Sabre

Sabre (pronounced sey-ber)

(1) A stout single-edged cavalry sword, having a curved blade.

(2) A sword used in fencing, having a narrow V-shaped blade, a semicircular guard, and a slightly curved hand.

(3) In historic military slang, a cavalry soldier.

(4) To injure or kill with a sabre.

1670s: From the French sabre (heavy, curved sword), an alteration of sable (dating from the 1630s), from the 1630s German dialectal Sabel & Säbel, from the Middle High German sebel, probably from the perhaps from the fourteenth century Hungarian (Magyar) szabla (rendered laser as száblya) (saber, literally "tool to cut with" from szabni (to cut) and it’s thought the spread of the Hungarian word to neighboring languages occurred during the Ottoman wars in Europe of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.  The origin of the Hungarian word is mysterious.  It was long thought most likely from the South Slavic (the Serbo-Croatian сабља or the Common Slavic sablja) which would mean the ultimate source is Turkic but more recent scholarship suggests it may ultimately be from the Tungusic, via the Kipchak Turkic selebe, with later metathesis (the letters transposing l-b to b-l) and apocope changed to seble, which would have changed its vocalization in Hungarian to the recorded sabla (perhaps under the influence of the Hungarian word szab- (to crop; cut (into shape).  It was cognate with the Danish sabel, the Russian са́бля (sáblja) and the Serbo-Croatian сабља.  The Balto-Slavic words (Russian sablya, Polish and Lithuanian šoblė) may have come via German, but the Italian sciabla is said to have been derived directly from Hungarian.  The US spelling since the late nineteenth century was saber but sabre is also often used by those who prefer the traditional spellings for archaic nouns (eg theatre is in learned use sometimes used to distinguish live high-culture performances from popular forms).  Sabre is a noun and verb, the present participle is sabring and the past participle sabred.  The noun plural is sabres.

Sabrage is the opening of a bottle, traditionally champagne, by striking with a sabre, the annulus (the donut-shape ring of glass between the neck and cork) of the bottle, held at an angle of about 30^o, slicing off the bottle's neck.  The trick is said to be to ensure the bottle is as cold as possible and the practice is claimed to be safe, any shards of glass being propelled away under pressure. For those for whom a sabre might not conveniently fall to hand, another heavy-blade can be used, even a meat-cleaver.  The sabre-tooth tiger, dating from 1849, is but one of a species of saber toothed cats from the genus Smilodon, noted for the pair of elongated teeth in the upper jaw although “sabre-tooth tiger” is often incorrectly used to describe all of the type, correctly known as saber-tooth cats and them a subset of a number of extinct groups of predatory therapsids with the famous teeth.  Saber-toothed mammals roamed the planet for over forty-million years until driven to extinction, presumably by modern humans, towards the end last period of glacial expansion during the ice age, an epoch which, by one definition, remains on-going.

Although some sources maintain “saber-rattling” (ostentatious or threatening display of military power; implied threat of imminent military attack; militarism) is derived from certain interactions between civilian government and the military in South American in 1924, the phrase had been in the English newspapers as early as 1879, spreading across the Atlantic early in the next century.  However, even before “saber-rattling” emerged as such an enticingly belligerent semantic mélange, the elements were often in close proximity usually as “the rattling of sabres”, used to describe the clatter a sabre in its scabbard is wont to make as its wearer proceeds on foot or horseback.  The use dates from a time when in many a European city a sword-carrying soldier was not an uncommon sight and bother phrases are used to describe bellicose posturing but only “sabre rattling” is exclusive in this sense.  It’s the sound which matters rather than the particular bladed weapon; the phrase “mere sword rattling” is attested in a US publication in 1882 and, strictly speaking, the use of naval forces in a threatening manner should presumably be “cutlass rattling” but that never caught on.  The figurative use could presumably exist in just about any dispute but seems most documented when threatening legal proceedings, often in cases of alleged defamation.

