Dueling

[John Trojanowski]

I know this comes from a time period long past ARMA's primary study period, but I thought it might be of use.

I recently finished uploading a series of clips to my YouTube page.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=schlager7

These are from early newsreels showing actual duels to first blood in France from about 1910-1914. My particular YouTube page is primarily given over to fencing history, but most of these are in one clump so if you have no interest in the sport, you can easily just check out the duels. I have also separately embedded the duels on a message board just for that topic here:

http://campechesteel.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=duels

I know the early 20th century is not ARMA's area of interest, but there are reasonably few examples of video of such encounters with sharp steel, and while the injury inflicted was (usually) minor, serious injury and death were always a possibility and, I am sure, a factor in their choice of actions.

[nathan featherstone]

impressive videos rather like the cutlass one as im a big fan of single handed swords of all types. so is interesting to see the progression of fencing even if it was so greatly set back by war.

[CalebChow]

Whoa, great stuff! Thanks so much for this find!

It's hard to find VIDEOS of actual blood duels...I thought those were replaced by gun duels or simply made illegal before film technology was developed...

[John Trojanowski]

I am pleased you enjoyed them.

[Jonathan Newhall]

Aye, though the particular era is outside of ARMA's spectrum, the attitude by people truly fighting to harm one another is not - and indeed it is one of the hardest things to replicate without actually doing. Fear of being hit is big, but fear of being killed is bigger.

Really a great find for historians of all kinds of combat.