Unlike most of the fencing texts I have shared on this blog, the two texts in discussion today were not written by authors who aligned themselves with Radaellian or even Italian fencing. While these authors were writing at a time when Italian fencing was taking over the German competitive scene, both were staunchly opposed to this trend. The texts in question are a 1904 booklet by J. Frank entitled Das Deutsche Fechten im Konkurrenzkampfe mit dem italienischen ('German fencing in competition with Italian') and Adolf Meyer's 1912 treatise Deutsche Hiebstich-Fechtschule für leichten Säbel, Hiebstichdegen, Offiziersdegen und Offizierssäbel ('German school of cut fencing for light sabre, cut-and-thrust sword, officer's sword, and officer's sabre').
Frank's 35-page booklet is the more 'in-the-moment' reaction out of the two, as he begins by explaining that in 1901 Italian fencing had been officially introduced at the Militär Turnanstalt in Berlin by order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Militär Turnanstalt was where gymnastics instructors were trained for the Prussian military, and thus the institution of Italian fencing there was seen as a huge defeat by Frank. Frank alludes to 'an Italian master' who ran a fencing club in Berlin as the prime mover behind this influence, and given what we know from other sources, this person was almost certainly Luigi Sestini.1
Frank then goes on to compare Italian and German fencing rules, considering the former unsuitable for German culture, particularly in relation to academic fencing and duelling. The booklet also criticises German masters for aiding in the spread of Italian fencing and not doing enough to preserve native practices.
Likewise, Meyer places himself in opposition to Italian influence, describing the differences between Italian fencing with its light weapons and elbow cuts, and German fencing with its heavy weapons and wrist-based actions. Meyer concludes that wrist-based fencing is the most natural and innate of the two methods, thus declaring 'back to naturalness, to the German school!'. This is not to say that Italian fencing had nothing to offer Meyer, however. While Meyer believes that Italian sabres are too light, he also concedes that German fencing swords were too heavy. With this in mind, Meyer introduces his own model of 'cut-and-thrust sword' and 'light sabre' which combine German grips and hilts with lighter blades, between 11 and 12 mm in width and with only a slight curve for the sabre. The 'military weapons' for training officers should have blades between 20 and 22 mm wide. The fencing method detailed throughout the rest of the book appears, to my uneducated eye, as typically German.
Meyer's distinction between 'light sabre' and 'heavy' or 'German' sabre dates back to at least 1896, where we find the first tournament held in Germany with separate events for each weapon. 'Light sabre' was to be performed with 'free measure', i.e. fencers were able to advance and retreat as desired, while the German sabre event was with fixed measure: competitors standing firmly in place as is typical for German academic fencing.2 Despite these efforts, large events with both German/heavy sabre and light sabre appear to have ceased after 1910, with light sabre being the only kind offered from then on.3
While German academic fencing was not able to find a place for itself in competitive fencing, it has nonetheless managed to survive the Olympic age, with many clubs throughout central and eastern Europe preserving the practice today. Frank and Meyer demonstrate the tension within the German scene that followed the arrival of Italian fencing at the turn of the 20th century, a tension commonly experienced throughout European fencing culture at the time.
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1 "Une enquête," L'Escrime Française, 9 August 1902.↩2 "Assauts à venir," Assauts, L'Escrime Française, 23 August 1896, 2. See also the regulations for the 'Zweites Turnier des Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Fechter-Bundes' in Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 15 October 1898, 1259.↩
3 See event listings in Max Schroeder, Deutsche Fechtkunst: Handbuch des Deutschen Fechtsports (Berlin: Wilhelm Bleib, 1938).↩
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