Men of Iron
by J. Christoph Amberger
The International Hoplology Society defines a combative system as  a body of organized,
codified, repeatable movement patterns, techniques, behavior, and attitudes, the primary
intended function and planful design of which is to be used in combative situations.
In addition to the objective and descriptive approach, however, I believe that the internal
context of any combat scenario ought to be approached from the most basic and yet,
most neglected element: the individuals involved.
The protagonists in any fighting scenario are living, breathing human beings whose actions
more often than not depend less on proprioreceptive conditioning, their mastery of motoric
and strategic skills, than on the subjective psychological effect of the situation.
While the outsider may focus mainly on the weapons and biomechanical responses exhibited,
combat activity itself is first and foremost a combat of minds and wills.
The role of angst in single combat.
Combat situations are high stress scenarios. The level of stress is determined
by the subjective evaluation of the opponent and the subjective perception of risk to one s
own welfare and bodily integrity.
According to the working definition brought forward by John Keegan in his remarkable
book The Face of Battle, single combat is characterized as hand-to-hand fighting
of individuals:
Single combat demands, by definition, equality of risk and foreknowledge
of the consequences. It also appears to presuppose consent by both parties
(it was in that chivalry saw its glory.)
A crucial element of single combat is mutual consent. This need not mean voluntary
consent. Entering a combative situation as an active participant implies that other options -
such as running away, deserting, or passively submitting to violence - have been rejected
in favor of active defense or counter-attack. Involuntary consent can be coerced by discipline,
threat of court martial, even anticipated ostracism.
But before consent can be given to join in edged-weapons combat, it is necessary
to examine the element of individual fear. After all, this most formidable hurdle to actually
entering into serious single combat first needs to be overcome to make consensual
engagement in battle possible at all.
Garden of fear
The French 19th-century military theorist Ardant du Picq stated that most soldiers fight out
of fear of the consequences of not fighting - either punishment, even death, meted out
by a firing squad - and then of fear of not fighting well (i.e., not surviving the fight).
A subtle but even more powerful coercion often emanates from the fear of being
disregarded by one s fellow fighters, endangering one s  reputation as a man among other
men. In civilian life, peer pressure could be exerted by the nemesis social opinion  as would
be the case for a declined challenge or breach of etiquette during an affair of honor.
This phenomenon is already documented in Homer s Iliad where  the driving force is called
honor, i.e., a preoccupation with the hero s status in the eyes of other people:
Possessions and property are an outward sign of  honor ; (...) A hero will not
court death indeed it in no way increases his honor to be killed. He will not fight
for his country, nor for his leader; but he will die rather than lose face, So he will
fight bravely in the front rank because the eyes of the others are upon him.
(The Greeks used the term timé to describe this complex interaction between self-esteem
and peer acceptance.)
Considering that strong elements of fear are present in most serious armed conflicts, consent
implies at least an intuitive if not rational weighing of alternatives, a conscious decision to set
aside fear and choose fight over all other options including that of letting yourself be killed
without making an attempt at defense.
Paralysis of fright
Any fight scenario that involves the actual possibility (if not probability) of injury or death
subjects the fighters to a veritable cocktail of competing, barely containable emotions.
These include panic, extreme anticipation, passive and active aggression. For the sake
of argument, I will refer to this complex nightmare as  personal fear.
The degree of fear encountered by an individual fighter may vary according to the level
of intuitive expectation and possible severity of injury. The exaggerated focus
on the opponent and the opponent s weapon tends to trigger an equally distorted perception
of subjective risk. Ritualized encounters, such as ordeal, duel, or Mensur, maintain
and sublimize high fear and stress levels over prolonged periods, whereas the emotion
triggered by ambush and unexpected ( self-defense ) encounters is more immediate.
In combat with edged weapons, fear s paralyzing force can be documented from historic
sources. It quickly becomes obvious that no matter how high the level of skill and mastery
in play with blunt weapons, most of the fighter s conditioned responses get overlaid
by natural, barely controllable reflexes as soon as the mind of the combatant focuses
on the potential destructiveness represented by the opponent s sharp weapon. Friedrich
von Schiller described this mental state in his Jungfrau von Orleans:  And never erring
in the shaking hand, the sword rules itself as if it were a living spirit.
Mind over matter
An example that vividly illustrates this can be found in Aldo Nadi s account of his duel
as published in American Fencing.
A photograph taken during the duel shows Nadi attacking the sword arm of his opponent
Adolfo Contronei. What is most interesting, however, is the fact that Nadi s left foot is off
the ground not only inches but well over a foot high! One would expect to see this
movement in raw beginners who are practicing their first lunges with the foil.
