A cutlass is a short, broad sabre or slashing sword, with a straight or
slightly curved blade sharpened on the cutting edge, and a hilt often featuring
a solid cupped or basket-shaped guard. It was a common naval weapon.
Etymology The word cutlass developed from a
17th-century English variation of coutelas, a 16th-century French word for
a machete-like blade. The French word is itself a corruption of the Italian
coltellaccio, or "large knife", a short, broad-bladed sabre popular in Italy
during the 16th century The word comes from coltello, "knife", derived
ultimately from Latin cultellus meaning "small knife."
In the English-speaking Caribbean, the term "cutlass" is used as a word for
machete. History and use
= Origin = The cutlass is a 17th-century descendent
of the edged short sword exemplified by the medieval falchion.
Woodsmen and soldiers in the 17th and 18th centuries used a similar short and
broad backsword called a hanger, or in German a messer, meaning "knife". Often
occurring with the full tang more typical of knives than swords in Europe,
which is commonly believed to reflect a legal claim to nonweapon status, these
blades may ultimately derive through the falchion from the seax.
In times of peace the Ottoman Empire supplied no arms, and the Janissaries on
service in the capital of Constantinople were armed only with clubs; they were
forbidden to carry any arms save a cutlass, known as a yatagan.
= History = Although also used on land, the cutlass
is best known as the sailor's weapon of choice. A naval side-arm, its popularity
was likely because it was not only robust enough to hack through heavy
ropes, canvas, and wood, but short enough to use in relatively close
quarters, such as during boarding actions, in the rigging, or below decks.
Another advantage to the cutlass was its simplicity of use. Employing it
effectively required less training than that required to master a rapier or
small sword, and it was more effective as a close-combat weapon than a
full-sized sword would be on a cramped ship.
Cutlasses are famous for being used by pirates, although there is no reason to
believe that Caribbean buccaneers invented them, as has sometimes been
claimed. However, the subsequent use of cutlasses by pirates is well documented
in contemporary sources, notably by the pirate crews of William Fly, William
Kidd, and Stede Bonnet. French historian Alexandre Exquemelin reports the
buccaneer Francois l'Ollonais using a cutlass as early as 1667. Pirates used
these weapons for intimidation as much as for combat, often needing no more
than to grip their hilts to induce a crew to surrender, or beating captives
with the flat of the blade to force their compliance or responsiveness to
interrogation. Owing to its versatility, the cutlass
was as often an agricultural implement and tool as it was as a weapon, being
used commonly in rain forest and sugarcane areas, such as the Caribbean
and Central America. In their most simplified form they are held to have
become the machete of the Caribbean. = Modern History =
In 1936 the British Royal Navy announced that from then on cutlasses would be
carried only for ceremonial duties and not used in landing parties. However the
last recorded use of cutlasses by the Royal Navy was on 16 February 1940
during the boarding action known as the Altmark Incident. Cutlasses continue to
be worn in the Royal Navy by a Chief Petty Officer escorting the White Ensign
and by Senior or Leading Ratings in an escort at a court martial.
The cutlass remained an official weapon in United States Navy stores until 1949,
though seldom used in training after the early 1930s. The last new model of
cutlass adopted by the U.S. Navy was the Model 1917; although cutlasses made
during World War II were called the Model 1941, they were only a slightly
modified variant of the Model 1917. A United States Marine Corps engineer NCO
is reported to have killed an enemy with a Model 1941 cutlass at Incheon during
the Korean War. A cutlass is still carried by the recruit designated as the
Recruit Chief Petty Officer for each training company unit of recruits while
at the US Navy Recruit Training Command. In a message released March 31, 2010,
the US Navy approved optional wear of a ceremonial cutlass as part of the Chief
Petty Officer dress uniform, pending final design approval. That approval
came in January 2011, and the cutlass was made available for ceremonial wear
by Chief Petty Officers in August of that year.
See also Cutlass bayonet
Elgin pistol Chinese Butterfly sword
Sources and references This article incorporates text from a
publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. Encyclopædia
Britannica. Cambridge University Press. References