Interesting:
Easton even found original comments from British soldiers about Chinese martial arts as well. These date from the Boxer Rebellion, which is late 19th century, and so quite a bit after the Napoleonic era that Pride and Prejudice is set in, but the interesting thing is that the British were not all that impressed with the effectiveness of Chinese martial arts. Easton said there are numerous accounts of Chinese martial arts from the period, but "the top headline is: they're not flattering accounts."
That is quite interesting.
Mind you, how much of the late 19th century experts he consulted for British attitudes to Kung Fu is a reflection of something practically every film with a lot of fistfights tries to find a new way to ignore. The smart fighter brings a gun to a gun-fight, not just a knife, or his or her fists.
Weren't there terrific advances in fire-arms, between the Battle of Waterloo? In CS Forester's novel, Commodore Hornblower, his new wife, gives him a pair of pistols, built by one of Britain's finest gun-smiths. I think some commentators have written that his pistols were two advanced for the 1812. His pistols had rifled barrels, two barrels each. Instead of the hammer striking loose powder to ignite the charge in the barrel, Hornblower's pistols have waterproof percussion caps.
Forester's hero, musing about this wonderful surprise gift, as he squadron sets off on its mission, figures that the percussion caps were more important than the rifling, because they would eliminate mis-fires due to wet powder. By the time of the Boxer Rebellion every soldier could have a repeating rifle, or revolver, or both -- much more formidable weapons than the muskets and pistols of 1815, that required thirty seconds of undivided attention to reload.
Another factor -- I think it is a mistake to imagine that, during the boxer rebellion, the European soldiers were confronted with an army of guys with skills equivalent to a black belt. Isn't it likely that most of the boxers were relative beginners, whose skill set fell far short of the equivalent of a black belt level?
It has been decades since I read about the Boxer Rebellion. But I remember seeing parallels between it and the "ghost shirt" movement that swept through some Native American communities. The movement was the last hurray of organized Native American resistance to their American invaders. Shamans told their followers they could counter the advantages the American invaders had due to better weapons through harnessing the power of spirituality. They would go to battle wearing shirts that had been especially blessed by shaman, so bullets wouldn't hurt them.
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darren-oconnor
8 years ago
That is quite interesting.
Mind you, how much of the late 19th century experts he consulted for British attitudes to Kung Fu is a reflection of something practically every film with a lot of fistfights tries to find a new way to ignore. The smart fighter brings a gun to a gun-fight, not just a knife, or his or her fists.
Weren't there terrific advances in fire-arms, between the Battle of Waterloo? In CS Forester's novel, Commodore Hornblower, his new wife, gives him a pair of pistols, built by one of Britain's finest gun-smiths. I think some commentators have written that his pistols were two advanced for the 1812. His pistols had rifled barrels, two barrels each. Instead of the hammer striking loose powder to ignite the charge in the barrel, Hornblower's pistols have waterproof percussion caps.
Forester's hero, musing about this wonderful surprise gift, as he squadron sets off on its mission, figures that the percussion caps were more important than the rifling, because they would eliminate mis-fires due to wet powder. By the time of the Boxer Rebellion every soldier could have a repeating rifle, or revolver, or both -- much more formidable weapons than the muskets and pistols of 1815, that required thirty seconds of undivided attention to reload.
Yes, indeed the coalition army that faced the Boxers was much better armed, with bolt action magazine rifles and officers carrying revolvers instead of single shot pistols. But most bolt action rifles of the period carried just five rounds, and officers had no speed loaders for their revolvers, so they still carried their swords. The historical accounts made it clear that the coalition forces had to resort to bayonet work on a number of occasions, primarily thanks to the overwhelming Chinese numbers, and the fact that the Boxers were deliberately trying to close the distance and engage in hand to hand in order to make up for their lack of firearms.
That's interesting about the Forrester novel. I haven't read it, but if it's set still in the Napoleonic wars, Forrester decided to give his hero an anachronistic advantage. The first percussion firing system wasn't invented until 1819, by a Scottish Presbyterian minister named Alexander Forsyth, who was looking for a better gun to go duck hunting with. And it didn't use percussion caps, but had a reservoir of mercury fulminate. Percussion caps came along later still.
Another factor -- I think it is a mistake to imagine that, during the boxer rebellion, the European soldiers were confronted with an army of guys with skills equivalent to a black belt. Isn't it likely that most of the boxers were relative beginners, whose skill set fell far short of the equivalent of a black belt level?
If you reread my post, you'll note I said as much, stating that most of the Boxers were probably men who'd had some training, but were not masters of their particular style of kung fu.
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