Odd topic - Samurai Sword - Weapon of War? Executioners tool

[Timotheus]

As some of my topics have suggested I am writing an essay on the Rape of Nanking and other Japanese atrocities of World War 2.

As I have done my reading a rather unusual thought came to mind.

It is very popular in some circles to collect replica samurai swords for how cool they are and in memory of the Japanese warriors who wielded them.

But then I was thinking. I know this would be impossible. But I would be willing to bet that if you added up through history (especially including recent history i.e. WW2) everyone killed with a samurai sword you would find that a large number, probably a majority, were not killed on battlefields but in fact were executed as helpless victims/prisoners.

With this in mind would it not be more accurate to call the samurai sword not a weapon of war but an executioners tool? And as such should anyone really think it is all that cool to collect real or replica ones?

[Carlton Bach]

I'm getting very queasy about the drift of these recurring topics. Timotheus, be careful you don't get drawn in by the visceral reaction to studying a selective topic too much.

But be that as it may, I don't think this holds water. The Japanese sword ('samurai sword' is already a misnomer, it didn't become that until its days of usefulness as a weapon were nearly over) was designed and made for battlefield use. A large part of the story that it was used to execute helpless victims comes from (often garbled) reports of the Tokugawa era where carrying it in public was the privilege of the samurai class and their judicial powers gave rise to the legend they went down the streets chopping off peasants' heads on a whim. The fact that these swords, being carried as purely symbolic ensigns of authority in a modern war, were then put to uses they were never designed for does not make them executioners' blades any more than the use of the rapier in the corrida make it a butchers' knife.

[Narukami]

With this in mind would it not be more accurate to call the samurai sword not a weapon of war but an executioners tool? And as such should anyone really think it is all that cool to collect real or replica ones?

In answer to your questions:

No, and No.

:?

Narukami

[Timotheus]

Neither poster though refutes one my basic statement. If you totalled up everyone killed with a "Samurai Sword" more people died from them execution style than from battle.

[Narukami]

If you could break down the numbers, comb through them as it were, you would find that planes (and the weapons they dropped) killed more "helpless victims" than they did soldiers on the battlefield.

So then would it be reasonable to say that bombers (both tactical & strategic) are not weapons of war but in fact instruments of terror and those who operate them with the intent of destroying cities are terrorists?

Or, sticking with your area of study, The Japanese invasion and occupation of China, I would hazard a guess that more Chinese civilians and prisoners were killed by bayonets than by swords, so should we consider the collecting of bayonets as suspect?

Or, let us return to ancient Rome. By several estimates, Caesar's legions killed upwards of a million people in his conquest of Gaul. Add to that the many thousands of non-combatants killed throughout the empire by the Legions and it might be fair to say that the Gladius was "not a weapon of war but an executioner's tool."

Please forgive me my confusion but I fail to see what your point here really is.

Is your point that the Japanese killed thousands of civilians often with such callous cruelty that the mind has trouble comprehending it even now more than 60 years later?

If so I agree.

Is your point that the "Oriental" is more cruel than the "Occidental" or that their conduct in war is more worthy of our contempt?

If so then I disagree.

Several members, responding to your other thread, put it quite correctly: war brings the worst out in people and long wars even more so.

To that end I think Jacob Bronowski said it best:

"Of course, it is tempting to close one's eyes to history, and instead to speculate abut the roots of war in some possible animal instinct: as if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live, or, like the robin redbreast, to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and co-operative form of theft."

As I said in another post, I think your research topic is an interesting one but Carlton is quite right, your focus is being diluted by minutia. Samurai swords and those who collect then as objects d' art, are not the issue -- intent is. A hammer is a tool, but it can also be a weapon. Intent of use is the key.

The issue is not that the Japanese behaved barbarically at Nanjing, the question is why? What was the intent behind their action?

I sense that is where you are going in you research, but as Carlton says, it is very easy to get lost on the road to answering that question.

Good luck.

Narukami

[Magnus]

I agree with the other posters...and I think my statement about you being biased towards the japanese Timotheus is holding true.

Your ignorance towards nihonto is rather astounding but correctable. You have a lot of reading to do in order to develop an understanding of them, their usage, symbology etc.

Also, I'd love to see your quantitative evidence for "executions" vs combat kills via nihonto in WW II. Otherwise you're just making un-researched statements that are bordering on insulting.

[Ironhand]

Perhaps he is making the mistake that since Japanese swords were sometimes tested to see their quality on the bodies of condemned criminals and prisoners of overdramatizing this and making it seem more of an execution tool than instrument of war. One can not forget that this process served several purposes and service as an executioner wasn't really the point aside from the fact that there was a demand for realistic cutting targets and the condemned didn't really have any rights. The practice of testing blades of prisoners tests the blade quality as well as the courage, mental fortitude, and blade skills of the man carrying out the execution. A man unwilling to do so would have been looked at with scorn and considered unworthy as a warrior. Now I haven't researched this practice as to early history and it could well be a later period practice much like seppuku did not become a standard practice until fairly late. The sword didn't really take a position of importance until around the time the common folk were banned from carrying them. The Japanese sword was a far better civil defense weapon than tool of war, however to make it seem like the sword was primarily an instrument for execution is short sighted to say the least. The swords use in executions was integrally tied to readiness for warfare much like to a lesser degree modern practitioners need to utilize actual target cutting to hone their skills.

Now did the sword kill more on or off the field? Hard to say. Its not a main instrument of war and was used in executions, duels, and civil defense. However, Japanese warfare stayed with the Asian trend of massive battles with huge number of participants involved and if even a small percentage of fatalities were deaths from sword blows it would add up. If I want overblown hysterics concerning its use however I would just watch the History Channel -where they sometimes throw shows like Tombstone on in place of coming up with their own material and most of the time its preferable to the drivel they come up with.

[Robert Vermaat]

Now did the sword kill more on or off the field? Hard to say.

I would say IMPOSSIBLE to say. No records exist of every Japanese sword in history killing either on the field of war, in duels or in executions.
So this discussion has no merit in it, if that's what to be determined here.

Likewise, it's also impossible to determine in the gun killed more in the hands of a soldier or in the hands of a criminal.

As a moderator, I don't mind discussions, but this is going nowhere. So please prove me wrong or chosse a more worthwhile subject.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

While the sword was used to execute prisoners during the war, were more not shot?
Therefore to extend the argument......