But in a champion of the stature and level of mastership achieved by Nadi, this basic blunder
would be difficult to explain unless the element of fear is taken into consideration.
Nadi s student Weldon Vlasak wrote in a letter to the editor:
As a former student of Nadi, it is very difficult for me to believe what I saw
in these photographs. Nadi was always the picture of perfection. He never raised
his left foot as shown in the first picture. A flat left foot is one of the first things
that he taught. Further his right foot is askew in both photos - another blunder.
Further, his right arm and hand are not characteristic. This hand was held high,
fingers together, straight, and pointed towards his head.
Nadi s near perfect conditioning could have been all but destroyed by the pervasive element
of visceral fear and a sky-high level of adrenaline. The photographs taken during his duel
illustrate that  unnatural alertness and strong concentration easily cause a cramping
of the muscles. Martincic, in his wonderful analysis of Kevey s system, repeatedly points out
that  fear makes slow and generates defensiveness.
(These observations, by the way, are at the core of the theory of proprioreflexive
conditioning as embraced by most modern sports fencing training programs.)
Nadi is fully aware of what went on during the encounter with Contronei. Without envy
or embarrassment, he concedes that fencing and using swords in a duel with the actual danger
of injury or death being present are fundamentally different. He comments on the alienation
between real combat and the abstract art of fencing:
In a duel, the fencer is compelled to execute an ultra-careful form of fencing,
which, indeed, is an almost unworthy expression of the science he knows.
No matter how courageous and great, the all-out movements with which he nearly
always scores in a bout would be unthinkable in a duel, because it s far too risky.
More than he is willing to admit in his memoirs, the swashbuckling Italian champion has
been reduced to the same situation as the average junior member of a German dueling
fraternity. An off-hand comment later on sums up the dominating sentiment of the duelist
in combat:  Young man, you must never be touched. Otherwise, the blood now coming out
of your arm may instead be spurting from your chest.
Where Angelo feared to tread
Nadi, you might argue, at the time of his duel is a young, Italian hothead - but a product
of the 20th century: The Olympic sports fencer par excellence. But the duel with sharp dueling
swords is already an anachronism.
How would an 18th-century master have regarded the usefulness of Olympic or Olympian
expertise in antagonistic combat?
None less than Henry Angelo found himself running as fast as his legs could carry him
to keep two of his students from killing each other in a duel with small swords:
Here was a commencement, far different to those methods they had previously
practiced before me in the Haymarket, as caution and skills are necessary when
opposed to the point of a sword. It was not now a button covered with leather 
a lesson to the many I have seen violently rushing on, who, after repeated efforts,
have succeeded in giving a hit. This is not fencing. It is not scientific
in the school, and is dangerous in the field. As I mean soon to write my opinions
of what I have experienced during the space of fifty years, and of the French
school, where the science is practiced more for self-defense than
as an accomplishment; whereas here [ie., in England] it is more for exercise,
for the improvement of the carriage, and the promotion of health, so well
recommended by Sir John Sinclair.
Angelo has watched enough students of his - soldiers, officers, gentlemen- go to their deaths
wielding a sword for self-defense in the dark streets of Paris and London, or on muddy, misty
dueling grounds to know why he doesn t want the two men go at it in earnest. He also
is businessman enough to realize that the death of either duelist might pose a major problem
to his livelihood.
Preparing to die
Would-be duelists had at least an inkling of what psychological pressures they would
be facing. After all, in Central Europe, the First Blood principle was held in low esteem -
which meant a debilitating injury was required to terminate the duel. And for every fencing
master preparing a prospective duelist for the most frightening experience of his life,
there was at least one approach on how to beef up the psyche of the fighter.
Still, the actual danger triggering the fear was hard to re-create. De Beaumont observed:
An épeé bout cannot, however, be made exactly to resemble a duel, because the
wearing of protective clothing and a mask destroys most of the psychological
effect of naked steel. When the writer was a member of the Salle Mangiarotti
in the 1920s, training someone for a duel was a common occurrence. The method
used was to fence stripped to the waist, without masks and with especially long
points d arret. No one who has had this experience will retain the illusion that
normal épeé fencing with masks and jackets can be made to resemble a duel.
The duel proper died with a whimper after World War I. A few paunchy Frenchmen took
a shot at reviving it in the fifties, without being able to capture as much as a sparkle of its
dashing history. In the West, the German Mensur remains as one of the last living traditions
of antagonistic swordplay - and as such the only source to gage the psychological effects
of pre-combat and combat fear. The following passage describes the phases of self-assertion,
doubt, fear, and surprise that are integral parts of the Mensur experience, as valid today
as they were a century ago:
The Fuchs means to show himself a plucky fellow in the presence of his patron
Mossy Head. He can scarcely await the time of his first encounter. Secretly
glowing with heroic purpose, he hastens to the field of honor; sees there his
antagonist surrounded by a crowd of sympathizers; among the philistines who
have crowded in, he recognizes his own over-curious landlord.
