The blade in this man's hands ended a thousand years of the spear. For as long as there had been firearms, musketeers needed pikemen to shield them while they reloaded — slow infantry could be ridden down by cavalry in the gap. The early plug bayonet, rammed into the muzzle, was a poor fix: a soldier could fight or fire, never both. The socket bayonet, fixed around the outside of the barrel late in the seventeenth century, solved it at a stroke — now a man could fire with the blade attached and meet a horseman with steel the instant his shot was spent. By the 1700s the pike was gone, and every infantryman was his own pikeman.

The figure kneels in full dress — white breeches and black gaiters, dark blue coat with red epaulettes and white cross-belts, bearskin with red plume, the full pack on his back — musket grounded and bayonet fixed to receive an attack. It is the dress-uniform companion to the campaign-trousers kneeler, and like it belongs in the front rank of a square. Line the kneeling rank with a French Imperial Guard Kneeling Defending and a French Imperial Guard 1st Rank Kneeling, then stand a French Imperial Guard Standing Defending behind them to fill out the rear rank and complete the bayonet hedge.

W. Britain model 36204. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.