to part of an English dragoon regiment raised in 1672, and to the Royal Fusiliers when raised in 1685.[11]
The major problem with plug bayonets was that when attached they made it impossible to fire the musket, requiring soldiers to wait until the last possible moment before a melee to fix the bayonet. The defeat of forces loyal to William of Orange by Jacobite Highlanders at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689 was due (among other things) to the use of the plug bayonet.[8][11] The Highlanders closed to 50 yd (46 m), fired a single volley, dropped their muskets, and using axes and swords quickly overwhelmed the loyalists before they had time to fix bayonets. Shortly thereafter, the defeated leader, Hugh Mackay, is believed to have introduced a socket bayonet of his own invention. Soon "socket" bayonets would incorporate both socket mounts and an offset blade that fit around the musket's barrel, which allowed the musket to be fired and reloaded while the bayonet was attached.
An unsuccessful trial with socket or zigzag bayonets was made after the Battle of Fleurus in 1690, in the presence of King Louis XIV, who refused to adopt them, as they had a tendency to fall off the musket. Shortly after the Peace of Ryswick (1697), the English and Germans abolished the pike and introduced socket bayonets.[11] The British socket bayonet had a spike with a triangular cross-section rather than a flat blade, with a flat side towards the muzzle and two fluted sides outermost to a length of 15 inches (38 cm). It had no lock to keep it fast to the muzzle, and was well-documented for falling off in the heat of battle.[8]
By the mid-18th century, socket bayonets had been adopted by most European armies. In 1703, the French infantry adopted a spring-loaded locking system that prevented the bayonet from accidentally separating from the musket. A triangular blade was introduced around 1715 and was stronger than the previous single or double-edged model.[12]
The 18th century introduced the concept of the sword bayonet, a long-bladed weapon with a single- or double-edged blade that could also be used as a shortsword. Its initial purpose was to ensure that riflemen could form an infantry square properly to fend off cavalry attacks when in ranks with musketmen, whose weapons were longer. A prime early example of a sword bayonet-fitted rifle is the Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle, later known as the "Baker Rifle". Sword bayonets were used by German Jagers in the 18th century. The hilt usually had quillons modified to accommodate the gun barrel and a hilt mechanism that enabled the bayonet to be attached to a bayonet lug. A sword bayonet could be used in combat as a sidearm, when detached from the musket or rifle. When the bayonet was attached to the musket or rifle, it effectively turned all long guns into a spear or glaive, which made it suitable for both thrusting and cutting attacks.
While the British Army eventually discarded the sword bayonet, the socket bayonet survived the introduction of the rifled musket into British service in 1854. The new rifled musket copied the French locking ring system.[8] The new bayonet proved its worth at the Battle of Alma and the Battle of Inkerman during the Crimean War, where the Imperial Russian Army learned to fear it.[8]
In the 1860s, European nations began to develop new bolt-action breechloading rifles (such as the Chassepot and Snider–Enfield) and sword bayonets suitable for mass production and used by police, pioneer, and engineer troops.[13] The decision to redesign the bayonet into a short sword was viewed by some as an acknowledgement of the decline in importance of the fixed bayonet as a weapon in the face of new advances in firearms technology.[14] As a British newspaper put it, "the committee, in recommending this new sword bayonet, appear to have had in view the fact that bayonets will henceforth be less frequently used than in former times as a weapon of offence and defence; they desired, therefore, to substitute an instrument of more general utility."[14]
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One of these multipurpose designs was the 'sawback' bayonet, which incorporated saw teeth on the spine of the blade.[13] The sawback bayonet was intended for use as a general-purpose utility tool as well as a weapon; the teeth were meant to facilitate the cutting of wood for various defensive works such as barbed-wire posts, as well as for butchering livestock.[1][14][15][16] It was initially adopted by the German states in 1865; until the middle of WWI approximately 5% of every bayonet style was complemented with a sawback version, for example in Belgium in 1868, Great Britain in 1869 and Switzerland in 1878 (Switzerland introduced their last model in 1914).[1][14][15][16][17] The original sawback bayonets were typically of the heavy sword-type, they were issued to engineers, with to some extent the bayonet aspect being secondary to the "tool" aspect. Later German sawbacks were more of a rank indicator than a functional saw. The sawback proved relatively ineffective as a cutting tool, and was soon outmoded by improvements in military logistics and transportation; most nations dropped the sawback feature by the early 20th century.[1] The German army discontinued use of the sawback bayonet in 1917 after protests that the serrated blade caused unnecessarily severe wounds when used as a fixed bayonet.[1][16]
The trowel or spade bayonet was another multipurpose design, intended for use both as an offensive weapon as well as a digging tool for excavating entrenchments.[18][19] In 1870, the US Army issued trowel bayonets to infantry regiments based on a design by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Rice, a US Army officer and Civil War veteran, which were manufactured by the Springfield Armory.[20] Besides its utility as both a fixed bayonet and a digging implement, the Rice trowel bayonet could be used to plaster log huts and stone chimneys for winter quarters; sharpened on one edge, it could cut tent poles and pins.[20] Ten thousand were eventually issued, and the design saw service during the 1877 Nez Perce campaign.[21] Rice was given leave in 1877 to demonstrate his trowel bayonet to several nations in Europe.[21] One infantry officer recommended it to the exclusion of all other designs, noting that "the entrenching [sic] tools of an army rarely get up to the front until the exigency for their use has passed."[20] The Rice trowel bayonet was declared obsolete by the US Army in December 1881.[21]
