Contemporary print of a British Hussar trooper wielding a 1796 Light Cavalry Saber.
Greetings, dear reader(s). Life events have been rather bumpy and interrupted hobby attention lately. I'll eventually piece together some content from the starts and stops that have been going on, but in the meantime, I thought I'd put up another Sword Lore post. In this one, we'll be visiting the Napoleonic era and examining one of the most famous swords of that period: the British 1796 Light Cavalry Saber. For anyone new to these posts, each of them focuses on a particular sword in my modest collection of antique service weapons (not reproductions) from the era when swords were actual combat weopons. As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX in this post.
THE SWORD
Profile Taper
Sword Plus Scabbard
The Blade
Above are shots of my 1796 Light Cavalry Saber. In this case, I have both the sword and the scabbard. The complete sword, from pommel to tip, is roughly 38 inches. The blade by itself, from the hilt to tip, is about 33 inches. Being curved, this falls into the "saber" category. More particularly, this is a cavalry saber: designed and meant to be used mounted. I'll be discussing these points in more detail later, but for now this will serve as an introduction to get things started.
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
At the conclusion of the 18th Century, the British Army was in the process of trying to standardize its equipment. Specific to the mounted arm, it introduced heavy and light cavalry saber patterns in 1788. Those are not the topic of this post and so I won't go into detail other than to say that during the campaigns in the Low Countries in the 1790s against Revolutionary France they were found to be lacking; it was evident that a change was needed. 
The blade has a single shallow, fuller running nearly its entire length. As I've mentioned before, the fuller is sometimes referred to as a "blood channel" but that is not its purpose. It is a design feature that both lightens the blade and (depending on type, number, placement, and other configurations) lightens, balances, and reinforces the blade. In this case, the placement of the fuller at the top of the blade, near the spine, renders a ridge near the cutting edge, making the edge more rigid and stiffer. It also certainly lightens the overall blade and makes it agile (more on that in a bit...).
Hatchet Point Spear Point
Maj General John Gaspard Le Marchant
And the man of the hour who step forward and transform the British mounted arm, from weapon to sword drill, was John Gaspard Le Marchant. He was a cavalry brigade commander during the Revolutionary Wars in the low countries and (his sword designing aside) would go on to serve with distinction in the British Army, meeting his end at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812.
Austrian Hussar of the French Revolutionary Wars Campaign era.
Going back to the revolutionary wars, the Hungarian Hussars in the allied coalition armies were making a deep impression on everyone, with all nations adopting their own hussars and adjusting their approach to other kinds of light cavalry. Le Marchant was no different, but he went one step further: he studied and brought back not just the ideas drawn from the Hungarian light cavalry, but their equipment and methods. Marchant's reforms not only rewrote the British Army manuals on swordsmanship, but...
Hussars Light Dragoons
King's German Legion Prussian Cavalry
Austrian 1768 Light Cavalry (Hussar) Saber.
....working with the Birmingham Cutler Osborne he also redesigned the British light and heavy cavalry swords. These were inspired by (and based upon) Austrian models. The two resulting swords were both adopted and became famous: the 1796 Heavy Cavalry pallasch (or broadsword), so called because it is a straight-bladed thrusting weapon. And also the (more famous) 1796 Light Cavalry Saber (the subject of this post). The heavy cavalry saber was pretty much an exact duplicate of the heavy cavalry sword wielded by the Austrian cuirassiers. The light cavalry saber, was derivative of the Austrian model, but was in fact redesigned--and became one of the most successful swords in history.
King's German Legion Prussian Cavalry
In the British Army, the 1796 Light Cavalry Saber was issued to the Hussars, Light Dragoons, and the regiments of the King's German Legion. It would be the sword that was carried throughout the Napoleonic wars. The gunners of the Royal Horse Artillery also carried the 1796 Light Cavalry Saber. In addition, the post-1813 Prussian cavalry (minus the cuirassiers) were armed with the 1796 Light Cavalry Saber--produced and exported to them from Britain (see the Sword Lore: 1811 Blucher Cavalry Saber post for more).
THE SWORD
A sword is discussed in terms of its parts, the two major ones being the blade and the hilt. Each of these has its own sub components and variants. We'll follow this model to discuss the points of interest of this sword (all images are of the sword in my collection).
THE HILT
Like many light cavalry sabers of its era, the 1796 has a single-barred "stirrup" guard (the part that protects the hand), so-called because in shape it resembles a stirrup. However, the very distinctive modification that the 1796 brought to this feature was the bulge towards the rear (sometimes called a "D" shaped modification). Nobody knows exactly why this was done; conjecture is that it would allow for an alternate grip, one where the last two or three fingers would be on the rear part of the guard, below the pommel.
Other signature features of the 1796 are the two shield shaped langets (these seat the sword in the scabbard)--there are some versions with rectangular langets, but the shield shape is the most common. Another is the continuous backstrap that runs over the handle, ending in a curve at the back (the pommel), with a reinforcing "ear" about 2/3 of the way forward. The purpose of this ear is to reinforce and secure the blade to the hilt. It has a rivet that that runs through the handle and the tang, an extension of the blade that runs under the handle that ends in the "peen" under the pommel.
There is a ferrule between the handle and the guard, and a bar that extends above the handle (the quillon) ending in a roll.--features common to the 1796 but not particularly unique for light cavalry sabers of the era.
