Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1915 — ORIGIN OF BAYONET [ARTICLE]

ORIGIN OF BAYONET

Invention of Prized Weapon of France Is Uncertain. Women of Bayonne Said to Have Contrived Diminutive Spear for Use on the Ramparts—May Be Basque Invention. Paris, France.—A Paris newspaper publishes the following: “The bayonet continue*. to be preeminently the French weapon of war. In deeds of pure glory it goes side by side with the *76. Like the latter, it inspires our soldiers with confidence. Never has any troop, of any force, experience or valor, resisted our infantry charging with the bayonet “And yet no one knows to. whom we are indebted for this irresistible weapon. One would like to venerate the man who has placed this jewel of war in the hands of the French soldier. “The bayonet, according to some historians whose thesis Littre made popular by reproducing it in his dictionary, is' of Spanish importation. It crossed the Pyrenees to come and immortalize itself in France, as did the Cid. It is true that in the Spanish vocabulary there is the ‘bayoneta,’ meaning ‘small scabbard.’ What then? “There is more likelihood of truth in the narrative which mentions Bayonne as the home town of the bayonet. A tale from the South of France gives an account of its birth which, if not rigorously true, is very pretty. . "It was, .so the story goes, during the siege sustained by Bayonne in 1523 against the allied kings of England and Aragon that the women of this city, courageously taking it upon themselves to defend its ramparts, invented the bayonet. “Other historians assert that the Basques invented the bayonet in circumstances not less heroic. They had been'fighting against the Spanish for hours. Their ammunition was exhausted, while their courage still held out To conquer in spite of this they affixed their knives in the ends of their guns, and, thus armed, hurled themselves on the enemy, who fled in terror. “General Marion used the bayonet in 1641 and Gassendi in 1671. “To relate the heroic charges in which our soldiers have immortalized the bayonet would be to mention almost all the battles in which the French army fought It was Chevert who, in reply to a soldier who complained of being short of powder, said: What does it matter? Haven’t we the bayonet?’ It was Dupont, in 1801, who overthrew 45,000 Austrians with 14,000 men at the mill of Volta. “In 1915, our infantrymen, perpetuating the glory worf by their elden continue to give the bayonet their con fidence and their affection.”