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January 7

Germans' fear of bayonets

Many times when I was growing up I heard it said, by my parents and others, that "the Germans hated the cold steel of the bayonets". A second's thought would make anyone realise that fear of a bayonet sticking into your body and ripping your guts open would be a universal human emotion. What would explain its especial attribution to German soldiers, with the unspoken corollary that Allied soldiers had no such fear? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:37, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an article from a Canadian journal in 1914. "Every soldier back from the front tells the same story of the Germans being unable to face cold steel... ". DuncanHill (talk) 13:16, 7 January 202 3 (UTC)

A couple of more scholarly articles:

Hodges, Paul (2008). "They don't like it up 'em!: Bayonet fetishization in the British Army during the First World War". Journal of War and Culture Studies. 1 (2): 123–138. doi:10.1386/jwcs.1.2.123_1.

Harvey, A. D. (2005). "The Bayonet on the Battlefield". The RUSI Journal. 150 (2): 60–64. doi:10.1080/03071840509441971.

The good people at WP:RX should be able to provide you with copies if you do not yourself have access. DuncanHill (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And a couple of Australian newspaper pieces from the Second go:

Harriott, G. E. (5 September 1941). "GERMANS FEAR A.I.F. BAYONETS Enemy's Weaknesses Examined". The Advertiser. Adelaide, South Australia: 8.

AAP (18 July 1944). "Nazi Fear of Bayonet". The Examiner. 103 (109). Launceston, Tasmania.

Hope these are helpful. DuncanHill (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"They don't like it up 'em!" and "The Bayonet on the Battlefield" available thu WP:Library. I'll add "The Point of the Bayonet". Colonial armies "feared the bayonet" as did the Boers, and Philip Haythornthwaite said "...fear of the bayonet, rather than the bayonet itself..." won battles in the Napoleonic wars. Maybe more to do with the British training and experience than Germans in particular? Ronald Bruce Campbell could use some additional content. fiveby(zero) 14:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's right that it has to do with the self-image of British and Commonwealth armies. There are still those "who don't like it up 'em!"; see The Bayonet Charge That Foiled The Taliban. THe US Army stopped bayonet-charge training in 2010 although the US Marines have contiued. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 22:31, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how badly academic fencers' faces got stabbed by 1914 but you'd think (still universal by 1914?) dumb German college hazing with sharp swords would at least make bayonets not their first rodeo. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One rather suspects that the great majority of the German infantry had not been to university. DuncanHill (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why WWI Germans called USA's pump shotguns a war crime when they slowly dissolved troops alive (gas), shelled random coordinates of civilian-occupied Paris and the following were legal (even now): giant shotgun-like grapeshot cannons, giant shotgun-like shrapnel artillery, hand grenades, rifle grenades, portable guns that shoot the same nine projectiles every 0.45-0.9 seconds (usually with far better range, mass, mph, accuracy and capacity). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why that is not a request for debate or opinion. --174.89.12.107 (talk) 07:30, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See War propaganda. --Lambiam 12:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I thank you all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]