Military sabre
A cavalry sabre with a curved blade, adopted by western Europe during the Thirty Years' War; the standard weapon of cavalry until the First World War.
Quick Facts
About the weapon
The sabre is a type of weapon with one main edge and a curved blade. In the 6th century a longer, slightly curved mounted weapon appeared in southern Siberia, from which a true cavalry sabre developed by the 8th century; by the 9th century it was a common weapon of the Eurasian steppes. The sabre spread through western Europe during the Thirty Years' War and was widely used by the armies of the Napoleonic Wars. The word travelled from Hungarian szabla through Polish szabla into German (Säbel, attested from the 15th century), from there into French and, in the 1670s, into English. The earliest sabres had a slightly curved blade, short downturned guard quillons, a grip angled away from the blade, a sharp point and a sharpened upper third of the back edge. Armies introduced their own official patterns; British light cavalry, for instance, received the pattern 1796 sabre, later followed by the pattern 1803. The sabre remained the standard cavalry weapon for mounted combat in most armies until the First World War, and in some until the Second. The United States War Department announced by a circular of 18 April 1934 that it would stop issuing it to the cavalry. Today the sabre is part of the ceremonial uniforms of officers in many armies and navies, but as a weapon it serves only for decoration and ceremony.