Editing Duel (section)

===Decline in the 19th and 20th centuries===
Duels had mostly ceased to be fought to the death by the late 19th century.

By the start of [[World War I]], dueling had not only been made illegal almost everywhere in the [[Western world]], but was also widely seen as an anachronism. Military establishments in most countries frowned on dueling because officers were the main contestants. Officers were often trained at military academies at government expense; when officers killed or disabled one another it imposed an unnecessary financial and leadership strain on a military organization, making dueling unpopular with high-ranking officers.<ref>Holland, Barbara (2003). ''Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling''. New York.</ref>

With the end of the duel, the [[dress sword]] lost its position as an indispensable part of a gentleman's wardrobe, a development described as an "archaeological terminus" by [[Ewart Oakeshott]], concluding the long period during which the [[sword]] had been a visible attribute of the free man, beginning as early as three millennia ago with the [[Bronze Age sword]].<ref>R. E. Oakeshott, ''European weapons and armour: From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution'' (1980), p. 255.</ref>

====Legislation====
[[Charles I of Austria|Charles I]] outlawed dueling in [[Austria-Hungary]] in 1917. Germany (the various states of the Holy Roman Empire) has a history of laws against dueling going back to the late medieval period, with a large amount of legislation ({{lang|de|Duellmandate}}) dating from the period after the Thirty Years' War. [[Prussia]] outlawed dueling in 1851, and the law was inherited by the {{lang|de|Reichsstrafgesetzbuch}} of the [[German Empire]] after 1871.<ref name="Liszt">Franz Liszt, ''Lehrbuch des Deutschen Strafrechts'', 13th ed., Berlin (1903), [http://www.bgbedia.de/zweikampf/ §&nbsp;93. 4. Der Zweikampf] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130101122903/http://www.bgbedia.de/zweikampf/ |date=2013-01-01 }} (pp. 327–333).</ref> [[Pope Leo XIII]] in the encyclica {{lang|la|Pastoralis officii}} (1891) asked the bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary to impose penalties on duellists.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13po.htm |title=Catholic Library: Pastoralis Officii (1891) |website=newadvent.org}}</ref> In Nazi-era Germany, legislations on dueling were tightened in 1937.<ref>Hitler's decree{{clarify|date=March 2016}} was a reaction to a duel between two Nazi party members: [[Roland Strunk]] was killed in a duel with [[Horst Krutschinna]].</ref> After World War II, [[West Germany|West German]] authorities persecuted [[academic fencing]] as duels until 1951, when a [[Göttingen]] court established the legal distinction between academic fencing and dueling.<ref>18 December 1951, confirmed by the [[Federal Court of Justice of Germany|Federal Court of Justice]] on 29 January 1953 (BGHSt 4, 24).</ref>

In 1839, after the death of a congressman, dueling was outlawed in [[Washington, D.C.]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=005/llsl005.db&recNum=355 |title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875 |website=memory.loc.gov |access-date=2016-07-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Duel with Rifles |url=http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/07/a-duel-with-rifles/ |date=July 17, 2013 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> A constitutional amendment was even proposed for the federal constitution to outlaw dueling.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |title=H.R. 8, Proposing an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Prohibit any Person who was Involved in a Duel from Holding Public Federal Office |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration |year=1838 |series=File Unit: Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House during the 25th Congress, 1837–1839 |access-date=2016-07-29 |archive-date=2016-10-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006130706/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some [[U.S. state]]s' constitutions, such as [[West Virginia]]'s, contain explicit prohibitions on dueling to this day.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wvlegislature.gov/wvcode/wv_con.cfm |title=West Virginia Constitution |website=wvlegislature.gov}}</ref> In [[Kentucky]], state members of the [[United States Electoral College|Electoral College]] must swear that they had never engaged in a duel with a deadly weapon, under a clause in the State Constitution enacted in the 1850s and still valid.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/14/us/joe-biden-trump#biden-calls-trumps-attacks-on-voting-unconscionable "Electoral College Affirms Biden's Victory"], ''The New York Times'', December 15, 2020.</ref> Other U.S. states, like [[Mississippi]] until the late 1970s, formerly had prohibitions on dueling in their state constitutions, but later repealed them,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428202931/https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2019-04-28 |title=Mississippi Constitution |year=2014 |access-date=28 April 2019}}</ref> whereas others, such as Iowa, constitutionally prohibited known duelers from holding political office until the early 1990s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ballotpedia.org/Iowa_Repeal_of_Dueling_Ban,_Amendment_2_(1992) |title=Iowa Repeal of Dueling Ban, Amendment 2 (1992) |website=Ballotpedia}}</ref>

