Modern Daggers (1815 To Present)
Daggers achieved public notoriety in the 20th century as ornamental uniform regalia during the Fascist dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. The resurgence of these dress daggers and accoutrements in post-World War I Germany gave a much needed boost to the flagging fortunes of the metalworking center Solingen. Dress daggers were used by several other countries as well, including Japan but never to the same extent as those worn by the Military and Political bodies of the Third Reich or Fascist Italy. As combat equipment they were carried by many infantry and commando forces during the Second World War. British Commando and other elite units were issued an especially slender dagger, the Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife, developed by William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes from real-life close-combat experiences gained while serving on the Shanghai Municipal Police Force. The F-S dagger proved very popular with the commandos, who used it primarily for sentry elimination. Some units of the U.S. Marine Corps Raiders in the Pacific were issued a similar fighting dagger, the Marine Raider Stiletto., though the design proved less than successful when used in the type of knife combat encountered in the Pacific theater.
Aside from military forces, most daggers are no longer carried openly, but concealed in clothing. One of the more popular forms of the concealable dagger is the boot knife. The boot knife is nothing more than a shortened dagger that is compact enough to be worn on the lower leg, usually by means of a sheath clipped or strapped to a boot or other footwear.
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Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or daggers:
“It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.”
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“It is a very true and expressive phrase, “He looked daggers at me,” for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers must have been a glance of the eye.... It is wonderful how we get about the streets without being wounded by these delicate and glancing weapons, a man can so nimbly whip out his rapier, or without being noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet it is rare that one gets seriously looked at.”
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