The story is fairly straightforward, though you have to read between the lines a bit and become very familiar with the source documents. The victory of a young lieutenant over his superiors through political influence is hardly something that would be explicitly laid out, even by Patton himself.
Patton wasn't just any 26 year-old lieutenant. He was a wealthy and intensely ambitious 26 year-old lieutenant with a politically-connected father, and who had just returned from the Olympics as something of a celebrity with a reputation for swordsmanship. Upon his return from the Olympics, he wrote a 12-page trip report that was very favorably received and later parlayed into an article on sabers in the enormously influential
Army and Navy Journal, which lauded him as "a recognized authority on such subjects"; by December 1912 he was detached from the 15th Cavalry to work directly for the Chief of Staff, General Leonard Wood, and also as an occasional aide to the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, with whom he would form a strong personal friendship. Within three years, General Pershing would be dating Patton's younger sister.
So his position to influence matters relating to swords and swordsmanship was exceptional, even unique, and his diary entries for the period show him pushing his design over that of the Cavalry Board with great optimism.
That Patton's design was not selected, nor even considered, by the Cavalry Board is shown by the information on the new equipments published in various professional journals. In September of 1912, CPT Edward Davis, a member of the Cavalry Equipment Board, wrote in the JUSCA:
As late as the 1913 issue of the
Rasp, a sort of yearbook for the Cavalry School published in January, the XM1911 is pictured as the official choice of the Cavalry Board.
Perhaps more telling is an article in
The Springfield Republican on 18 February 1913 which describes young LT Patton arriving at the Springfield Armory to confer with armory officials over the specifics of manufacture of the "new design". Not the president or members of the Cavalry Board, not any official with the Cavalry or Ordnance branches, but Patton himself...a supposedly minor functionary on General Wood's staff who, as specifically mentioned in the article, happens to carry General Wood's authorization and approval for the production of Patton's design, as General Wood's
personal representative...
Patton returned with an Armory-produced example of his saber, and on 24 February GEN Wood sent the example to the Chief of Ordnance, with a cursory note that the Secretary of War (Patton's very good friend) ordered the production of 20,000 sabers of the
exact pattern as the enclosed sample. No changes allowed. That killed any hope of producing the XM1911.
My personal suspicion is that the similarity of many parts between the XM1911 and the M1913, such as the pommel, guard, and scabbard construction, wasn't a result of some evolution from the XM1911. Patton arrived at the Springfield Armory on 17 February and had an Armory-produced example by 24 February; I think he had to have used or adapted parts the Armory was already equipped to produce in order to get his pattern sample made as soon as possible, before it could be blocked.
The fact that approval of Patton's design backdoored the choice of the Cavalry Board is demonstrated in further articles in JUSCA and the
Army Navy Journal for the next three years. Patton had to defend his design, repeatedly. Firstly, the fact that he had to publicly defend it at all showed that his saber, and the method of its approval, met with immediate attack by authorities in the Cavalry and Ordnance branches. Secondly, that it was Patton, with no relationship with the Cavalry Board or Ordnance procurement, who had to do the defending. If his design had been properly approved by Cavalry and Ordnance, then it would have been a board member or an authority in the Cavalry or Ordnance branches that would have addressed the criticisms, as was done with the XM1911 and the XM1905/06. But they didn't. It was Patton's baby, approved over the recommendation of his superiors, and he was the one who had to justify it. Thirdly, the drill for the new saber wasn't written anonymously as prior doctrinal drill had been. Patton was specifically identified as the author.
Throughout every step of the process, Patton was specifically identified with the new saber. His the glory if it succeeded, his the professional shame if not. Absolutely not something that would have been done with an "officially" approved saber.
So looking at the source documents of the period, it's clear that Patton came up with his own design after his experience at Samur, actively promoted the design by leveraging his reputation and his personal contacts, was sent to the Springfield Armory as the Chief of Staff's personal representative carrying authorization to produce Patton's saber design, and that the Cavalry Equipment Board and the Ordnance Department didn't know about it until it was already a "done deal".
Why would the CoS and the Secretary of War trash the process and blindside the Chiefs of Ordnance and Cavalry by forcing something they didn't want down their throats? The politics inside the War Department were complicated and intense at this period, and it was probably a message. Young LT Patton and his saber were probably just a pretext for a flexing of muscle.
[ETA: For those interested in the XM1911, further discussion can be found on the
US Militaria Forums. Just use the search function.
