Practical Bayonet-Fighting with Service Rifle and Bayonet.

£150 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

“It is important that every man should be as efficient in bayonet-fighting as in musketry. Owing to the use of machine-guns the soldier’s rifle is growing of less value, and the bayonet is rapidly becoming his chief weapon.” [From the author’s Preface] “It is curious that the bayonet remained so central to military training despite awareness that modern technologies and rapid-fire rifles had greatly limited its usefulness… combat experience showed that bayonet attacks were seldom “pressed home” because machine-guns, artillery and wire prevented the troops reaching their foe or because the enemy surrendered long before the bayonet stage of the battle plan could be reached… [But] Bayonets developed the “lust for blood”. Even astute observers like Fuller, who knew only too well that bayonets had been of little use in previous conflicts, accepted the need to train men with the bayonet on the grounds that it was the weapon which enabled infantrymen to kill.” [Bourke An Intimate History of Killing pp.89-92] Fairly uncommon “unofficial” manual. OCLC locates only two copies, New York Public Library and US Army Military History Institution.

• Year: 1915

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