Bulgarian Cavalry Sabre M1925. NEW: Early History Update.

Try searching for ,,Bulgarian Cavalry'' and you will find practically nothing. This is annoying because Bulgarian History is a rich one, full of wars and battles and the Bulgarian Cavalry had a great stake in those. (See the notes). Stranger still is that when the search is repeated for their neighbour Romania you will be inundated with results.
After WWI Bulgaria was made to suffer by way of the Neuilly Treaty in more or less the way Germany was made to suffer. (See notes)
Here is a bit from that so called ,,Treaty'':

,,Composition and maximum effectives of Bulgarian cavalry division by Neuilly Treaty:

(officers/men): headquarters of a cavalry division - 15/50; 6 (max)
regiments of cavalry - 30/720 per regiment; group of field artillery (3
batteries) - 30/430; group of motor machine-guns and armoured cars - 4/80;
miscellaneous services - 30/500; total - 259/5.380.

Each regiment of cavalry comprised 4 squadrons.
Group of motor machine-guns and armoured cars comprised 9 fighting cars, each
carrying 1 gun, 1 machine gun and 1 spare machine gun; 4 communication cars; 2
small lorries for stores; 7 lorries; including 1 repair lorry; 4 motor cycles.
According to Neuilly Treaty the large cavalry units may include a variable
number of regiments and could be divided into independent brigades''.

So, there was not much left to work with after WWI. Why, one may wonder, why then do those Bulgarians issue an old school sabre, from the line of the heavy Austrians and the Italian M1860? In 1925? When everybody and their aunt is strutting around town with a puny Degen?
Well, the answer may partly lay with tradition. Bulgaria is part of the Eastern Front, together with Hungary,Poland, Romania and Russia.
These are the guys who practicaly invented Cavalry. This place was once full of scyts, Avars, Gepids and God knows what else what came floating in from the Eastern steppes. All of them horse oriented folks, with the Huns and the Mongols joining the party much later.
The Persians gave them a taste for the first real Heavy Cavalry ever. The Ottoman Empire was only defeated and pushed back from the Balkans some years before, with Bulgarian Cavalry doing much of the heavy lifting.


Konstantin Makovsky: The Bulgarian Martyresses.

The distances are vast and around 1925 there was not much doing in motors, tanks and roads. Major battles with Sovjets were still being fought. The Poles still ordered train loads of the old French M1822 sabres and converted the hilts to their liking. I think that may have been one of the reasons this sabre saw the light in pre WWII times. It is a totally different theather, far removed from the West. Horse people can live from the land and one had no notion yet at that time, of the vast infrastructure needed to support tank armies. I do not think I am far off the mark, but let's get back to the sabre.




It looks a lot like the Prussian M1889, though everything is of course a bit bigger than that almost Degen like weapon.


The Bulgarian sits on top.

Looking at some of its forebears, it most certainly does not stand out.


Top to bottom: Bulgarian M1925, Italian M1860, Prussian M1852 and Prussian M1889.

The numbers:
Blade length is 84 cm or 33".
Blade width is 32 mm or 1.26".
Blade thickness is 7 mm or 0.28" at the guard, 4.5 mm or 0.18" half way and 2.5 mm or 0.1" at 1" from the tip.
POB is 15 cm or 5.9" from the guard.
The weight is 971 gram.
Total length is 99.5 cm or 39".
Total length with scabbard is 105.5 cm or 41.5".
The weapon number is 2180 on both the blade and the scabbard. Apart from the numbers and the manufacturer stamp on the ricasso there are no other marks.

I would say, the typical Cavalry blade, though slightly lighter than the heavier Italian and Austrian sabres that came before.
Less brutish, it handles very well and it is very well build too. I imagine it was not imported from a defeated Germany, but made at the only Bulgarian weapon factory allowed by the Allies to exist. The stamp on the blade does not ring any German bells. As the sabre is very well put together, the makers, who ever they were, did a very good job of it. The quality is on a par with the best Germany had ever produced.



And here is a picture of the most endearing part of the scabbard, the huge drag. It seems they could not resist a little frivolity even in those hard times.



Sadly, these outstanding sabres are hard to find and if one turns up somewhere, it is often confused with the Hessian M1889.
The emblem in the hilt looks quite like the Hessian one, though the Hessian lion is holding a sword in its paws and the Bulgarian Lion is clawing at it's cage.




Bulgarian emblem.


Hessian emblem.

Here is a picture with the entire line. Top to bottom: The Bulgarian M1925 Cavalry, M1927 NCO and the M1905 Cavalry.
The last one, the M1905 is very much on my ,,must have'' list.



And to top things up a bit, here is a Serbian (See the Corrections) M1905 Cavalry:



Conclusion.

This very well made and handling sabre, a design from times gone by, even when it was made, is hard to find, as I said before.
There must be loads of good and beautiful sabres over there in the region. I mean, look at that Serbian (See the corrections) M1905.
Also background information is hard to get. A pity, because things, information, might get lost. I hope there are books around about these sabres. I cannot find them though and I'd like to know more.
Anyway, I would like to end this post with the advise to look east for once. A lot happened there and a lot of good and interesting sabres should be there still. Much more interesting than that 6th French M1822 or another M1854.

Cheers.


Notes.

History of Bulgaria: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bulgaria   and   www.bulgaria-embassy.org/history_of_bulgaria.htm

Military history: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_history_of_Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Army in the 20s and 30s: forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=66767

National Guards Unit of Bulgaria: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guards_Unit_of_Bulgaria

Battle of Catalca 1912: 



Corrections:

I got an email from another collector with much more knowledge on the Bulgarian and Balkan subject:

The serbian M1905 is in fact a Bulgarian Cavalry sabre. Shows to be careful with info gleaned from the interwebs.
It was made in Austria for Bulgarian Cavalry during the Balkan wars and never recieved a model designation as far as he knows.
All of these sabres he has seen had worn grips. They must have seen heavy use.
The blade on my M1925 was made in Austria also. The stamp, though somewhat polished out, could still tell us the name if only I had a good book on Austrian manufacturers. Some of the blades used on these sabres were also imported from Eickhorn Solingen.

NEW INFORMATION: The blade on my M1925 was made by Zelinka, Vienna-Austria. Though Joseph Zelinka worked from 1870 to 1900, it is possible his heirs continued production, or the blade comes from an older model and got rehilted.
The sole Bulgarian Factory that was left after WWI could not deliver the same high quality as the Austrians could, so most of the sabres were imported from Austria.

UPDATE.

A very interesting video about the origins of the Bulgarians and their early history.
The quality of the video and the sound is not very good, but it is the content that counts.



Courtesy of the Bulgarian National Museum.