Thanks Victrix! This is quite a trip down memory lane, and researches from many years back which were fascinating and actually pretty great adventures.
Interesting note on the Remarque novel, of course an all time classic which observed the accounts on those bayonets. I recall one of those being one of my very first weapons I collected as a kid, back in the early 60s. I thought it was pretty scary and my friends thought I was nuts for having such a ghastly thing...no need to mention my parents thoughts!
Thank you for that quote!!! I had never known of that in that book, but of course knew the movie well.
The old blade catcher myth is another well used chestnut, and pretty well dispelled by Egerton Castle, in "Schools and Masters of Fence" (1885) particularly with the toothed 'sword breakers'. These were primarily novelties with the left hand daggers basically out of use by their time according to his findings. It is virtually the same instance with most other 'sword catching' features such as notches, and only quillons and guards served such purposes, then usually nominally.
The 'Spanish notch' is another one which came up in my research years ago (now I really want to find these notes!). It was in an article in a magazine around 1979, and I cannot recall the authors name. No satisfactory conclusion was ever found but it seems these notches on the back of the blade were on 'Meditteranean' knives. These were typically used aboard ships by sailors, who used them of course as weapons in the expected knife fights among themselves. It was from these that the Bowie brothers learned the art of knife fighting, and it is believed that they were ancestors of the fabled 'Bowie' knife.
I was told by a blacksmith working in the James Black smithy in Arkansas, home of the 'Bowie', that Black always 'notched' his blades. These had no purpose but were a vestigial nod to those early knives, mostly Spanish but many French ( prevalent in Louisiana of course).
It is in that rather 'honorific' sense that these were notched that makes me wonder of there is perhaps some such 'gesture' or symbolic notion which might have been behind these mysteriously applied features.
Thank you for sharing in pondering these curious notches, and for your patience as I drag out all these research memories!
