Military Fork (uncertain)

Iron. Single vertical blade tapering to point, two opward-outward-recurved blades whose common base passes through a slit at the base of the vertical blade. Flat tang with two perforations. Cf. Demmin, Arms and Armor: "This weapon began to appear towards the end of the fifteenth century. The Arsenal of Geneva possesses several Italian scaling-ladder forks taken from the Savoyards in 1602. The military fork is also mentioned in the accounts of the siege of Mons, in 1691, where the grenadiers of the older Dauphin's regiment, under the command of Vauban, assaulted a breastwork and carried away the Austrian forks. To recompense their bravery Louis XIV gave the sergeants of that regiment the right of carrying a fork in place of the halbard." Illustrated pp. 453-4. This reference applies to 42-30-635-639 inclusive.