Sabrage...

Throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the cavalries of the major military powers cultivated their own traditions that went a long way towards projecting an elite image of themselves that sought to set themselves apart from the other branches of the service. The German cavalry was no exception and one tradition that was adopted was Sabrage or the art of opening a bottle of champagne with a saber. 

Supposedly this tradition originated in France during the Napoleonic Wars by cavalry officers that were in too much of a hurry to open a bottle of champagne by ordinary means. Essentially, Sabrage calls for using a saber to open the bottle, exploiting the weakest part of the bottle where the side seam meets the lip ring. Combined with the pressure of the Champagne, hitting the bottle at its weakest point will crack the glass and the pressure will do the rest of the work.

The following passage explains Sabrage more fully:

There are several legends of the story of Sabrage or Sabering Champagne.
One says that when the officers of Napoleon’s army returned home after a victory, cheering townspeople would hand bottles of Champagne as tokens of their appreciation for their victory and gallantry. 

Since the soldiers were mounted on horseback it was difficult to hold the reins of the horse and remove both the foil, wire basket (muselet) around the cork and the cork (bouchon) at the same time, so the soldiers simply took out their sabers and struck it against the lip of the bottle with an upward blow and sabered off the cork. Voilà!

Another says Mme. Clicquot (the widow Clicquot), in order to have her land protected, gave Napoleon's officers Champagne and glasses. Being on their horses, they couldn't hold the glass while opening the bottle. 

Consequently, they tossed the glasses away, and took their sabers out and sabered off the top and cork and drank from the bottle. Voilà!

In more scientific terms, it is the meeting of the glass lip (annulus) at the top of the bottle just below the cork (bouchon) with a firm tap of a sabre's edge and at the weakest point of the glass seam in the bottle. When performed on a suitably chilled bottle of Champagne, the cork and glass annulus fly away, spilling little of the precious Champagne. The pressure inside a bottle of Champagne (100 psi) ensures that no glass falls back into the bottle making it safe to drink the spoils. 

For more information, click HERE. Below is a short "how-to" video. Horrido!