Some hundreds of years ago there existed in Europe a gallant generation of sword fighters, who married noble women and begot noble children to carry on the tradition of fencing. Strangely, the less need of the sword as a fighting weapon, the more deft became swordsmen. Fencing passed from business to the realm of art. Higher standard were reached, perhaps because one lived to learn from defeat, not being killed as before. The modern fencer, using lighter weapons, would have encircled and dazed the medieval Launcelot.
Descendents of these fencing Europeans have heredity on their side when engaging young America. France and Italy stand out for this among the other countries.
In Amsterdam, August, 1928, Lucien Gaudin, a banker from Paris, kept up the tradition of the d'Artagnans and the Cyranos de Bergerac by winning two world championships, foils and epee, after conquering a field of a hundred strong fencers of all nationalities. At the last touch, which won him the double crown, the thousands of interested spectators gave him a rousing ovation. He received flowers, and he unashamedly shed tears of joy. At the same time the runner-up in foils, a young Italian giant (7 feet 4 inches tall!) sat in a corner and cried because he had been beaten by one touch by Gaudin in the deciding bout of the fence-off in the finals. They certainly take fencing seriously!
Gaudin was forty-five years old when he crowned his glorious fencing career with a double world championship, a feat never performed before, and not likely to happen again. Is there any sport in which a man who has passed his first youth can face such tremendous competition, and conquer a field of opponents, the best fencers from each country, who are anywhere from eighteen to fifty years old?
The explanation is simple. Fencing used to be a game of strength and agility, with a naïve dependence on a strong wrist and iron legs. Today it is a good thing to have these, but physical qualities do not count more than twenty percent in modern fencing. The thing that does count in fencing today is brain. Just as a chess player outwits his opponent by being one or several moves ahead, so the superior fencer thinks ahead, to his antagonist's undoing. He lures him into an attack, for which he himself is fully prepared. He slips on e inch out of reach of his adversary's threatening point, parries the blow by beating the blade out of line, and touches with a lightning "riposte," which is the universal language for an immediate return touch after a parry. Or he sends his opponent temporarily to sleep by fooling him with feints, then sense the one psychological twentieth of a second in which to attack. This finds the opponent totally unprepared.
The older, experienced fencer eliminates unnecessary movements. He allows his younger adversary to execute his lightning attacks and do the flashy sword-clattering. He stands almost motionless, perhaps slips back an inch or two, but when ready he chooses that fraction of a second when the other is not prepared and makes a counter attack, or parries one of the many blows that fall short, or executes a simple "stop" on the other's many feints, and touches him with almost childish ease.
This is exactly what Lucien Gaudin did. He sensed distance, timed his opponents with almost infinite patience, fooled them into doing things they didn't want to do: he punished each mistake, each erroneous judgment immediate with a touch, and thus, seemingly easily, carried away his double crown.
No wonder that, once a man takes up fencing, he never quits. It has a unique charm. It is a fascinating game of wits, of intelligence against intelligence, of chivalrous winning and cheerful losing.
Yet brain isn't quite all. He must have natural aptitude and a healthy body. Then he can go on and on, fencing in championships against opponents thirty years his juniors, until he "stands with one foot in the grave." Some years ago a Viennese professor took a hundred men, advanced in years, from every branch of sport, and examined their hearts. Then he listed the sports comparatively as to heart weakness. At the end of that list were the long distance swimmers, the marathon runners, the long distance bicycle riders. Near the bottom were professional boxers and wrestlers. At the top, right after the sportsmen who never took part in any competition, were the fencers, amateur and professional.
Yet it takes more than the ability to win championships to be a great internationally known fencer. A really great fencer is a gentleman, a sportsman in the true sense. There is no difference in this respect between amateur and professional fencers. One of the finest gentlemen, and probably the best fencer in all the world, is the Italian, Nedo Nadi, who turned professional after the 1920 Olympics.
It is so easy to cheat in fencing, or to influence the jury. Especially in Latin European countries, where they take fencing to heart, this is prevalent. Often on sees a fencer make an attack, let out a loud whoop, and triumphantly take off his makes, ready to shake hands with his opponent. Six times out of ten the blow never reached, and if the man has a reputation and the jury has not, often they are too timid to say "No touch!" and his bluff succeeds. Then again, if the jury pronounces him touched, he may take off his mask, to register his emotions better, and say in painful, indignant surprise: "What, I???"
This man may be a good fencer, a strong one, a winner of championships, but he will never be a fencer of international reputation. Such a man is one of the middle European epee (dueling sword) fencers, who has carried off many championships, international and Olympic prizes. He is strong, but he is not a great fencer. He is not accepted internationally as "one who counts."
On the other hand, the German champion, Captain Casimir, who won third place in foils in the '28 Olympics, is a great fencer. He has excellent technique, a keen mind, speed, a stupendous determination, furthermore, he is a sportsman. He acknowledges a touch as soon as he feels it whether the jury has noticed it or not. I have seen him argue with the jury who pronounced his opponent touched by him, when he believed his foil had not landed upon a valid target.
The great French fencer, Adet, received an ovation in the last Olympics when suddenly, in the midst of a bout, taking off his fencing mask and glove he went to shake hands with his opponent and walked off the strip. The jury gaped and didn't know what had happened. "Je suis touché!" (I am touched) Mr. Adet said simply.
Fencing is primarily an academic sport. In this phase of it America is making a great mistake. When fencing was adopted here, not much attention was given it as an art, to its form and academic spirit. Americans went right into it and fought. Fighting spirit is necessary, but only after having mastered technique and perfect form. Without these, fighting doesn't do any good. Unless this is understood, many Olympiads will pass before America will reach a place of great honor among the fencing nations.