Explanation: The pike is a weapon that was popular in the late medieval/early modern period. It’s basically just a grotesquely long spear - very inconvenient for personal combat (except in a duel in an open field, where apparently in the hands of a skilled user it’s quite good), but amazing for when everyone is packed together like sardines on a battlefield.

The pike is also a kind of commonly eaten fish.

During the early parts of WW2, Winston Churchill, with more rhetoric than accuracy, demanded that every potential defender of Britain have a weapon ready, “be it only a mace or a pike.” Very stirring! Unfortunately, as Churchill was the man in charge at the time, a couple of subordinates took it literally and commissioned a few thousand literal fucking pikes to be made (never used) before Churchill got wind of it and corrected them.

Here, we see the pikes getting mixed up, smh. Can’t trust the help these days!