The saber and the sword have always been the weapons used in a melee. It is certain that there have also been daggers, cutlasses, bowie knives, and other white weapons in various forms, depending on all cases, on what culture was practiced in the locations where they were used.
When technology advanced, it forced these weapons to retire, and allowed some to remain as a symbol of the officer's command. This distinction, in our Armed Forces and many others as well, with time also passed on to the superior NCO's (non commissioned officers), being considered that after many years of service they are in conditions to perform similar roles as younger officers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, precisely in 1910, the Argentine Army embraced the officer's saber we know today, after using for several years other types designed specifically as weapons, heavier, ostentatious, and therefore, extemporaneous.
Since the Army's birth, however, the troop (officers and NCO's) used mass produced sabers. Officers, however, used a weapon of choice of personal acquisition, being the most popular and with the most singular stories, San Martín and Belgrano´s employees, and other of our country's fathers. The first one was bought in London, during the brief stay of our future Liberator, after abandoning the peninsular army and deciding to commit to America´s freedom, his land.

The Argentine Officer's saber is German style, and from its very adoption, it was taken for symbolic and ritualistic ends, as a way of identifying in them the symbol of command they withheld. There were two more versions: one shaped as a rapier, with a triangular sectioned blade, straight and about 50 cm long. Its sheath made of blue steel had two rings in order to be hanged from the left side. With no fore, its grip was the same or very similar to the actual one.

Later, the couteaux appeared (pronounced “cutó”), hung by a sword belt, had a same kind of blade as the long version, but straight and short, more fitted to use when being on campaign. Its grip also didn't have fore and had a shoulder strap with a brown leather acorn, just like the one used with the rapier saber.
Towards 1947, general officers started to use a replica of the saber used by General San Martín. At the same time, the cadets of the Nation's Military School were handed with a facsimile and more reduced version of the same saber. But these sabers would lack of valor within themselves if it weren't for the intrinsic meaning by which the symbols of command are constituted. They are not simple accessories for galas and insignias of those who bear them, nor their use constitute a mere formality.
There are many sides of the story about the meaning of the engraving that adorn it, but one of the most accurate ones, in virtue of the age of who told it to me, comes from an old officer, which took knowledge of it in 1946. The tale belongs to the Retired lieutenant colonel Américo Flaiban, graduated that same year. He says:

“On December 19th, 1946, having graduated as a second lieutenant two days before, I headed for the party made in honor of our graduation and as a welcoming, our oldest comrades from the Círculo Militar de Olivos toasted for us. When I was next to the cloakroom, lieutenant colonel Miguel Ángel Montes, congratulated me and then introduced me to his partner, General Anacleto Solá, a dessert expeditionary.
The old military held my hand for quite a while. I could see in his eyes the same excitement I had seen a few days before in my grandfather, a sergeant major and dessert expeditionary Manuel Díaz, who had become “boletinero” in the Ramón Falcón squadron.
“I was afraid I would arrive late to the demonstration that was prepared for us and I couldn't but apologize and say goodbye.
“I was unhooking my saber to leave it with the hat and gloves in the cloakroom when General Solá asked me if I knew what I was leaving there.
“A bit surprised I answered I did, it was the officer's symbol of command. All right –ha said- but, do you know what its intrinsic meaning is? Upon my silence, he gave me this explanation:

“The saber's handgrip which means the Truth has keyed in its knob the National shield, in its fore are carved the most expensive national traditions; symbolically, Cuzco's effigy is represented, that's how far argentine weapons got carrying our freedom.

“The curvature is like the one used by the Liberator, of Moorish origin, it represents Balance, Justice and Peace.
“This is Mars, god of war and on its obverse is Freedom.
“The shoulder strap has a band with a sliding knot, which as well as you know, the officer girds to his wrist when he unsheathes the saber.
“Well, if we stretch out this band, a whole man's head fits in it.
“And here, in the blade, this inscription is carved “LET THE LAURELS BE ETERNAL”, which are the purposes of our National Anthem.
“As I showed my surprise upon all these things which with his explanation took a true and profound meaning, General Ricardo Anacleto Solá made a brief pause and afterwards, he finished with these words:
“Every time you unsheathe your saber, grasping the truth and having the National Shield as your badge in defense of our freedom, and even though you strive in war, the most glorious traditions will protect your hands, yours will be victory and the laurels will be eternal. But think, that tied to your wrist, you carry an oath that reminds you: YOU RATHER DIE HANGED THAN BETRAYING YOUR MOTHERLAND”.

The symbolic translation of the elements of the saber complement with the warning that is made upon the cadets when, in their investiture, are handed with the facsimile replica of the Liberator's saber. This saber, from the deepness of History, seems to say:
“Do not unsheathe me without reason nor lay me away without honor”.