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World War I wasn’t just fought with big machines and long-range guns. This short video shows the brutal hand-to-hand weapons used in trench combat on the front lines.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
Why did soldiers carry close-combat weapons even if they had guns?
What were knuckledusters and lead coshes?
: NICK: Can you explain this interesting object?
: ANDREW: These two objects, together, make up what we would call
: trench fighting tools. When the young guards officers were told that they were
: going into the frontline, they would soon realize that they would
: eventually come down to hand-to-hand combat.
: And whilst they had their pistol, and perhaps a sword,
: they wanted something a little more, streetwise, should we say,
: in terms of how they would defend themselves. So they would go to the
: tailors who made all their military uniforms,
: and they would have a quiet word in the ear of their tailor,
: to say, can you get me some hand-to-hand combat weapons?
: So the tailors would go to where their sweatshops were,
: in the east end of London, the rougher part of town, if you like,
: and they would have these tools made. This is a knuckle duster,
: it can be held that way around - if you get hit with that, you know you're going
: to feel it in the morning. It could be held
: that way around, and that slicing motion would
: take out possibly two assailants at the one time.
: And over here, we have a beautiful lead cosh. Look at the leather work
: on that. It's covered in leather. And that would be in your trouser pocket.
: You could whip it out at no notice, and if you get a tap on the
: head from that, you're not going to come back from it. So uh,