Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Dec 31, 2015 21:52:28 GMT
Here endeth the famous saga of the French Cavalry. What can I say about that? Nothing much. It is the way this world works. So let us see what Monsieur l'Hoste has to offer. The M1896 Cavalry sabre. (Strictly speaking this is no sabre, but for the sake of clarity I will conform to the French text) The Cavalry Committee, after the disaster with the M1882, demanded, at the end of the 19th century, a study for the design of a new model with better hand protection. Thus the M1896 was born, later followed by the M1923. The new Model 1896 should replace all other models still in use. This ideal turned out to be elusive. The Cavalry of the Line refused, point blanc, to give up on their M1854, M1854/82 and even on the M1822, used by the Republican Guard. Good for them, as we will soon see. The M1896 Cavalry Sabre of the Line, Officers model. The fabrication of the sabre followed the Ministerial directives of 22 Dec. 1896, confirmed the 20 Aug. 1897. Gilded bronze hilt. Short back strap surmounted by a dome shaped pommel cap, adorned with laurel leaves on the front and oak leaves on the back. Blackened buffalo horn grip, wired with a fine, twisted, wire and bordered by a fine single wire on either side. One piece basket includes the knuckle bow, with two secondary branches on either side, the base decorated on the outside with chiseled ornamentation of Laurel leaves. The centre of the plateau, where the blade joints the hilt is decorated with leaves and stylised fruits, on the lip or bec sits the superbly crafted Gorgon head.
The blade came in three lengths or tailles: 95 - 90 and 85 cm. It is straight, with a shallow fuller on either side and it has a flat spine.
On this surface was engraved: Mle. 1896 (taille) Manufre d'armes de Chatellerault (year) for the first batch, later replaced with:
Sabre d'Officier de Cavalerie Mle1896 (taille) Manufacture nationale d'armes de Chatellerault (year). This is the signature on my sabre. The scabbard is made of sheet metal, has one ring and has a lyre shaped drag.
This sabre replaced the M1882 Cavalry carried by the Cuirassiers and the Dragoons.
I took off the basket and had it gilded again. The blade was cleaned and received a medium polish.
The scabbard was in good condition and did not need much work.
About the blade: the design, in principle, is not bad at all. The two shallow fullers, less than 1mm under the spine, make for a stiff blade. It is shaped like a T.
Helas, there is not much mass in the blade. It is much too frail to stand up to the rigours of battle. At this point in time there was not much use for Cavalry anyway, except maybe in the colonies, but still, I can see why the men of the Line refused this inferior weapon. Where the M1854 still has some mass and a sturdy build, though compared with the M1816 it was already on the light side, this M1896 feels like it will disintegrate on impact.
The blade on mine measures: 95x28,5x8,5mm. Field grade, but compared to the stout 90x34x11mm of the M1854, much lacking in punch.
The one positive thing to say about this sabre is about the basket. Now, that is a good one. One piece ARCO bronze, with a ribbed knuckle bow for extra strength.
The decoration is nice but non essential. The symmetrical build of the basket makes it ambidextrous. The design harkens back to the Preval from 1831, mentioned here: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/46663/french-m1822-light-cavalry-artilleryIf only the committee would have had the inspiration to combine this rather fabulous basket with the M1854 blade.....** Notes. Skynet: users.skynet.be/euro-swords/M1896OC.htmCavalry sabre M1923 for Officers. Bronze basket.
Short backstrap surmounted with a domed pommel cap, adorned with a laurel leaf decoration. Blackened buffalo horn grip with 15 ribs, wired with twisted fine wire bordered with a single wire on each side. One piece basket, including the knuckle bow. Two secondairy branches on the front, with one branch at the back. The outside of the branches is decorated with palmettes. The blade. A straight blade with shallow fullers. Width at the base is 31,6mm. * Three lengths or tailles: 95 - 90 and 85 cm. The scabbard is made out of sheet metal with one ring and terminating in a lyre shaped drag. *. My blade has a width of just over 26 mm. Length is taille 2 = 90 cm l'Hoste states that the Infantry model may not acceed a width of 22 mm. The tailles here are 90 - 85 and 80 cm. Furthermore the width of the M1896 is 28,5 mm. It seems quite silly to me to have a blade of this late a date wider than the model that came before. It serves no purpose. So I table the motion that l'Hoste made an error here, more so because everything about this sabre screams ,,useless Degen''. Until someone proves me wrong, I stand by the notion to have a Cavalry sabre and not the even more puny Infantry sabre. Appart from the above, there is nothing positive I have to say about this model. Even Google has nothing to say on this one. The blade is spadroonish to a tee, while the craftmanship is in decline. Such shoddy work would not have been tolerated before the Great War. With the best men wiped out, the survivors ravaged by the Spanish Flue and with the Great Depression just around the corner, it is no wonder that there seems to hang a dark cloud over this sabre. Cheers. ** Nota: See Pinos comment in this thread: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/42475/mystery-bay-sabre Scroll down to see the pictures. Facts and figures are taken and translated from the invaluable book ,, Les Sabres'' by Monsieur l'Hoste.
