[sirupate]

From Swordsman in the British Empire
1.Maj. Waller Ashe (King’s Dragoon Guards) observed that most sowars or Indian cavalrymen were “far better swordsmen than our own troopers, whose cumbersome sabres, that won’t cut and cannot point, with their heavy steel scabbards, are not to be compared with the native tulwar, whose keen razor-like edge enables its owner to lop off a head or a limb as easily as cutting a cabbage. Our English regulation scabbards are heavy, difficult to clean, blunt the sword, and make such a rattle that a secret reconnaissance with them is impossible. These sowars have scabbards of solid brown leather, lined thinly with wood.” (Personal Records of the Kandahar Campaign, 1881.)
2. Col. Richard Bayly, 12th Foot: “To give an idea of the temper, sharpness, and weight of the swords of all these [Mysorean] men, I have only to mention that the barrel of one of the men’s muskets was completely cut in two by one stroke.” (Diary of Colonel Bayly, 1896.)
3. “Major Hunter, 41st Native Infantry, advanced a few paces in front of his men [during the storming of Bhurtpore in 1826] and offered him [Khoosial Singh, a Jat chief] quarter; when, with warlike fury, Khoosial Singh replied to the speaker by a terrific blow. Major Hunter put up his scabbard as a guard; but such was the stoutness of arm of the gallant Jat, so great the sharpness of his sword, that the scabbard was cut through as if it had been paper, and Major Hunter’s left arm nearly severed. Our men then rushed on Khoosial Singh, who fell pierced with innumerable bayonet wounds.” (Viscountess Combermere & Capt. W. W. Knollys, Memoirs and Correspondence of Field Marshal Viscount Combermere, 1866.)
4. Regarding a mutiny of sowars or troopers of the Hyderabad Contingent Cavalry in 1827: “Lieut. Stirling, whilst making a thrust at one of the mutineers, had his sword arm cut to the bone, just above the wrist; and his arm would probably have been taken off had not Lieut. Harrington’s sword, which was cut half through by the same blow, received a great part of the weight of it; whilst he, at the same instant, ran the desperado through the body.” (Asiatic Journal, 1827.)
5. Regarding Lt. & Adjt. C. D. La Touche of the Southern Mahratta Horse: “He had a narrow escape; a matchlock was leveled directly at his face, when a ressaldar [captain] made a cut at it with his sword, severing the barrel at a blow.” (Telegraph and Courier, Dec. 9, 1857.)
6. Maj. Gen. Osborn Wilkinson, Indian Army: “One day, during the siege of Lucknow, I met my old friend [Lt. M. M.] Prendergast who unsheathed his weapon [a Wilkinson] and laughingly showed me the remains of it. It had just been cut clean in two by a slash from a native tulwar, and [Lt. T. C.] Graham’s sword [a Prosser] was broken in an encounter he had with a Pandy [mutineer]—the sword having been smashed in his hand.” (Memoirs, 1896.) 7. Among others, Ensign Augustus H. Alexander (a cavalry brigadier’s a.d.c.) noted that in the 1st Sikh War “we are no match for them in hand-to- hand work. They use their swords and manage their horses a great deal better than we do.” (New Zealand Spectator, Sept. 26, 1846.)
8. “The enemy exhibited frightful ferocity, and with their sharp tulwars (or native swords) hewed off heads and hands and arms by a single blow.” And regarding “the deficiency of our cavalry in proper weapons”, “the weight, badness of balance, and the wretched steel
of which their swords were made gave the enemy a vast superiority over them at close quarters. Like most Asiatics, the Sikhs kept their short handy swords as keen as razors— swords that sliced at every stroke; and we are told that ‘our poor fellows laboured in vain with their long, awkward, and blunt sabres to draw blood’.” (James Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, 1889.)
9. Lt. E. J. Thackwell, 3rd Dragoons: “The tulwar has a broader back, thicker blade, and keener edge [than the British regulation sword]; and the enemy are in the habit of delivering the drawing cut, a most cutting kind of blow. That flimsy piece of steel called the regulation sword the powerful tulwar of the Sikh shivered to atoms with a blow.
10. Whilst [the leading squadron of the 3rd Dragoons under Captain] Unett was charging [at Chillianwallah in 1849], a Sikh cut at him from behind. A private dragoon, close behind his gallant leader, interposed his sword; the Sikh’s tulwar not only shivered it to pieces, but penetrating Unett’s pouch, entered his back. On several occasions, the English steel was found inferior. Moreover, the enemy were almost invulnerable from the shields, armour, and wadded clothes they wore. The men of the 9th Lancers often failed to pierce them [with their lances].” (Narrative of the Second Sikh War, 1851.) 11. “Single combats were of no unfrequent occurrence [during the battle of Chillianwallah], and in these the Sikh soldier not unfrequently had the advantage. The weapon with which he is armed has a broader back, a thicker blade, as well as a keener edge than ours, and affords him a signal advantage. The gashes inflicted by the tulwar, beneath the stroke of which our steel was shivered to splinters, were frightful.” (E. J. Thackwell, “Confessions of an Old Dragoon,” Colburn’s United Service Magazine, 1854.)
12. John Ship fighting a Gorkha Sobar
With this I was obliged to act on the defensive, till I could catch my formidable opponent off his guard. He cut, I guarded; he thrust, I parried; until he became aggravated and set to work with that impetuosity and determination pretty generally understood by the phrase ‘hammer and tongs’; in the course of which he nearly cut my poor twenty-fourther in pieces.