By the Sword Read online

  2012 Modern Library eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2002, 2008, 2012 by Narrative Tension, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in hardcover and in slightly different form by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2002, and subsequently in trade paperback by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2008.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Cohen, Richard

  By the sword: a history of gladiators, musketeers, samurai, swashbucklers, and Olympic champions / Richard Cohen.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-43074-8

  1. Fencing—History. I. Title.

  U860 .C58 2002

  796.86′09—dc21 2002021309

  www.modernlibrary.com

  Cover design: Misa Erder

  Cover art: Le maître d’armes (detail), Tancrède Bastet (1858–1942), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Grenoble/Photos12.com/ARJ

  v3.1_r1

  FOR Kathy

  THE TEN YEARS SINCE THIS BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED HAVE SEEN radical changes to the sport of swordplay. Some are technical, as revisions to this book will show. Some are administrative: a Russian billionaire has taken over as head of the international body that runs fencing, and he is determined to make it a worldwide, televisual sport. I wish him luck.

  As for the United States, at the end of the first week of the 2008 Games, fully 10 percent of its entire Olympic tally was from fencing—six medals, their best haul ever. In women’s saber, the remarkable Mariel Zagunis took Olympic gold in 2004 as well as in Beijing (where her compatriots were second and third), then added a world championship in 2010. There are now more than 100,000 registered fencers in America—the sport a long way from being one that well into the twentieth century was peopled by only the wealthy upper classes and the privileged, leavened by competitors from the armed services and by immigrants from the fencing countries of Europe. Fencing has become democratized.

  Certainly the old order is under attack: At the last world championships, in Sicily in 2011, Italian women foilists took first, second, and third places, but mighty France was nowhere. Koreans placed third, fifth, and nineteenth, and for the first time ever at world or Olympic level a Korean won the men’s individual saber. China won the same event at the Beijing Olympics—another first—while Japan took silver in the men’s foil, their first-ever fencing medal. It is far from an Asian invasion, however: Estonia has the current men’s épée champion; a Greek woman recently won a world cup saber event while Romania and Ukraine are new among the medalists.

  For this revised edition I have corrected some errors and brought other passages up to date. For production reasons, there has been no room for stories about some of the celebrities that I have discovered fence—from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame and Angelina Jolie (who early on so loved swords that she wanted her home to boast its own salle) to Nijinsky and Friedrich Engels—who, sadly, never took on his fellow fencer Karl Marx. But there is room, I think, for one recent story that epitomizes the spirit of fencing.

  It concerns two Italian foilists, Andrea Baldini (born 1985) and Andrea Cassarà (born 1984). In the 2008 Olympics, the rules for participation were that each country could enter just two fencers for an individual event. Cassarà was ranked third in the world but amazingly was not in line for selection, as during the qualification period he was behind Baldini and another Italian, Salvatore Sanzo. Baldini had won silver at both the 2006 and 2007 world championships, but in the run-up to China he was on fire, and by August, just weeks before the Games, was viewed as the hot favorite for the gold. Then, on August 1, it was announced that he had tested positive for the banned diuretic furosemide, more commonly known as Lasix; it appears on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) banned drug list as an alleged masking agent. Baldini was said to have used the drug during the European champion ships in Kiev earlier that summer: As a result he was banned from the Games. Andrea Cassarà duly went in his place but got no further than the quarterfinals.

  From the moment the drug test results were announced, Baldini strenuously maintained his innocence and protested that he was the victim of tampering—specifically, that Cassarà and the Italian team doctor had conspired to lace his drink. The prosecutors from Baldini’s hometown of Livorno investigated the claim. “Sabotage? It’s a hypothesis that the International Fencing Federation (FIE) has not ruled out,” said the head of the Italian Fencing Federation. The next year Baldini was readmitted to competition, winning two gold medals at the European championships that July in Bulgaria. But relations between him and Cassarà were such that bodyguards were taken on to ensure that the fencers did not come to blows. In team events, where one foilist hands over his electric cord to a colleague, spectators watched as the bodyguards were kept busy. The enmity between the two champions became a talking point for the whole international fencing community.