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Post by aronk on Jan 1, 2016 5:07:13 GMT
I am convinced that good cavalry sword design stopped around 1880. Everything that came after that, quite frankly, is semprini in my opinion. These atrocities, the P1908, the Patton, and all of the other spikes on hilts... The M1822LC and the M1854HC were the pinnacles of French sword design as far as I am concerned.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 1, 2016 5:58:20 GMT
Thanks for sharing. I was a fan of these swords before, but this has only make it worse. Very elegant and stylish.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 1, 2016 10:23:11 GMT
I am convinced that good cavalry sword design stopped around 1880. Everything that came after that, quite frankly, is poo in my opinion. These atrocities, the P1908, the Patton, and all of the other spikes on hilts... The M1822LC and the M1854HC were the pinnacles of French sword design as far as I am concerned. Well, yes and no. ( I should go into politics...) The M1822 and M1854 models harken back to the ,,good old days''. The M1822 can be seen as the last of the sabre line stretching back hundreds of years, right back to the Tatar steppe. And the M1854 blade would not be frowned upon in some medieval setting I feel. Give it a cross guard and a disc pommel and away you go. To me the M1854 comes from an even longer line, stretching back to ground zero, as it were. That is what you miss when looking at those, what you call, spikes on hilts. Than again and this is, as far as I am conserned, a sign of the times, when you look in l'Hoste, you see, right at this moment, when the Cavalry is done for, a confusing array of new hilt on spike designs. Variants on the M1896 basket, the Derue and many more interesting models, like the Nancy and M1896 with Preval blades. Something happened. After the war of 1870, ,,suddenly'' there is the onset to modern painting, modern design never seen before, Art Nouveau, writers writing stuff that would have them got shot only a short time before, cultural mayhem all over the place. A culture in transit. Look at the fugugly Patton, the highly effective model T motorcar under the ,,spikes on hilts''. Very American. Very New World. Very practical. That is the word to remember. The old world, made up from traditions going back to the middle ages, Rome and Greece, sees its last glorious period, the Belle Epoque, before it crashes and burns in the Great War. What you do not like I think, is that break with traditions. Like looking at a Cuirassier holding a lightsabre from Starwars. To get back to your comment: I think that had they had the time, some of the new spikes would have made highly effective weapons and beautiful to look at too. The M1896 is not much in the weapon department but it sure looks good, even elegant, like Afoo finds it to be. Take the basket off and stick it on a pedestal and you have ,,Art''. Given time it may have worked out. Alas, that was not to be. To afoo. The swords, let us call them that way, ,, items suffering from a high degree of Spadroonishness '' does not sound very practical, although it might be a better discription, are elegant indeed. If you ever want to get one, remember that the Officers M1923 as issued is already of lower quality than the M1896. The Officers M1896, you will find, has many interesting variants. One thing to be aware of is that there is much variation in craftmanship too. Some hilts are much better worked out than others. Maybe the best are from Le Page, though other firms made very well executed bronze work too. The rendering of the Gorgon head is the key feature to study. Some are flat, some are almost 3D. And lets get real, if you want to spend $800 on a sword, why not take the best you can get, since the thing has more to do with sculpture than anything else anyway? Cheers.
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Post by aussie-rabbit on Jan 1, 2016 14:00:29 GMT
If only the committee would have had the inspiration to combine this rather fabulous basket with the M1854 blade.....** A left hander can always dream
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Post by Dave Kelly on Jan 1, 2016 17:54:48 GMT
Thanks for the summation of the last models. It's a sad end to a fine tradition of weaponry. I have 5 of them now. Consistently the Arte Neuveau hilts on these swords stink. The pictures belie the reality of hand holding the sword. The hilts and guards are consistently too small for the intended use of the blade and the blades so configured, in spite of the thinness of their foibles, always feel foible biased.
