Presentation Sword Honoring Commandant Jean-Baptiste Marchand (1863 –1934) for His Conduct at Fashoda

A celebration of French colonialism and patriotic pride, this sword also served an anti-Semitic agenda. It was commissioned by the conservative French daily newspaper La Patrie to honor Jean-Baptiste Marchand, a French military officer who had crossed Africa at the head of a small expeditionary force. The publication considered Marchand an inspiring figure for having contemplated combat against a far superior Anglo-Egyptian force rather than surrendering a small outpost on the Nile, and for having taken a difficult route back to France rather than returning through British-controlled territories. By inviting its readers to fund the manufacture of a sword of honor and by claiming to be presenting it on behalf of all patriots, the newspaper aimed to speak for the French nation more forcefully than the elected government. By celebrating Marchand, it also hoped to restore confidence in the French army's leadership while opposing calls to rehabilitate Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer whom the army's high command had convicted of treason without cause or due process. The iconography and polychromy of the sword's hilt reflect the vogue for Orientalism and burgeoning antiquarian preoccupations that had been fueled by recent archaeological excavations in Egypt.