Ditsong Artefacts

The gladius is a short sword which narrows near the base of the blade. This shape makes the sword effective at cutting as well as thrusting. The gladius is best known as a primary weapon of the Roman legions. It forced Roman soldiers to get in close to their enemies and to kill quickly. It was the Roman defeats of the famous Greek hoplites that showed the sword to be more deadly than the spear.

The Greek hoplites used swords as secondary weapons and could not compete with the more mobile and diversified Roman forces. Phalanx formations had become the pinnacle of spear combat, but hoplites were developed to use lesser trained soldiers who were not as good with their swords when a phalanx broke.

The earliest surviving examples of the Roman gladius come from the first century BCE, but they were produced in the Rhineland, and the earliest records of the Roman gladius refer to it as “the Spanish sword”. The four-ring scabbard pattern of the Roman gladius is a copy of the Spanish scabbard. It appears that the gladius was in widespread use in the Iberian Peninsula and in Germanic territory where the gladius is referred to as the Mainz-type sword. 

The earliest widespread Roman adoption of the short sword begins with 5th Century BCE Celtic attacks through Northern Italy. The Celts had arrived with new fighting methods and after sacking Rome, the Romans searched for new methods of defending themselves. The problems Rome faced included the large...

The SA dagger was the service dagger of the Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment) formed under Adolf Hitler and Ernst Röhm’s authority in 1921. Otherwise known as the Brown Shirts, the SA was a paramilitary group named after elite German forces from the Western Front in the First World War (1914-1918). Their primary role was to provide muscle at Nazi rallies and to counter the actions of opposition paramilitary groups. The SA soldiers were also used to violently intimidate civilians.

Ernst Röhm (Wikipedia)

The SA were modelled on Benito Mussolini’s Black Shirts but wore brown uniforms due to their affordability. Near the end of the First World War, large numbers of brown uniforms had been ordered for Germany’s colonial forces in Africa and so were cheaply available in post-war Germany.

In 1933, Hitler commissioned Professor Woenne of the Solingen School of Commerce to design a dagger for the SA. For the design, Professor Woenne largely copied a dagger on display in the Munich City Museum. It was a German hunting dagger based on a 15th Century Swiss dagger pattern. The Munich City Museum’s German example included an image on the scabbard of the woodblock print called Dance of Death, created by German 16th Century artist Hans Holbein the Younger. The dagger on display was therefore known as The Holbein Dagger. 

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The military art collection of the Ditsong National Museum of Military History includes a watercolour entitled, “HMS Kelvin – D-Day +6” by Francis Flint. The painting is noteworthy in that it portrays three important personalities of the Second World War (1939 – 1945) – Sir Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom); Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke (Chief of the Imperial General Staff) and Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts (Prime Minster of the Union of South Africa). The event was the visit by Churchill to Normandy on 12 June 1944, six days after the initial invasion took place on 6 June.

One can understand Churchill and Brooke embarking on such a visit but why would Smuts, the Prime Minister of a small Dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations, be travelling with them across the English Channel? After all there was no official South African participation in the Allied landings in Normandy.

At the time South Africa’s contribution to the war was relatively moderate in comparison to that of the major powers and other nations on the Allied side.  Despite that Smuts had developed a substantial international reputation since he had first been appointed to the Imperial War Cabinet during the First World War (1914 – 1918) and played a leading role Treaty of Versailles and the formation of the League of Nations at the end of that war.

Smuts and Churchill’s first interaction was during the Anglo-Boer/ South African War (1899 – 1902) when the latter, then a war...

In the Curator’s Choice display of edged weaponry at the Ditsong National Museum of Military History, are Chinese double or paired swords from the early 19th Century. The swords are decorated with dragons that have five claws symbolising high rank. The museum’s Chinese paired swords may have belonged to either a Prince of the first rank or qinwang (Prince of the Blood) or a Prince of the second rank or junwang (Prince of the Commandery). 

According to legend, Chinese swords were first made well before 2000BCE. They are said to have been made of gold by a mythical hero named Suiren (fire maker) who also taught the Chinese people how to make fire and cook food.

Archaeological records suggest that the first Chinese swords were of bronze and were made during the Shang Dynasty (c.1700 BCE – c.1100 BCE). This period puts Chinese sword origins in line with European origins. Straight and double-edged Chinese swords (jian) date from the 7th Century BCE. The Chinese Jian was used by the people of Japan between the 3rd and 6th Century BCE before Japanese people began to adopt Korean swords and then develop their own famous designs.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368CE – 1644CE) swords were less prominent on Chinese battlefields due to the preference for a variety of bows and polearms. The popularity of polearms also meant that Chinese swords tended to be short one handed weapons. Nonetheless, the wealth of the Ming Dynasty brought a wide variety of new sword designs...

A 1:48 scale model of the Type VIIC German U-boat “U-96” was donated to the Museum in September 2019. The model is a true representation of the original submarine used in the Second World War (1939 – 1945) and was constructed by the donor, Mr Brian Echstein (see image above).

The Importance of the Donation

The original U-96 played a major role in the Battle of the Atlantic, a vital campaign of the Second World War. This campaign arose as a result of the requirement for Britain to sustain herself through strategic supplies sent by ship from her dominions and colonies around the world and, more importantly, from North America. The termination of this supply line would have eventually starved Britain and forced her to make terms with Germany. Adm Karl Donitz, commander of the German U-boat force, recognised the strategic importance of the U-boat and was of the firm opinion that this aim could be achieved with 300 U-boats on station in the Atlantic.

Supply routes to Britain 1941 (Wiki Commons)

The development of the U-boat was based on the following considerations: Firstly, Allied merchant shipping was the principle target and should be attacked with no restrictions; secondly, operations should be carried according to the strategy of tonnage sunk exceeding that of tonnage constructed. This would eventually strangle Allied...