Not every late modelled sword lacks historic design and function. The Peurto Segura 1907 is a funtional Italianate styled weapon. ( Funny, as the blade is more derivative of the French 1882 with a stronger foible). The US M1913 "Patton" may be a matter of taste, but I find it to be a fully functional longsword in the tradition of the French Epee Forte and Cuirassier, as intended. The massive guard covers the whole hand. The balance is to the hand. While doctrinally it was supposed to be exclusively made for point work, the double edged blade has suitable mass for draw cuts. The Argentine Grenadeiros 1898 is in a class by itself as a pipe back sabre worthy of the class. The swedish 1893 enlisted is a brutish, unmanageable horror; but the officer version is quite manageble ( and the Patton looks a lot more like it than the British cocktail olive skewer I don't even want to name a sword... .
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 1, 2016 19:41:35 GMT
Thank you for your comment. Your point of view is much needed, as I write down a sort of worksheet for an engineer. I got the idea of translating l'Hoste, so anyone has access to the numbers when needed, without having to lay $50 on the counter for a French book they often can hardly read anyway. Not that readers should NOT buy the book. There is so much more info to be gleaned from l'Hoste. But for now this is my new format, so to speak. Dry as bone. So your comment, highlighting the other side of the medal, gives much needed insight in everyday issues like handling. I tend to forget that and you have more working experience anyway. Also, my focus on the swords to be disected, gives me a sort of tunnel vision. What you bring to the table are all those models from that period that work and are good weapons in their own right. That paints a much broader canvas. Thank you again.
Edit: I added the Gorgon picture. Imagine doing a piece on the M1896 and totally forgetting that icon. Yup, must be the weather...
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Post by Afoo on Jan 1, 2016 19:49:46 GMT
To afoo. The swords, let us call them that way, ,, items suffering from a high degree of Spadroonishness '' does not sound very practical, although it might be a better discription, are elegant indeed. If you ever want to get one, remember that the Officers M1923 as issued is already of lower quality than the M1896. The Officers M1896, you will find, has many interesting variants. One thing to be aware of is that there is much variation in craftmanship too. Some hilts are much better worked out than others. Maybe the best are from Le Page, though other firms made very well executed bronze work too. The rendering of the Gorgon head is the key feature to study. Some are flat, some are almost 3D. And lets get real, if you want to spend $800 on a sword, why not take the best you can get, since the thing has more to do with sculpture than anything else anyway? Cheers. Exactly my logic - if I were to get one, I would get it as a work of art, or at least something to look at. If I wanted to get something that would kill other human beings as effectively as possible, I would go for 4lb of gunpowder and a bag of nails. Indeed, most of the swords in my collection for there based on looks or history or affiliation, with lethality being a low priority. The hilts are very nice indeed, though I do like the lines of the blade as well. Denner has an 1882 cavalry officer sword for 650 cdn I believe, which is above my price range, but looks very tempting. We have the Spanish 1907 which has a similar blade, so I think they would make good friends. At my price range though, cannot afford to be picky. A 1923 would do me just fine Am a bit disappointed to hear about the sub-par hand protection and weak blade. From the pictures they do look much more functional than they are.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 1, 2016 20:26:22 GMT
The hand protection is okay. I think Dave says there is not much space inside to work with. I checked that out just now and he is right. That bowl is too petite. For it to work the lip or bec with the Gorgon should be at least 1" longer, make that 2" and the bowl, to the sides, needs an extra 2" per side to enclose the gloved hand. With bare hands it is too small too. Really a Degen or Spadroon format. Major parts of the hand are out in the open. It lacks the protection the Patton seems to give. Imagine the Patton with a gigantic M1896 bowl made from the highest quality sculptured and gilded bronze....... Anyone on here with a 3D printing device? I think the above pictures might give you an idea where it hurts. That bowl suddenly looks quite small doesn't it? Art over function. I found that on the monitor I lose the sense for proportion. So when I am out hunting, I always use the ,, hilt is about 15cm high '' trick. Also handy to check on the blade length. Another thing: Most dealers will let you pay in installments. Or, since this is very much a buyers market: If a sabre's asking price is say $600 and you slab $450 cash on the table, take it or leave it, most will take the cash. After some moaning and when you are about half way to the door.....
