The Conversation

Friday essay: a short, sharp history of the bayonet

Author: Peter Monteath, Flinders University

A British Pattern 1907 bayonet with leather scabbard.Wikimedia Commons

Even the sound of a bayonet could be frightening. The audible whetting of blades in the enemy’s trenches could puncture a night’s rest with premonitions of steely death. The sight of gleaming blades, too, turned the stomach of many a soldier. For all the sheer,...

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