Lighter muskets also enabled mounted troops to begin carrying firearms.  These special mounted troops, known as Fusiliers (France) or Dragoons (Britain), were the forerunners of today’s Special Forces.  Unlike cavalry, which fought while mounted, using the saber, Fusiliers and Dragoons were mobile shock troops that travelled by horse, but dismounted to fight.  Self-sufficient, they could project power far from the main force to keep the enemy off-balance.  When dismounted to discharge their muskets, Fusiliers and Dragoons only needed to fend off attackers long enough to reach their horses and flee to safety.  The bayonet was ideally suited in this role and this is where we first find it officially adopted as a military weapon.

King Louis XIV of France was one of the individuals central to the bayonet’s becoming a successful military weapon.  Louis XIV reigned for over 70 years, which uniquely positioned him to have a remarkable influence on the bayonet’s development.  When he became King, in 1643, French soldiers still wore armor.  By the time of his death, in 1715, nearly all vestiges of medieval warfare were gone and France had the world’s most modern army.  In 1671, he was the first to formally introduce the bayonet into a major army.  He presided during the 25 year quest to find an alternative to the pike.  He played a significant role in the adoption of the socket bayonet and finally abolished use of the pike in the French Army in 1704. 

Louis XIV’s introduction of the bayonet in 1671 was documented by the French historian Fr. Gabriel Daniel.  Daniel was a Jesuit Scholar whom Louis XIV appointed historiographer of France.  In his History of the French Militia, published in 1721, Daniel writes of the King’s indicating that:

"This weapon is very new to the troops.  I, the King, first gave this weapon to the Fusileers Regiment, created in 1671, and since called the Royal Artillery Regiment. The soldiers of this regiment carry the bayonet in a small sleeve, as with the sword. I have since given some to other regiments for the same purpose, that is, to put at the end of the musket on occasion." [View an image of this passage from Fr. Daniel's book.]

Voltaire also writes of this as well:

"The use of the bayonet at the end of the musket, is of the King’s institution.  Before him, one made some use of it, but there were only some companies which fought with this weapon. It was not widespread, nor put to much use.  It was left to each general.  The pike passed from being the most formidable weapon.  The first regiment which had bayonets, and has used them, were the Fusileers established in 1671." [View an image of this passage from Voltaire's writings.]

The bayonet was not without its advocates in Britain.  In volume two of his 1683 book, Pallas Armata: Military Essayes of the Ancient Grecian, Roman, and Modern Art of War. Written in the Years 1670 and 1671, Sir James Turner writes that:

"Our present militia acknowledging no other weapon for the light armed infantry, but the musket and the sword, and this last I have seen sometimes laid aside for a time, that it might not impede the manageing the musket by its embaraas [difficulty?]. And indeed when musketeers have spent their powder, and come to blows, the butt-end of their musket may do an enemy more hurt than those despicable swords which most musketeers wear at their sides. In such medleys, knives whose blades are one foot long, made both for cutting and thrusting (the haft being made to fit the bore of the musket), will do more execution than either sword or butt of musket." [View an image of this passage from Turner's book.]

Britain’s King Charles II followed the French example, officially introducing the bayonet into the British Army in April 1672.  In raising a regiment of Dragoons, he issued the following order:

“Our will and pleasure is that a Regiment of Dragoons which we established and ordered to be raised in Twelve Troopes of four score in each besides officers, who are to be under the command of Our most deare and most intirely beloved Cousin, Prince Rupert, shall be armed out of Our stoares remaining within Our office of the Ordinance, as followeth: that is to say, three corporalls, two serjeants, the gentlemen-at-arms, and twelve souldiers of each of the said twelve Troopes, are to have and carry each of them one halbard, and one case of pistolls with holsters; and the rest of the souldiers of the several Troopes aforesaid are to have and carry each of them one match-locke musquet with a collar of bandaliers, and also to have and to carry one bayonett or greate knife. That each lieutenant have and carry one partizan; and that two drums be delivered out for each Troope of the said Regiment.” [View an image of the King's directive.]