Well done bayonet

Nowadays, the pique bayonet has again been replaced by the bayonet-knife, with which it all once began (Photo: CRO/NICA DE LA TE/CNICA )

The advent of handguns did not suddenly change the nature of war. Loading muskets was a very slow task, especially in the face of advancing cavalry, and besides, any, even the slightest, rain immediately led to dampening of the gunpowder. Therefore, in the infantry chains of the 16th - first half of the 17th centuries, riflemen alternated with spearmen.

In military history, there have been cases of hybridization of different types of weapons, for example, piercing and slashing. Thus, in the 14th century, a halberd appeared in Europe: an ax and a spear “in one bottle.” But for a long time no one thought of combining bladed weapons with firearms on the battlefield. The first to come up with this was the French general Jean de Chastenet de Puisegur. In the battle with the Dutch near Ypres in 1647, he ordered his fusiliers (small musket shooters) to tie knives to their muzzles. The success exceeded all expectations. But was Puisegur the true inventor of the bayonet?

No way! The word "bayonet" (in the old Russian translation "baginet") comes from the name of the French town of Bayonne in the western Pyrenees and was first recorded in 1572. One version connects it with the weapons production established in this city; the other, more plausible, is with the savvy French border guards, who, after decades of chasing Basque smugglers through the mountains, were simply forced to tie daggers to their guns in case of sudden skirmishes. This provincial invention quickly gained popularity among hunters. The baguette appeared in the collections of hunting equipment of aristocrats already at the end of the 16th century. But these same aristocrats turned out to be unusually conservative when it came to introducing this innovation into the field of military weapons.

General Puisegur's initiative was not liked in Paris - Louis XIV in 1666 banned the use of baguettes in battle. Indeed, the handicraft combination of objects not suitable for this sometimes led to failures. But they learn from mistakes: the same General Mackay, who, due to the imperfection of the then bayonets, lost the battle of Killecrankie in 1689, two years later invented a baguette pike, mounted on the barrel near the front sight using two special rings. After this, the only fundamental improvement was made in 1805 by General John Moore, who developed a more advanced method of attaching a bayonet. Before the Battle of Borodino, a Russian grenadier, “grumbling angrily, biting his long mustache,” sharpened just such a bayonet.

In 1697 in England and Germany, and in 1703 in France, the pike was removed from service. Two types of weapons merged into one. Only from this time can we talk about the end of the medieval period of military history. But, despite the ever-increasing firepower of the armies, the importance of bayonet combat did not decrease until the end of the First World War; The troops were counted by the number of not people, not rifles, but “bayonets”. And it was precisely to him, in an ominously prophetic way, that Mayakovsky wanted to equate his pen.