Prior to World War I, bayonet doctrine was largely founded upon the concept of "reach"; that is, a soldier's theoretical ability, by use of an extremely long rifle and fixed bayonet, to stab an enemy soldier without having to approach within reach of his opponent's blade.[1][22][23] A combined length of rifle and bayonet longer than that of the enemy infantryman's rifle and attached bayonet, like the infantryman's pike of bygone days, was thought to impart a tactical advantage on the battlefield.[1][23][24][25]
In 1886, the French army introduced a 52-centimetre-long (20.5 in) quadrangular épée spike for the bayonet of the Lebel Model 1886 rifle, the Épée-Baïonnette Modèle 1886, resulting in a rifle and bayonet with an overall length of six feet (1.8 m). Germany responded by introducing a long sword bayonet for the Model 1898 Mauser rifle, which had a 29-inch barrel. The bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98, had a 50 cm (19.7-inch) blade.[24] With an overall length of 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m), the German army's rifle/bayonet combination was second only to the French Lebel for overall 'reach'.[24]
After 1900, Switzerland, Britain, and the United States adopted rifles with barrel lengths shorter than that of a rifled musket, but longer than that of a carbine.[1][26] These were intended for general use by infantry and cavalry.[26] The "reach" of the new short rifles with attached bayonets was reduced.[1] Britain introduced the SMLE (Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield), in 1904.[1][26] The German M1898 Mauser rifle and attached sword bayonet was 20 cm (eight inches) longer than the SMLE and its P1903 bayonet, which used a twelve-inch (30 cm) blade.[1][27] While the British P1903 and its similar predecessor, the P1888, was satisfactory in service, criticism soon arose regarding the shortened reach.[1][24][26][28] One military writer of the day warned: "The German soldier has eight inches the better of the argument over the British soldier when it comes to crossing bayonets, and the extra eight inches easily turns the battle in favour of the longer, if both men are of equal skill."[24]
In 1905, the German Army adopted a shortened 37-centimetre-long (14.5 in) bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98/06 for engineer and pioneer troops, and in 1908, a short rifle as well, the Karabiner Model 1898AZ, which was produced in limited quantities for the cavalry, artillery, and other specialist troops.[29] However, the long-barreled 98 Mauser rifle remained in service as the primary infantry small arm.[30] Moreover, German military authorities continued to promote the idea of outreaching one's opponent on the battlefield by means of a longer rifle/bayonet combination, a concept prominently featured in its infantry bayonet training doctrines.[25] These included the throw point or extended thrust-and-lunge attack.[31] Using this tactic, the German soldier dropped into a half-crouch, with the rifle and fixed bayonet held close to the body.[31] In this position the soldier next propelled his rifle forward, then dropped the supporting hand while taking a step forward with the right foot, simultaneously thrusting out the right arm to full length with the extended rifle held in the grip of the right hand alone.[31] With a maximum 'kill zone' of some eleven feet, the throw point bayonet attack gave an impressive increase in 'reach', and was later adopted by other military forces, including the U.S. Army.[31][32]
In response to criticism over the reduced reach of the SMLE rifle and bayonet, British ordnance authorities introduced the P1907 bayonet in 1908, which had an elongated blade of some seventeen inches to compensate for the reduced overall length of the SMLE rifle.[1][23][26][33][34] The 1907 bayonet was essentially a copy of the Japanese Type 30 bayonet, Britain having purchased a number of Japanese type 30 rifles for the Royal Navy during the preceding years.[35] U.S. authorities in turn adopted a long (16-in. blade) bayonet for the M1903 Springfield short rifle, the M1905 bayonet; later, a long sword bayonet was also provided for the M1917 Enfield rifle.[28]
The experience of World War I reversed opinion on the value of long rifles and bayonets in typical infantry combat operations.[27][34][36][37] Whether in the close confines of trench warfare, night time raiding and patrolling, or attacking across open ground, soldiers of both sides soon recognized the inherent limitations of a long and ungainly rifle and bayonet when used as a close-quarters battle weapon.[27][34][36][37] Once Allied soldiers had been trained to expect the throw point or extended thrust-and-lunge attack, the method lost most of its tactical value on the World War I battlefield.[31] It required a strong arm and wrist, was very slow to recover if the initial thrust missed its mark, and was easily parried by a soldier who was trained to expect it, thus exposing the German soldier to a return thrust which he could not easily block or parry.[31][38][39] Instead of longer bayonets, infantry forces on both sides began experimenting with other weapons as auxiliary close-quarter arms, including the trench knife, trench club, handgun, hand grenade, and entrenching tool.[36][40]
Soldiers soon began employing the bayonet as a knife as well as an attachment for the rifle, and bayonets were often shortened officially or unofficially to make them more versatile and easier to use as tools, or to maneuver in close quarters.[1][34][36][37] During World War II, bayonets were further shortened into knife-sized weapons in order to give them additional utility as