The strong association of sabre rattling with events in Chile in 1924 has led some to suppose the phrase dates from this time and place; that’s not so but what happened in Santiago was one of the few occasions when the sabers were literally rattled.  It was a time of heightened political conflict between the government and one of the few laws which seemed likely to proceed was a pay-rise for the politicians.  This wasn’t received well by most of the population, including the army officers who had long be denied any increase in their salaries.  Accordingly, several dozen officers, mostly subalterns, attended the congressional session at which the politician’s pay was listed for discussion, sitting in the public gallery.  Among the politicians, their presence caused some disquiet and the president of the chamber, noting the air of quiet intimidation, ordered the public gallery cleared, as the discussion was to be secret.  As the officers departed, they rattled the scabbards (chapes) against the floor, interpreted as a threat of military intervention.  The fears were not unfounded and by September that year, a military Junta had been established to rule the country and not until 1932 would it relinquish power to a civilian government.

Mr Putin.

As a set-piece of sabre-rattling, the Kremlin’s deployment of around eight army divisions to the Ukraine border and six amphibious ships with a supporting flotilla to the Black Sea, is the loudest heard since the end of the Cold War yet it has the curiously nineteenth century feel of those old stand-offs between two colonial powers, squabbling over some patch of desert somewhere, building seemingly towards a war which never quite happened.  Perhaps the true state of tension was revealed by a statement a German military spokesperson: “We are ready to go”, the Luftwaffe remarked of their deployment of three Eurofighter aircraft.

Still, few know Mr Putin’s (Vladimir Putin, b 1952; leader of Russia as president or prime-minister since 1999) thoughts on how the crisis should be encouraged to unfold although the Western political establishment is making sure the possibilities are spelled out.  The US president has his motives for doing this as does the British prime-minister and, to be fair, there is some overlap and imaginative suggestions have included the trick the Nazis in 1939 used to trigger Fall Weiss (plan white), the invasion of Poland, Germany staging a fake “attack” by the Poles, complete with German “victims”, the corpses conveniently available from the nearby concentration camps.  Quite whether there are many well-informed politicians who actually believe Russian armored divisions will be unleashed across the Ukrainian border isn’t clear but the alacrity with which many have been beating a path to Mr Putin’s door (or screen), certainly suggests they've reacted well to a growing crisis, the Russian president, in a nice touch, conducting some of the meetings in Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Palace, the last neoclassical Imperial pile built by the Tsars.  Thought pragmatic rather than romantic, conventional wisdom would suggest Mr Putin will be not much be attracted to a massed invasion, even one with a bit of pretext, but the rebel regions in the east are attractive building blocks for the construction of a land bridge to the already annexed Crimean peninsular and from there, it's not that far to Odesa and the tantalizing prospect of sealing off Ukraine from the Black Sea, a more with critical economic and strategic implications.  Political recognition would be a handy prelude and one likely to provoke only a manageable reaction, the West probably as enthusiastic about sanctions which might be self-harming as they were in 1935 when League of Nations tried to do something about Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and it may be when things settle down a bit and the sabre rattling subsides, the Kremlin's strategy will remain the same but the tactical emphasis will switch.  As thinkers of such diverse subtlety as the wickedly clever Talleyrand (Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1754–1838; French diplomat whose career lasted from Louis XVI to Louis-Philippe) and the slow-witted Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) understood, between some states there's always a war going on; sometimes with guns and bombs, sometimes by other means and there are more "other means" than once there were.  Still the concerns about an invasion (which presumably would be styled a "state of armed conflict" rather than a "war") are not unfounded and the recent success of the Russian military in the Crimea and Belarus are probably as encouraging as the subdued Western reaction to these adventures.  How "prompt, resolute and effective" would be the response to invasion by the Ukrainians is the subject of speculation in many capitals, the professional military opinion seemingly that if the pattern of battle is an old-style contest of artillery and armor (Battle of Kursk) then the advantage will lie with the attacker but if fought street by street (Battle of Stalingrad), with the defenders.  