From 1921 until 1992,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://relam.org/events/gentlemanly-jurisprudence-and-the-rule-of-law-why-dueling-was-legal-in-uruguay-from-1920-to-1992-a-talk-with-david-s-parker | title="Gentlemanly Jurisprudence and the Rule of Law: Why Dueling was Legal in Uruguay from 1920 to 1992" a talk with David S. Parker | date=10 March 2023 }}</ref> [[Uruguay]] was one of the few places where duels were fully legal. During that period, a duel was legal in cases where "an honor tribunal of three respectable citizens, one chosen by each side and the third chosen by the other two, had ruled that sufficient cause for a duel existed".<ref name="DSP">{{cite journal |first=David S. |last=Parker |date=Summer 2001 |title=Law, Honor, and Impunity in Spanish America: The Debate over Dueling, 1870–1920 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=311–341 |doi=10.2307/744132 |jstor=744132|s2cid=144994172 }}</ref>

====Pistol sport dueling====
{{Main|Pistol dueling}}
[[File:1908 Olympics wax duel field.png|thumb|Pistol dueling as an associate event at the 1908 London Olympic Games]]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pistol dueling became popular as a sport in France. The duelists were armed with conventional pistols, but the cartridges had [[wax bullet]]s and were without any powder charge; the bullet was propelled only by the explosion of the cartridge's [[Primer (firearm)|primer]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/02/26/101867826.pdf |title=Duel With Wax Bullets |work=The New York Times |date=February 26, 1909 |access-date=24 December 2014}}</ref>

Participants wore heavy, protective clothing and a metal helmet with a glass eye-screen. The pistols were fitted with a shield that protected the firing hand.

=====Olympic dueling=====
{{Main|Olympic dueling}}

Pistol dueling was an associate (non-medal) event at the [[1908 Summer Olympics]] in London.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=October 1908 |title=Dueling with Wax Bullets |magazine=[[Popular Mechanics]] | volume=10 |page=765}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=roI4AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA40 |edition=No. 808 Vol LXIII, Sixpence |date=1908-07-22 |publisher=Ingram brothers |page=41}}</ref>

====Late survivals====
Dueling culture survived in [[French Third Republic|France]], Italy, and Latin America well into the 20th century. [[French Fourth Republic|After World War II]], duels had become rare even in France, and those that still occurred were covered in the press as eccentricities. Duels in France in this period, while still taken seriously as a matter of honor, were not fought to the death. They consisted of fencing with the épée mostly in a fixed distance with the aim of drawing blood from the opponent's arm.

In 1949, former Vichy official [[Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour]] fought school teacher Roger Nordmann.<ref>"A French lawyer and a schoolteacher fought a duel today in a meadow near Paris.  Roger Nordmann the schoolteacher was reportedly pricked by the lawyer Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour's sword and the duel ended with everyone's honor intact. The feud started three weeks ago when Tixier-Vignancour challenged Nordmann to a duel with pistols after he said Nordmann insulted him during a treason trial; Nordmann accepted the challenge but said he had never fired anything more potent than a water pistol. He then chose two of his prettiest girl students, as seconds. The lawyer objected on the grounds that a second must be ready to take his principal's place and he could not lift his hand against a woman. The weapons and the seconds were properly arranged after weeks of negotiations. The duelists went into hiding from newspapermen and police, since dueling is illegal. Only their seconds knew the time and place of combat." ''Lubbock Avalanche-Journal'' i, 13 November 1949, [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/5986306/ p. 55].</ref>
The last known duel in France took place in 1967, when [[French Section of the Workers' International|Socialist]] Deputy and Mayor of Marseille [[Gaston Defferre]] insulted [[Union for the New Republic|Gaullist]] Deputy [[René Ribière]] at the [[French Parliament]] and was subsequently challenged to a duel fought with swords. Ribière lost the duel, having been wounded twice.<ref name="Time">{{cite news |date=1967-04-28 |title=People: Apr. 28, 1967 |magazine=Time |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843669,00.html?iid=chix-sphere |url-status=dead |access-date=2010-05-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629023401/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843669,00.html?iid=chix-sphere |archive-date=June 29, 2011}}</ref> In Uruguay, a pistol duel was fought in 1971 between Danilo Sena and [[Enrique Erro]], in which neither of the combatants was injured.<ref>[http://www.lr21.com.uy/comunidad/481143-los-ultimos-duelos "Los Últimos Duelos"]. ''LaRed21'', 28 November 2011. ([https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.lr21.com.uy/comunidad/481143-los-ultimos-duelos&usg=ALkJrhhHV1U0nS7pFkpz7vbBWC7p5ofScw Translated])</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19711018&id=PQgrAAAAIBAJ&pg=6515,4940475&hl=en |work=Reading Eagle |via= Google News Archive Search |title = Two Duel, Both Unhurt|date=18 October 1971}}</ref>

Various modern jurisdictions still retain [[mutual combat]] laws, which allow disputes to be settled via consensual unarmed combat, which are essentially unarmed duels, though it may still be illegal for such fights to result in grievous bodily harm or death.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} Few if any modern jurisdictions allow armed duels.