  In October, both Baldini and Cassarà were on the Italian team for the world championships in Turkey. One of them was careless in the seeding rounds, and they found themselves facing off in the quarterfinals. Other competitors stopped whatever they were doing to come and watch. As always, the fight was the first to fifteen, and the advantage swayed from one fencer to another, until the score reached 14–all. Normally, a well-timed attack scores a hit, or else a lightning riposte. Very occasionally, a phase goes to a third action—a counterriposte. The two fencers probed warily to see who would launch a final attack, forward and back, forward and back. At last, Baldini launched an attack. Cassarà parried and made a riposte. Baldini parried, and counterriposted. Still no hit. Finally, after six such actions, Baldini’s weapon got through: He had won, 15–14. Indeed, he would go on to beat the Russian Artem Sedov 15–6 in the semifinals and Zhu Jun of China 15–11 in the final, to win his first world championship. But that was all anticlimax. As he took off his mask against Cassarà the audience hushed to see what would happen. The two men stepped forward and embraced each other for a long moment, both realizing that only Cassarà had the skills to allow Baldini to express his unique talent.

  The crowd erupted. On the podium, Baldini displayed an Italian flag with lyrics from Bob Dylan’s “The Hurricane” written on it:

  That’s the story of the Hurricane,

  but it won’t be over till they clear his name

  And give him back the time he’s done

  Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been

  The champion of the world.

  As I write, in March 2012, Cassarà is the reigning world champion and the undisputed favorite going into the London Games. This time it is Baldini who is struggling for a place in the Italian team, although sentiment suggests he will be selected. As so often, fencing is about so much more than who will emerge the victor.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PREFACE TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1: From Egypt to Waterloo

  CH. 1 HOW IT ALL BEGAN

  CH. 2 ENTER THE MASTER

  CH. 3 A WILD KIND OF JUSTICE

  CH. 4 FRANCE IN THE AGE OF THE MUSKETEERS

  PART 2: The Search for Perfection

  CH. 5 THE GREAT SWORDMAKERS

  CH. 6 THE PERFECT THRUST

  CH. 7 WHERE THE SWORD IS THE SOUL

  PART 3: The Duel�
�s High Noon

  CH. 8 POINTS OF HONOR

  CH. 9 A PURSUIT FOR GENTLEMEN

  CH. 10 SWASHBUCKLING

  CH. 11 ON MOUNT RUSHMORE

  PART 4: Wounded Warriors

  CH. 12 SPILLED BLOOD

  CH. 13 SCARS OF GLORY

  PART 5: Great Powers

  CH. 14 The FASCIST SPORT

  CH. 15 The WOMAN WHO SALUTED HITLER

  CH. 16 The CHAMPIONS

  CH. 17 EXODUS

  PART 6: Faustian Pacts

  CH. 18 THE BURDEN OF GOLD

  CH. 19 HONOR BETRAYED

  CH. 20 THE DEMON BARBER

  Epilogue: By Way of the Sword

  AFTERWORD

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  About the Author

  prl.1 The author executes a “horizontal flèche,” 1965 [John Sanders].

  prl.2 Egerton Castle [Malcolm Fare Collection]

  prl.3 Richard Francis Burton [Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham]

