Cutlass - History and Use

History and Use

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 due to the fact that 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.

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 yatagan, the only exception being at the frontier posts.

Owing to its versatility, the cutlass was as often an agricultural implement and tool as it was as a weapon (cf. machete, to which the same comment applies), being used commonly in rain forest and sugarcane areas, such as the Caribbean and Central America. 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 (facon, falcon) from the seax. In their most simplified form they are held to have become the machete of the Caribbean.

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.

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 16th February 1940 during the boarding action known as the Altmark Incident.

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 division at 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.