The surgeon unpacks his apparatus, with dignified and earnest air, although,
in fact, this surgeon is a practical joker and takes out ten times as many
instruments as necessary. The Fuchs is taken aback, begins to feel uncomfortable,
in spite of himself loses some of his previous confidence. A tremor runs trough
his limbs. The Mossy Head, a connoisseur in Foxes, marks this in his protégé
and reproves him with a quieting look. The Fuchs recognizes this, makes
a hypocritical show of pulling himself together, but for all that cannot prevent
a slight weakness in the knees. At last the stiff leg bandage, perhaps sticky with
blood, is put on; his arm is carefully wrapped like a child in swathing clothes;
a heavy thick pauking cravat is tied around his neck, and the surgeon affects great
solicitude.
Of course, when the command  Los! is given, he has forgotten all the points
and advice of his patron, and just hacks away blindly. What his opponent
is doing whether he guards or attacks he does not know. What he himself
is doing, he knows just as little, until there is a cry of  Halt! and the seconds
interpose. Whether he or his antagonist is hurt, he has no idea. In fact, while this
thing was going on, he did not know if it was day or night, for the blood which
streamed over his eyes. While the surgeon is examining his head, he asks,
with astonishment:  Am I wounded? The surgeon replies.  And how!
Now, for the first time, he begins to recover from his excitement.
(The dueling students used this state of mind to play practical jokes on their pledges.
On occasion, two Foxes would be squared off against each other in a sham match. The typical
high level of stress, fear, and excitement made the poor guys oblivious to the fact that they
had been armed with blunt blades. Between rounds, an attendant would squeeze out a sponge
with water over their heads - while seconds and doctors made serious faces as they gingerly
examined their heads. Finally, a bucket with cold water would be emptied over the confused
fighters in a subtle display of wit and amicable humanitarian concern...)
Great expectations
A certain level of individual fear - be it only the heightened adrenaline level experienced
before a sports fencing tournament - is present in all encounters with edged weapons that are
fought with intended results (as opposed to scenarios intended to produce an intended effect,
such as in theatric fencing).
Practice bouting and proprioreceptive conditioning serves to control some, in certain cases
most, of the subjective fear that is being experienced.
Primal emotion
If you have never faced a hostile opponent s sharp blade, you will tend to underrate
the effects and influence of personal fear on individual skill level and coordination.
The difference between facing a foil, saber, or blunt practice Schläger and seeing yourself
face to face with a live blade is about as dramatic as encountering a black bear safely behind
the moat and steel bars of a zoo - and running into the same animal in the rain and fog
of a Shenandoah Valley night.
Much like the grunting and growling of the bear is enhanced by the lack of visibility 
and the heart-pounding apprehension of a brush with primal chaos - the eye of the fighter
encountering a hostile opponent s steel for the first time magnifies the unyielding, heinously
sharp point, or the jagged, wavelike reflections of the edge, translating the impression into
instant anticipation of the stinging slice that will change your physiology for ever...
It was this kind of fear that had to be mastered in the face of battle, either by natural
inclination or by conditioning, much to the chagrin of some anti-dueling pamphleteers who
lambasted the duelist s decision to overturn dictates of sanity and conscience to face his
opponent:
That a certain kind of coolness, and deliberation may exist in connection with
all this untractable obstinacy, we are not disposed to question. But their existence
here, form the most terrible feature in the man s whole character. They give
tranquility to his frightful purpose, permanency to his rash resolve, undeviating
conduct to the paroxysms of a persecuting hatred, and a fatal certainty to the final
action. But under these manifestations, they reflect no honor, or semblance
of courage that the assassin may not claim, who can direct his knife with
steadiness to the palpitating bosom of his victim.
In many people, civilization has built up a strong barrier against consciously inflicting
injuries on others. (Despite my seven Mensuren, I feel compelled to apologize for every cut
with the sports saber that I feel hit my opponent a tad too hard.) Take the pioneer of sword
and sorcery fiction and father of Conan and Solomon Kane. While his gore-splattered super-
human heroes wreak red ruin on entire armies with their blood-dripping blades, he himself
is somewhat less sanguine:
Howard was fascinated by Price s discussion of the martial arts, such
as fencing. He later wrote [H.P] Lovecraft regretting the fact that fencing masters
were rare in Texas and that, when he and a friend tried to teach themselves using
army swords as foils, he ran his sword through his friend s hand. After that,
he never tried to fence again.
