page_title: Bayonet
section_title: Multipurpose bayonets
hierarchical_section_title: Bayonet / History / Multipurpose bayonets
caption_attribution_description: English: British Pattern 1875 Artillery bayonet for Snider (with scabbard) Snider saw-backed bayonet; 1st type; bar on band maker- WR Kirschbaum and Cie, Solingen, Germany, 1876 markings- Birmingham proofs (crown) - B - 2; maker's name and trademark (WR Kirschbaum and Cie - helmet); WD and sold out of service marks- (arrows and) WD; serial number 741 on hilt
context_page_description: A bayonet is a knife, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear. From the 17th century to World War I, it was considered a primary weapon for infantry attacks. Today, it is considered an ancillary weapon or a weapon of last resort.
context_section_description: One of these multipurpose designs was the 'sawback' bayonet, which incorporated saw teeth on the spine of the blade. The sawback bayonet was intended for use as a general-purpose utility tool as well as a weapon; the teeth were meant to facilitate the cutting of wood for various defensive works such as barbed-wire posts, as well as for butchering livestock. It was initially adopted by the German states in 1865; until the middle of WWI approximately 5% of every bayonet style was complemented with a sawback version, for example in Belgium in 1868, Great Britain in 1869 and Switzerland in 1878 (Switzerland introduced their last model in 1914). The original sawback bayonets were typically of the heavy sword-type, they were issued to engineers, with to some extent the bayonet aspect being secondary to the "tool" aspect. Later German sawbacks were more of a rank indicator than a functional saw. The sawback proved relatively ineffective as a cutting tool, and was soon outmoded by improvements in military logistics and transportation; most nations dropped the sawback feature by 1900. The German army discontinued use of the sawback bayonet in 1917 after protests that the serrated blade caused unnecessarily severe wounds when used as a fixed bayonet.
  The trowel or spade bayonet was another multipurpose design, intended for use both as an offensive weapon as well as a digging tool for excavating entrenchments. From 1870, the US Army issued trowel bayonets to infantry regiments based on a design by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Rice, a US Army officer and Civil War veteran, which were manufactured by the Springfield Armory. Besides its utility as both a fixed bayonet and a digging implement, the Rice trowel bayonet could be used to plaster log huts and stone chimneys for winter quarters; sharpened on one edge, it could cut tent poles and pins. Ten thousand were eventually issued, and the design saw service during the 1877 Nez Perce campaign. Rice was given leave in 1877 to demonstrate his trowel bayonet to several nations in Europe. One infantry officer recommended it to the exclusion of all other designs, noting that "the intrenching  [sic] tools of an army rarely get up to the front until the exigency for their use has passed." The Rice trowel bayonet was declared obsolete by the US Army in December 1881.
caption: British Pattern 1875 Snider saw-backed bayonet (with scabbard) for artillery carbine
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