2023 Author: Katelyn Chandter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 13:08
It is unlikely that the dagger will ever be used. The dagger's only function is to serve as a symbol of belonging to the fleet.
For hand-to-hand combat in the fleet, special edged weapons were required.
There is no consensus regarding the origin of the dagger. Some consider it a kind of dagger, others argue that it appeared as a shortened version of the sword. It would be wrong to judge this on the basis of modern officer's daggers: being a purely symbolic weapon, they are more modest in size than their combat ancestors. Only one thing is undeniable: the dagger was required for boarding.
Boarding tactics dominated naval battles from antiquity to the decline of the sailing fleet, appearing as a banal seizure of an enemy ship for the purpose of robbery. Then the ship could go to the winner, or it could go to the bottom. The latter was often done by pirates. Naval sailors usually took ships as a trophy, then including them in their fleet.
According to one version, British sailors were the first to use the dagger. With these weapons, they could pierce the plate armor of Spanish soldiers who were part of the teams of warships as marines and transported the valuables of galleons. It was extremely difficult to cut such armor with a saber or an ax, but with a halberd on a ship, of course, you cannot turn around. Therefore, in fights, they were pricked with rapiers or swords into unprotected places or the articulation of armor.
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| 1 = Dagger Soviet naval officer arr. 1940 2 = Soviet naval officer's dagger award arr. 1945 (Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps, St. Petersburg) |
However, daggers of the "saber" type are also known - with a slightly curved blade and sharpened only on one side. They are said to be descended from cleavers. Moreover, in the English navy "saber" daggers became so popular that they began to be called "English", and daggers with a straight blade - "French".
One of the daggers of that time, which belonged to an English sailor, had a double-edged straight blade 36 cm long, with which it was possible to inflict stabbing, chopping and cutting blows, with a wide groove (for rigidity), and a combined guard of rather impressive dimensions. Its owner apparently cared a lot about his fingers. But then there were no strict standards for daggers - they were ordered individually, observing the approximate accepted length, and the shape of the guard and handle depended on the imagination of the future owner. However, since the 17th century, all daggers have only a transverse guard: straight (cruciform), S-shaped, bent forward or backward, in the form of figures (for example, outstretched wings).
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| The dagger was the result of a long evolution. The usual "land" sword turned out to be inconvenient in boarding conditions, and the pirates preferred its "shortened" modifications. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Archives |
The officer's daggers, of course, were richly decorated, and their scabbard was carefully gilded and sprinkled with stones. But daggers were also made for sailors - after all, then it was still a military weapon, and not an ornament of a uniform. The daggers were most popular among pirates, especially English ones: every self-respecting gentleman of fortune sought to acquire them. Remember the characters of "Treasure Island" who staged a dirk massacre!
Daggers were also popular on land. Since they are shorter than swords, it was convenient to ride with them in a carriage, as shorter and lighter weapons were worn by some nobles, and hunting daggers were also made.
Peter the Great brought the dagger to Russia after returning from his trip to Europe. One of the imperial daggers, once kept in the museum of Budapest (until it disappeared without a trace in the confusion that followed the collapse of the socialist camp) was 63 cm long - but in the hand of the sovereign, known for its size, it probably looked like a "knife". His wooden scabbard trimmed with leather was decorated with symbols of Russia's victory over Sweden. Peter the Great introduced a dagger as a standard weapon of Russian sailors. This innovation of the sovereign, in contrast to shaving, was accepted immediately, with joy and forever. It was then that the dagger became a symbol of the valor of the Russian fleet for the first time.
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| This photograph of a Russian sailor was published in 1893 in the Columbian Naval Review. The negative went first to the Colorado Historical Society, and from there to the Library of Congress. Photo: from the archives of the Library of Congress |
Over time, the length of the blade decreased (the dagger of the 1913 model had a blade with a length of 240 mm), and instead of ivory, cheaper materials were allowed to be used. But the old, "grandfather's" daggers from this only acquired an even greater value in the eyes of sailors - comparable only to the "family" swords of the samurai.
In 1914, the daggers were issued to military pilots - apparently on the occasion of the fact that aviation began to be called the air fleet. And when in 1916 the daggers became the personal weapons of senior officers, and then military doctors, there was no limit to the indignation of the sailors.
The final blow to the prestige of the fleet was dealt by the Provisional Government, which issued daggers to all generals, officers and military officials, with the exception of cavalrymen and artillerymen. True, land daggers were much more modest and did not have a history of several generations of naval officers behind them.
The Soviet government abolished the dagger as an attribute of officers. In 1924, there was an attempt to once again make it a weapon of naval commanders, but internal disputes in the Communist Party between ultra-revolutionaries and "sovereigns" then ended not in favor of the latter. And only in 1940 the dagger returned to the Russian (then Soviet) fleet. Together with shoulder straps, he began to be awarded to graduates of higher naval schools - in a solemn atmosphere, simultaneously with a diploma and first rank.
After the Great Patriotic War, the dagger once again decreased in size: now the length of the entire dagger is 320 mm, the blade is 215 mm. Its handle has become only a memory of its former greatness - now it is made not of ivory, but of plastic similar to it. But traditions remained …