  p1 Archibald Corble’s bookplate

  1.1 Egyptians fencing c. 1200 B.C. [New York Metropolitan Museum of Art]

  1.2 Roman infantry at sword practice [Sydney Anglo]

  2.1 A marketplace melee, from a 1506 engraving by Lucas Cranach [Radio Times Hulton Picture Library, London]

  2.2 The four guards as described by Agrippa

  2.3 A fencing school and bathhouse c. 1464 [Scott Museum, Glasgow]

  3.1 A trial by combat [Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris]

  3.2 James Figg’s calling card, by William Hogarth

  3.3 The Hamilton-Mohun duel [The Mansell Collection, London]

  4.1 The Bouteville–de Beuvron duel of 1627 [Musée de l’Armée, Paris]

  4.2 De Liancour’s instruction manual, 1686

  4.3 Maurice de La Tour’s portrait of d’Eon as a young woman

  4.4 Caricature of d’Eon as half woman, half man

  4.5 The duel at Carlton House in 1787 [Jeffrey Tishman Collection]

  p2 Japanese blade tested on the corpse of a criminal

  5.1 An armorer’s shop in eighteenth-century Paris [New York Public Library]

  5.2 A late-sixteenth-century swordsmith’s in Italy

  5.3 The Solingen statue “Old Fritz”

  6.1 The Coup de Jarnac, 1547

  6.2 Angelo’s depiction of the “behind the back” thrust

  7.1 A nineteenth-century samurai

  7.2 A kendo session of the 1930s [Agence France-Presse]

  p3 A sketch of Russian duelists by Pushkin

  8.1 A saber duel where the dead man is decapitated [Collection Roger-Viollet]

  8.2 A duel in Paris around 1900

  9.1 Turn-of-the-century French postcard, “La Leçon d’Escrime” [Malcolm Fare Collection]

  9.2 Fencing at the 1906 “unofficial” games [Collection Roger-Viollet]

  9.3 George S. Patton, Jr., at the 1912 games [Jeffrey Tishman Collection]

  10.1 Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., rehearses The Three Musketeers [Kevin Brownlow Collection]

  10.2 Fairbanks in action in The Three Musketeers [Kevin Brownlow Collection]

  10.3 Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood [Ronald Grant Collection]

  10.4 Rathbone during practice [Ronald Grant Collection]

  10.5 Grace Kelly in The Swan [Ronald Grant Collection]

  10.6 Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer in Scaramouche [Ronald Grant Collection]

  10.7 Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back [Ronald Grant Collection]

  11.1 “The Dueling Oaks,” outside New Orleans

  11.2 The U.S. War Department’s advisory picture on how to handle a swordsman [Basic Field Manual 21–150: Unarmed Defense for the American Soldier, Government Printing Office, June 30, 1942]

  11.3 Suction-cup fencing, 1937 [Agence France-Presse]

  11.4 Peter Westbrook and pupils [Manny Milan, Sports Illustrated]

  p4 Injured Mensur student

  12.1 The Cotronei-Nadi encounter [Aldo Santini]

  12.2 “A Fatal Fencing Accident,” from Bystander magazine

  13.1 Mensur duelists prepare for action [Agence France-Presse]

  13.2 Modern-day corps brothers in a ritual ceremony [Malcolm Fare Collection]

  p5 Aldo Nadi juggles his three weapons [Roma Nadi]

  14.1 Mussolini at practice [Aldo Santini]

  14.2 Nedo Nadi in 1930 [Roma Nadi]

  14.3 Oswald Mosley helps aspiring fencers [Agence France-Presse]

  14.4 Reinhard Heydrich at the time of the Berlin Olympics [Edouard Calic]

  15.1 Helene Mayer as a teenager [Erica Mayer]

  15.2 Mayer and team colleague at the 1952 games [Aldo Santini]

  15.3 Mayer at the 1936 Olympic Village [Erica Mayer]

  15.4 The medal ceremony for the Women’s Foil, 1936

  16.1 Aurelio Greco [William Gaugler]

  16.2 Aurelio’s brother, Agesilao Greco [Malcolm Fare Collection]

  16.3 Nedo, Beppo, and Aldo Nadi, 1933 [Roma Nadi]

  16.4 Aldo Nadi fences Lucien Gaudin, 1922 [Leon Bertrand]

  16.5 Eduardo Mangiarotti and his father [Eduardo Mangiarotti]

  16.6 The Olympic medalists in the individual foil, 1952—d’Oriola, Mangiarotti, and Di Rosa [Agence France-Presse]

  16.7 Christian d’Oriola’s extraordinary lunge, 1947 [Roger Crosnier]

  17.1 The three great masters of Hungarian saber—Santelli, Borsodi, and Gerencsér [Béla Bay and Anna Reti; third photo: Sandor David]

  17.2 Hungary’s three great champions of the 1950s: Gerevich [Sandor David]

  17.3 Kovács [Sandor David]

  17.4 Kárpáti [Agence France-Presse]

  17.5 Béla Bay, “Uncle Béla,” who saved Hungarian fencing [Béla Bay and Anna Reti]

  p6 John Updike’s cartoon of two Stone Age duelists [From More Matter: Essays and Criticism, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999]