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Post by aronk on Jan 2, 2016 0:25:46 GMT
Oh yes, I will readily admit to being a staunch traditionalist (I still wear a suit to work every day). I would of course take a Patton over the spike on a hilt P1908 cocktail skewer (thanks for that one Dave!). I see the Patton as a pared-down pallasch that puts even more focus on the thrust, and losing most of its cutting ability (some old-style pallasches can be wicked cutters, as I assume many of you know). That said, I would love to see an adequately-sized and beefed up version of the 1896/1923 hilt with an M1854 blade. Actually, an M1822 blade might not be bad either.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 2, 2016 2:14:07 GMT
Given its design, its easy to forget that the blade on the patton is still 3cm wide. It will still cut. Patton himself claimed that the 1913 would give a cut "at least one third harder than our former saber" - which I presume refers to the 1906/1860. I am certain that Patton may not be the best person to evaluate his namesake weapon objectively without some embellishment (intentional or otherwise). However, this claim does suggest that the 1913 still has quite a bit of cutting power - even if its not quite 133% that of the 1906. Even if we take a rather generous 50% allowance for exaggeration, that still leaves us with quite a wallop. The stronger argument IMO though was the fact that Patton *himself* made this claim, which indicates that, while he favoured the thrust for lethality, he did at least take cutting power into consideration in his design. After all, he did write "Will the edge ever be used? It will. Man is not very far removed from his cave ancestor. And as battle was a primal pastime, so modern man engaged in it more readily retrogrades to his hairy progenitor". I find it difficult to believe that a man who writes such phrases would put into the hands of his soldiers a sword with only marginal cutting power. source: www.pattonhq.com/pdffiles/vintagetext.pdfpattonhq.com/sword.html
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Post by aronk on Jan 2, 2016 3:26:15 GMT
In test cutting, the Patton tends to perform about as well as a spadroon, at least in from what I have read an seen. It certainly has the ability to cut, there is no doubt of that (as opposed to the cocktail skewer), but it's no 1796LC or even M1822.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 2, 2016 4:41:52 GMT
As an original spadroon, or a modern reproduction?
Never held an original spadroon, but I believe the 1845 superior officers sword (the one with a double-edged straight blade) would perform similarly. The Patton would definitely kick its rear in a cutting fest. Just doesn't have the weight or the rugged-ness.
Also, how were the cutting tests performed? If it was just attacking a lump of clay or tatami mats, not quite convinced. Both behave very differently from a human body, and do not give the full picture of how a sword performs.
For example, they do not take into account the impact (literally) of blunt force trauma in addition to pure slicing. Note that Patton specifically uses the term "power", which implies the total transfer of energy to the opponent, which is not necessarily the same as penetration through a homogeneous media.
I remember an old TV series "Weapons that made Britain" which highlights this shortcoming very well. At 32 minutes in the following video, they do some test cutting against some clay using various medieval weapons. The results are indifferent, and IMO incomplete due to the fact that clay is a poor analogue to a human body. However, I believe his parting words carry the most weight - we keep experimenting and finding new solutions to problems, but at the end of the day, they are just all iron bars with grips, and will behave broadly the same.
Also, savour the fact that they do not refer to the fuller as a blood groove!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2016 5:13:39 GMT
L'Hoste's book is somewhat limited with the historical context of some models but luckily there are Michel Petard's book of Hussar Sabres and French sabres & epees tome 2 and Christian Aries' works that I seriously recommend. The trooper version 1896 was returned almost immediately after they were issued to the men in 1905 as it was too fragile because of the fuller at the point and the brittle tang button. Supposedly in 1907-1910 a reworked version came back in service but no apparent positive or negative feedback afterwards, only that they ended up serving for drills & instruction. The 1923 cavalry officer is a league of its own: having nothing to do with the Infantry version 1923 which is, as Uhlan stated, nothing more than a puny parade degen. It might look like just a lighter upgrade of the 1896 but with a regulation latte (pallasch/broadsword) blade it remains, I repeat from a former thread above, of lovely construction and able to pack a punch in the hands of a seasoned cavalry officer. The Cav 1923 is much harder to find than the usual infantry counterpart or the private purchase versions with 1882-1896 blades and remains obscure even within French books/sources. The only real problem with this one is it came at the wrong time: completely useless in the age of Blitzkrieg... I kind of like their design and see potential in them. Let's not forget they were officers swords, so like any other model from the past decades, they were ordered in different shapes, sizes and durability depending where and for how much you bought yours at the time (the 1854 and 1822 officers were sometimes not necessarily better in terms of performance btw) and many were admittedly intended mainly for parades and commanding on the field, thus they did not care much about being able to kill the Hulk or cut a tree in 4. That's why you don't hear the 1896 officer model being a fiasco like the trooper version. some eye candy:
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 2, 2016 6:33:35 GMT
l'Hoste does not mention the M1923 variant you show us here. Like you state above, the model you show is hard to find in the literature. That makes me wonder if it maybe is not an official model, knowing by reading l'Hoste for quite some time now, he will show anything that is official and even variants that are quite obscure. What I find, looking at your blade, is a model called ,,Sabre d'Officier Superieur de Chasseurs, which was issued during the Third Republic. It has the latte blade with a length of 86 cm. See page 470, picture 975. I would like to know the length of your M1923 blade and the width please.