It was exactly these uncivilized qualities Patton had in mind when he defined the mental
attitude that his ideal cavalryman would have the natural inclination to assume before
the charge:
And we expect that a man (...) shall, in an instant, the twinkling of an eye, divest
himself of all restraint, of all caution and hurl himself on the enemy, a frenzied
beast, lusting to probe his foeman s guts with three feet of steel or shatter his
brains with a bullet. Gentlemen, it cannot be done, not without mental practice.
That is why it is easier to attack on foot than to charge mounted. It seems more
refined. There, in front, are those dear futile bushes of maneuvers, the bullets sing
and whisper but there is more time to get used to them. It takes courage, higher
moral courage to walk to death than to gallop at it. But, it is the form of courage
which our civilization has given us. It is the courage of the burning house;
not of the bloody nose.
Therefore, you must school yourself to savagery. You must imagine how it will
feel when your sword hilt crashes into the breast bone of your enemy. You must
picture the wild exaltation of the mounted charge when the lips draw back
in a snarl and the voice cracks with passion.
But even the most macho fighter would be subject to the sobering influence of cold steel,
as Bartunek observes:
During the duel, when the bare chest suddenly is exposed to the threat
of the opponent s sharply honed weapon, nature - which wild fencers or brawlers
try to deny - demands its rights, so that most are induced to the instinctive parry,
rather than cutting simultaneously.
The Austrian echoes comments of Joseph Swetnam s, made 300 years before:
But I say there is great odds betwixt fighting in the field and playing in a fence-
schoole, for in the field being both sober, I meane if it be in a morning upon cold
blood, then every man will feare to kill as to be killed, againe a man shall see
to defend either blow or thrust in the field then in a fence-schoole, for a man will
be more bold with a foile or a cudgell, because there is small danger in either
of them.
Mastering fear could provide a short-cut to terminating the duel: Henry Angelo, after
breaking up the above-mentioned duel of Monsieur Chevalier vs. Mr.  M D-t (McDermott?),
sums up the observations he made during the first bout:
The Frenchman, endeavoring to intimidate his adversary, kept making a noise; though
he made the first lunge, he took good care to be out of distance at the time, whilst the other
whom I had often seen not so cool and collected with a foil, now, with all that sang froid,
laughed and cried  poh! on his first receiving the attack, and at Chevalier s not coming
nearer. This faire semblant of the one to appear courageous to frighten, or the other s fierté,
could not have continued long; the result may have been dangerous, or fatal.
Grain of salt!
I stated above that fencers who never faced a hostile opponent s sharp blade are prone
to underrate the pervasive effects of self preservation, stress, and anticipation on a fighter s
state of mind. I also would like to remind you that the cathartic element of antagonistic
combat centers on overcoming that fear.
Indeed, most Comment scenarios - like the duel proper or the Mensur - focus heavily
on building up pre-combat stress by having the combatants live in ever-increasing anticipation
for hours, days, or even weeks. During the day of the encounter, the routine of the normal day
is replaced by the somber rituals of seconds, witness, and umpires, even the doctors,
each more disconcerting than the other. The German poet Hanns Heinz Ewers, himself
a veteran of several heavy saber duels, countless Schläger Mensuren, and a pistol duel
in which both participants ended up drilling holes into the cold morning air of the Kottenforst
near Bonn, works his experience during these encounters into his novel Alraune and his short
story  Der tote Jude . In both instances, one of the duellists is unable to control his bowels
as he steps up to his position.
Yet both men remain in their places to fire - and in one case, kill - despite their bodies
violent rejection of the situation. And thus many, if not most fighters manage to have their
conscious will overcome their self-preservation instincts in the moment the combat begins
in earnest. At that point, the Olympian skill level in using a particular weapon may have
decreased by fifty, seventy, even ninety percent.
But it is this moment of the will emerging to rule the body that represents the true victory -
and sole purpose - of most Comment combat set-ups. This state of mind will not only
determine the fighter s own retrospective attitude toward the fight, when even severe wounds
are discounted as coincidental in contrast to the personal victory, it frequently determines
the actual outcome of the bout.
Of course, it may work both ways ... and unless a man is actually put to the test,
it is impossible to predict when or if this emergence of the will as the dominating engine
of combat will take place: If it fails to occur, every subsequent detail of the fight will further
erode the moral foundations of the unlucky fighter until his self is washed away in a flood
of uncontrollable chaos.