  18.1 János Kevey surrounded by his pupils

  18.2 Jerzy Pawłowski in 1965 [M. Szymkowski for PS]

  18.3 Pawłowski attacks against Viktor Sidiak of the USSR [Peter Hobson]

  18.4 Pawłowski as army officer [Jerzy Pawłowski]

  18.5 Pawłowski experiences defeat at the 1964 Olympics [AP/Wide World Photos]

  19.1 Galina Gorokhova at the world championships in 1971 [Herbert Sundhofer]

  19.2 Onishenko v. Fox, Montreal 1976 [Stewart Fraser for Colorsport]

  19.3 Boris Onishenko in repose [Malcolm Fare Collection]

  20.1 Emil Beck, master coach of Tauberbischofsheim [Richard Moll]

  20.2 Arnd Schmitt in 2000 [Agence France-Presse]

  A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

  —PRINCESS IRULAN, IN FRANK HERBERT’S Dune, 1965

  THIRTY YEARS AGO I FOUGHT THE ONLY DUEL OF MY LIFE. IT wouldn’t have satisfied the dictionary definition, which requires that deadly weapons be used—competition sabers are hardly that—but it was certainly a “prearranged formal combat between two persons, fought to settle a point of honor.” And honor was duly satisfied, if not quite in the way I anticipated.

  Back then, Britain had one showpiece fencing event, held over two weekends every spring in the center of London. On the second Saturday night, the final eight competitors, dressed all in white against a black background, squared off under arc lights on a specially raised strip, or “piste.” Many in the audience of some eight hundred were in evening dress, and radio and television covered it closely: a daunting occasion, even for a seasoned international.

  The event was conducted in an elimination format, with the finalists fencing off in pairs. Between the semifinals and the final the audience was usually entertained with a short costume drama, but that year the organizers decided instead to offer a duel between the respective champions of the two top-ranking clubs—the biggest in the country, the legendary Salle Paul, and my own, Salle Boston. (Clubs are often called “salles,” a holdover from the days when French masters gave lessons in their
own rooms.) The first fencer to score ten hits would receive a purse of £100—about $1,000 today.

  We had the national champion, David Acfield, so were feeling confident, but about three weeks before the fight, David told me that he had been approached by Salle Paul to “come to an arrangement.” The fight would be rigged: Boston, the favorites, would get £60, Paul £40. As club captain, what did I think? I responded with a mixture of self-confidence, priggishness, and fondness for a gamble: first, I said, I thought David would win; second, I didn’t want to be party to such a scheme; third, I liked the risk involved—all or nothing: the deal was not on. This didn’t appeal to David, but he accepted my decision, if grudgingly. Not long after we talked, he injured his leg one evening at training and within a few days reported that we would have to find a replacement. The club did: me. By this time we had learned that Salle Paul was not happy with our refusal to split the purse and was determined to teach us a lesson. It was going to be a battle of honor after all.

  My opponent would be Paul’s top performer, David Eden. I should explain about the Eden family. David, the eldest of three brothers, had studied to be a concert pianist but had proved to be temperamentally unsuited to this. His father was a self-made businessman who specialized in wholesaling fashionable clothes to the cheaper end of the market. All three sons had gone to a state school in southwest London. In the previous decade, state schools had come under pressure to give up boxing, which almost overnight had made fencing vastly more popular, and the Edens had taken up the sport with a vengeance, all three sons going on to win international honors, David in both foil and saber.

  With a foil the target is the torso, and one can score only with the point; with a saber the point may be used, but one is also free to slash and cut, and the target is anywhere above the hips—head, arms, hands are all fair game. The saber is the more dramatic weapon, more like what one sees in the cinema. And David was famously exhibitionistic. Off the strip he would dress all in black, his shirt unbuttoned to midchest, revealing thick black hair on which rested a gold medallion and chain. He sported a gold watch, gold rings, and a heavy black beard. That year he had been going out with Miss Scotland, but he later married the blond ex-girlfriend of his soccer alter ego, George Best. He was just under six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and a piratical smile. Altogether a bit of a lad.