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Post by aronk on Jan 2, 2016 15:52:30 GMT
As an original spadroon, or a modern reproduction? Never held an original spadroon, but I believe the 1845 superior officers sword (the one with a double-edged straight blade) would perform similarly. The Patton would definitely kick its rear in a cutting fest. Just doesn't have the weight or the rugged-ness. Also, how were the cutting tests performed? If it was just attacking a lump of clay or tatami mats, not quite convinced. Both behave very differently from a human body, and do not give the full picture of how a sword performs. For example, they do not take into account the impact (literally) of blunt force trauma in addition to pure slicing. Note that Patton specifically uses the term "power", which implies the total transfer of energy to the opponent, which is not necessarily the same as penetration through a homogeneous media. I remember an old TV series "Weapons that made Britain" which highlights this shortcoming very well. At 32 minutes in the following video, they do some test cutting against some clay using various medieval weapons. The results are indifferent, and IMO incomplete due to the fact that clay is a poor analogue to a human body. However, I believe his parting words carry the most weight - we keep experimenting and finding new solutions to problems, but at the end of the day, they are just all iron bars with grips, and will behave broadly the same. Also, savour the fact that they do not refer to the fuller as a blood groove! The tests I refer to were against a variety of materials, including meat. But think about it from the perspective of physics, the Patton balances essentially at the hilt, meaning that it can draw cut and push cut, but hacking cuts won't do much (other than the fact that any hacking cut will be in part a draw or push cut due to the way that actual humans cut with swords). There's a reason the P1796 balances 6-7" from the hilt.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2016 17:59:56 GMT
l'Hoste does not mention the M1923 variant you show us here. Like you state above, the model you show is hard to find in the literature. That makes me wonder if it maybe is not an official model, knowing by reading l'Hoste for quite some time now, he will show anything that is official and even variants that are quite obscure. What I find, looking at your blade, is a model called ,,Sabre d'Officier Superieur de Chasseurs, which was issued during the Third Republic. It has the latte blade with a length of 86 cm. See page 470, picture 975. I would like to know the length of your M1923 blade and the width please. As per your request sir Lancer: total length: 85cm 33'' (taille 3 = size small, regardless of cavalry sub-element service) width at base: 3cm 1 1/4'' same at half: 2.3cm 7/8'' same at point: 1.5cm 9/16'' thickness at base: 9mm 5/16'' same at half: 5mm 3/16'' same at base: 2mm 1/16'' I checked L'Hoste's book and indeed the 1923 models is faintly presented and the one pictured has a 1882 cavalry blade. Found one of Christian Aries' pic of the regulation 1923s: cavalry 1923infantry 1923
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 2, 2016 18:58:16 GMT
Interesting and thank you very much. If I read the mark on the spine correctly it says: Sabre d'Officier de troupe a cheval Mle1923 issued 1938. That would be Mounted Infantry Officer, not Cavalry. The Chasseur M1855/82 blade from page 470 is 86 cm long and my Infantry Superior Officers is 85 cm long with a width of 29 mm and it is 8 mm thick. For the rest, both blades are of the same design, harking back to the M1845 Officers. This M1923 slots right in. Pity l"Hoste is so depressed by the M1923 that he fobs us off with only the slightest info on the infantry M1923. According to him they have the same blades as the Cavalry version, only somewhat shorter. 4 sentences. The M1923 really pissed him off. I am quite sure he would have mentioned this latte type had it been an official Cavalry pallash. But it is too fragile for real Cavalry work, just like the M1896 and M1923 with the 1882 blades. Same class. But I may be very wrong in all of this of course. All in all it is quite a looker.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2016 19:33:18 GMT
Uhm...troupes a cheval means all mounted units: hussars, dragoons, cuirassiers but also the mounted Gendarmes, horse artillery and mounted supply regiments. Besides I believe mounted infantry officers were an archaic concept at the time and no longer existed.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 2, 2016 19:54:19 GMT
The Prussians / Germans had them still, so did the Swiss. No, I think the Cavalry would have never have taken that downgrade. They had a long and glorious tradition and were known to go to great lengths to defend their status. Troupe a cheval is Mounted Infantry. I am quite sure. But whatever it is, Cavalry blades are always marked as such. I have never seen an exeption to that rule. Not even in France.
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