An incident at the Siege of Tsingtau 1914

[Helen]

Hi Folks, Just thought I'd share this small incident at Tsingtau at the time when the Germans and their allies were being besieged by the Japanese and English:

During the truce a Japanese officer walked out on the glacis and challenged
any German to duel with swords. In true Bushido tradition the cavalry
officer grasped his samurai sword and wildly twirled the blade about his
head and body. The short stocky warrior emphasized each exaggerated thrust
and prancing foot movement with loud shouts and grunts. His men stood back
at a distance from their strutting officer. They all waved tiny Japanese
paper flags attached to chopsticks and cheered him with shouts of "Banzai."
Rifles slung over their backs in a non-threatening position.

A tall blonde German officer with dwelling scars on his face stepped
forward. Having been brought up on swordplay, he had never fought such an
adversary. It was West pitted against East.

The German calmly removed his jacket and drew his steel. Gripping the sword
firmly in his right hand he stepped forward stopped and at attention raised
the sabre to his face in a salute. The Japanese swordsman brought his booted
legs together like two parenthesis and bowed slightly. Immediately he
assumed the wild sword-swinging mode and attacked.

The German parried easily with the disciplined one-arm European duelling
stance; one leg forward; one arm back; sword extended. As both sides looked
on, he soon dispatched the challenger, who died still believing that a
Samurai could beat a European swordsman.

The Japanese knew that shooting the winner in retaliation would break the
truce and their honor. They contained their anger and chagrin and hurriedly
retrieved the body while the German officer turned his back and sauntered
proudly back to his men.

[Big Guy]

It does give you something to think about, was the Japanese officer cocky or was the German just to good?

[Plynkes]

Blimey. How Homeric. Except in Homer there would afterwards probably be a big fight between all the minions over the body. I suppose compared to the Samurai, the Ancient Greeks never did have much in the way of a code of honour.

Being brainwashed by popular culture, I, like the Japanese officer, have always  blithely assumed the eastern Martial Arts to be far superior to anything we could come up with. It is just taken as a given. Too much Kurosawa and Jackie Chan, I suppose. Obviously that needs revising in the face of Prussian fencing prowess.

Thanks, Helen. Very interesting. You are an absolutely indispensable asset to this forum. Keep the stories and pics coming!

[Hammers]

These kind of stories makes people think that morons tend to weed themselves out. Alas, we know better.

You are an absolutely indispensable asset to this forum. Keep the stories and pics coming!

Hear, hear!

[Operator5]

Amazing. Again, if you put that in a movie, everyone would laugh at how "unreal" it was.

Thanks Helen!

[PeteMurray]

I'm both surprised and not by this excellent story.

Prussian "dueling scars" are justifiably famous. I fenced a bout with a student from Berlin, and I'm pretty certain the closest I ever got to hitting him was being en garde.

One thing we tend to forget is that by the Meiji era, most of the samurai hadn't really picked up a sword in anger for 200 years. Most sword martial arts had to have been growing rigid as a result of the peace, the didactic methods of instruction, and an apparent favoritism for artistic display over quick, dirty, and efficient fighting. I don't have any hard data to back that up--this is just my own gut talking.

But still, with the whole pop culture thing, yeah I would have thought it was a closer fight.

And yeah, that would have shot the Japanese troops' morale to complete hell.

[Helen]

Thanks guys. This extract was taken out of the book that I've shown the book cover of on "Open talk" latest book received Kaiser's one man airforce, Tsingtau, China.

This book is a lovely to read.  

[Poliorketes]

Interestingly I found two other versions of the story on the web - one with the japanese as victor and the second with the german victorious, but soon after cut down by japanese bajonetts.

[Helen]

Interestingly I found two other versions of the story on the web - one with the japanese as victor and the second with the german victorious, but soon after cut down by japanese bajonetts.

Hi Polioketes

Thankyou for the additional information  that has been brought to the groups attention from your search. As always we leave it up to folks to always come to their own conclusions. Who knows the author may have have been biased Still nice to know that we could look into this sort of challenge in the spirit of the game. I'll look into a simple set of rules for duelling when I see a release of Japanese figures from Brigade Games.

Again, thanks for bringing this information to the forum.

[Poliorketes]

Bob Murch has some Katana-wielding japanese marines.

[Helen]

Bob Murch has some Katana-wielding japanese marines.

Thankyou  

[xeoran]

I think what many forget that the Samurai were originally archers, not swordsmen. Not to mention that as the West is the home of global culture the East seems mysterious to us. Hence why so many practice Karate say but very few still do Savate (as far as I'm aware).

That said that is an awesomely cinematic moment. Its sad that more films set in that period aren't made.

[Westfalia Chris]

That said that is an awesomely cinematic moment. Its sad that more films set in that period aren't made.

Any more, that is. There were quite a lot of adventure movies about the "jolly good fun" to be had in Colonialism, Imperialism et al in the 1930s-1960s ("55 Days in Beijing" and "Charge of the Light Brigade" come to mind), but simply put, the same light-hearted approach (or is it trivialization) would be seen skeptical today, or worse, regarded as box-office poison.

[xeoran]

Oh yes. But whilst I enjoy black and white or even rather bad colour my friends are rather more...sniffy, about anyting not made in the last 20 years.  

[Westfalia Chris]

Ohh, I know those... I pretty much dislike anything made after 1990... ::