Replica of 1796 British light cavalry saber with steel scabbard.

The saber gained fame as a cavalry sword, having a slightly curved blade with a sharp edge, ideal for slashing from horseback.  They were first employed in the early sixteenth century by the hussars, a crack cavalry formation from Hungary and so obvious was their efficiency in the charge or the melee they quickly were adopted by armies throughout Europe.  Union and Confederate cavalries carried sabers during the US Civil War (1861-1865) although, with the advent of heavy artillery and rapid-fire weapons (including the limited use of the 600 rounds per minute (rpm) Gatling gun, while still deadly, they were no longer often a decisive battlefield weapon.  The glamour however lingered and sabres remain part of many full-dress military uniforms worn on ceremonial occasions.

North American F-86 Sabre.

Built between 1948-1957, the North American F-86 Sabre was the first US, swept-wing transonic jet fighter aircraft.  A revision of a wartime jet-fighter programme and much influenced by the German air-frames and technical material which fell into US hands at the end of World War II, the Sabre was first used in combat after being rushed to the Far East to counter the threat posed by the sudden appearance of Soviet-built MiG-15s (NATO reporting name: Fagot) in the skies.  The Sabre was outstanding success in the Korean War (1950-1953), credited with nearly eight-hundred confirmed kills for little more than a hundred losses and the pedigree attracted the interest of many militaries, the Sabre serving in more than two dozen air-forces, the last aircraft not retired from front-line service until 1997.  Capable beyond its original specification (it could attain supersonic speed in a shallow dive), it was upgraded throughout its production with modern radar and other avionics and there was even a naval version called the FJ-3M Fury, optimized for carrier operations.  One footnote the Sabre contributed to feminist history came in 18 May 1953 when Jacqueline Cochran (1906-1980) became the first woman to break the sound barrier, accomplished in a Canadair F-86E.  The combined Sabre and Fury production numbered nearly ten-thousand, including 112 built under licence by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation in Australia.  It was replaced by the F-100D Super Sabre.

Napier Sabre H-24.

The Napier Sabre was a H-24 cylinder, liquid-cooled, aero engine, designed by the British manufacturer Napier before, during and after World War II.  Although there were many teething problems, later versions evolved to become one of the most powerful piston aero-engines, rated at up to 2,400 horsepower (1,800 kW) while prototypes with advanced supercharger designs yielded in excess of 3,500 horsepower (2,600 kW).  The H-24 configuration (essentially two flat-12s one atop the other and geared together) was chosen because it offered the chance to increase the cylinder count without the excessive length a V-16 or V-24 would entail and, combined with the combination of a short stroke and big bore, permitted high engine speeds, thereby yielding more power without the need greatly to increase displacement and this was vindicated in early testing, the Napier Sabre in 1938 generating 2,400 horsepower (1,800 kW) with a 2,238 cubic inch (37 litre) capacity whereas the early Rolls-Royce Merlin produced just over 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) from a 1,647 cubic inch (27 litre) displacement.

1945 Hawker Tempest powered by Napier Sabre H-24.

Problems however soon emerged, related mostly to quality control in the hurried development and manufacturing processes of wartime and inadequacies in the metallurgy used in the complex cylinder liners required by the sleeve valves.  Once these issues were solved, the Napier Sabre proved an outstanding power-plant, powering the Typhoon, the definitive British ground-attack fighter of the war.  Development continued even after the problems had been solved with the intention of using a redesigned supercharged to produce an engine which could power a high-altitude interceptor but the days of the big piston aero-engined fighters was drawing to a close as the jet age dawned.  Physics also intervened, whatever power a piston engine could generate, the need to use a spinning propeller for propulsion was a limiting factor in performance; above a certain speed, a propeller is simply torn off.