THE BLADE
This is where things really get interesting...
The 1796 was designed as a cutting/slashing weapon, consistent with the doctrines of the era: light cavalry delivered slashes and cuts while heavy cavalry delivered thrusts. The 1796 has a long cutting edge ending in a "hatchet point"--meaning that the tip is not symmetrical and does not end in a point. As such, it is not very effective at delivering a thrust. A spear pointed blade, on the other hand, is more familiar (to the contemporary eye) and has a symmetrical point; an example of a spear-pointed, straight bladed heavy cavalry pallasch-type sword is on the right for comparison. The light cavalry were more "swordsmen" in this way, sometimes circling in single combat in order to get in position deliver slashes rather than charging straight ahead. Of course, when catching infantry in the open, they were as devastating delivering cuts as heavy cavalry were thrusts (it is a myth that only heavy cavalry engaged in "battle" and light cavalry only in "skirmishing" but I digress). But now, on to the really fascinating feature of the blade and 1796 Lt Cav Saber...
The profile taper is a measure of the change in the width of the blade from hilt to point, affecting its outline and handling. In most swords, the profile taper gets smaller as it goes--in other words, when we think of swords, we think of the blades being wider at the handle and thinner at the point. However, the 1796 Lt Cav Saber is the opposite: it gets broader.
The distal taper is a measure of the thickness of the blade as it extends from the hilt to the point (the cross section of the blade when looking top down). The 1796 blade is quite sturdy at the hilt, but thins to just barely over 1mm for the last 1/4 of its length (slimming from 3mm to 1+mm along its last 1/3). As an aside, this is where reproductions (on almost all swords) go wrong: they usually have the right profile taper but they don't reproduce the distal taper. And the craftsmanship and effort that went into producing these weapons becomes obvious when you handle them: these characteristics are the product of very deliberate design choices intended to produce specific outcomes. Most reproductions are good for appearance, but when it comes to handling, they don't replicate these and are not even close.
Deadly Slashing Weapon
The combination of the long, shallow fuller, the widening profile taper, and the characteristics of the distal taper make for a cleaver-like slashing weapon, with a deadly, sharpened edge broader at the tip than the base. Troopers were taught to cut with the last 1/3 of the blade and block with the first 2/3. There was also a sharpened "false edge" along the last 1/3 of the top of the blade. Anecdotes tell of limbs being severed by single blows from these swords. The downside was that the most effective blows had to be square on to the target for these effects. The more the blade was turned, the less effective the blow. The combination of these features (the long shallow fuller and the distal taper) also make the 1796 Lt Cavalry saber the most agile and balanced sword in my collection.
AUTHENTICATING THE SWORD
Having discussed the sword's characteristics, we now move on to a discussion of what we can tell about this specific sword: how can we authenticate it? The first steps involve checking its characteristics: whether the parts--the hilt and blade-- conform to what is known about the pattern. In the case of this particular sword, I can say with certainty that these are consistent with the historical record in terms of shape, size, and other tenets. The materials and their condition also seem to be consistent with its age (but those can be faked--in this case, my sense is that they are not).
Ordnance Mark: The first is an ordnance mark: a crown over a number stamped on the base of the blade near the hilt. This sword has the correct stamp, in the correct form, in the correct location (the number 11 under a crown). This indicates that the sword was inspected and accepted into the Army inventory: in other words, a service sword. The number, at the time, was probably associated with a particular inspector, but has no weight in terms of authenticating a weapon by itself.
Manufacturer: there were multiple contractors who provided 1796 light cavalry sabers to the British Army--and this accounts for some variation in the swords. Each conformed to a specific "pattern" but might vary within the specifications (the example of the rectangular langets, for instance, as opposed to shield shaped). The manufacturer's stamp should be on the spine of the blade near the hilt: and this sword has a manufacturer's stamp in the correct place: "ThosCraven".
What Else Can we Determine?
So far, so good. We have both kinds of mark on this sword, and both are "right" in terms of form and placement. Combine these with the physical characteristics of the sword and we can feel pretty confident that this sword is "right." We can glean a bit more information based on the manufacturer:
Thomas Craven was a sword maker in Birmingham, and the firm was in operation from 1797 to 1820. However, from 1803 through 1818, there was a partnership, and according the firm was known as "Cooper and Craven." Given that the stamp on this sword is only for the firm "Thos Craven" we can surmise that it must have been produced pre or post "Cooper and Craven." Given that the end of the Napoleonic Wars was three years earlier, with a large stockpile of weapons already on hand, it is less likely that it would have been produced to fulfill a government contract in 1818 (or later), particularly given that it was then on the threshold of being replaced. It is more likely, therefore, that this sword dates to between 1799 and 1803.
SERVICE LIFE AND LEGACY
The 1822 Light Cavalry Saber
I mentioned earlier in this post that the post-1813 Prussian Army was equipped with the British 1796 Light Cavalry Saber. This made such an impression on them that they designed their own version, the 1811 "Blucher" that they then manufactured on their own and was the standard weapon of the Prussian cavalry until it was replaced by the Prussian 1852 Cavalry Saber. You can follow the links for more on each of these swords.
US 1812 Starr Cavalry Saber
I think there is no doubt that the US cavalry saber of this timeframe (above) owes much to the British 1796 as well.
Excelsior!
