A French M1829 Mounted Artillery Officers Sabre.

After the excellent review by Afoo, see: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/49757/french-cavalry-swords-holy-trinity it is quite hard to add something new of interest.
There are some tidbits though that are not discussed elsewhere.

About Burning 600 Euro Worth of Sabre.

Let me begin with stating that this review is about the first generation of M1829 Artillery sabres, the version with the capped peens.
I was able to operate on a defect capped Officers M1829. The knuckle bow pommel hook was broken, a quite weak spot on this, by any means, very well build sabre. I could take some pictures of the inner workings of the pommel. This might clear up a few misunderstandings and aid in repairing or dismembering this version of the sabre.
Getting into the pommel to be able to drill out the peen proved to be a chore.
I was send into the woods by the following picture, which made me , wrongly, conclude that the entire top of the pommel could be taken off by just heating it up.



No such luck. Beside the, thin, decorated peen cap everything else is of one, thick, solid cast.
So I sawed off the top, but that still did not give me the much wanted look inside.
The decorated peen cover would not come off too. It sits in a recess where it is first snapped in place and than soldered shut.
The solder came out, but the cap just sat there grinning. So I drilled right through it as I was getting annoyed a bit.
I went full Gengis Kahn on the thing.
So. Here we are. The parts. The inner workings.







The construction is quite simple once you know it and not be let astray by crummy pictures.
The cap is snapped into a recess and is soldered in place. The pommel top is hollow and the peen sits in a thick plateau inside.
It forms the bottom of the hollow top.
The plateau also functions as the point where the grip buts up against. A grip stop like every other.That is all.
The pommel is cast with quite thick walls. Rather like the rest of the hilt parts.
There are two reasons for this.
One is that the hilt of this sabre has to be strong enough to withstand the inevitable abuse in situations were heavy equipment has to be handled in often very hectic circumstances caused by enemy fire and horse teams going berserk for instance.


Polish Horse Artillery under fire.

Why the designers still choose to implement the use of such a small and fragile hook on the otherwise strong knuckle bow is anybodies guess. This was clearly a mistake.
The other reason became clear when I had the blade free of the hilt and was taking the numbers on it. The weight of the naked blade is 555 grams. The POB of the naked blade is 14.5 cm from the blade shoulders. The POB of an intact Officers M1829 sabre is 12 cm from same. The weight of my intact Officers sabre is 916 grams.
So, in order to pull the POB back from 14.5 cm to 12 cm one needs exactly 361 grams of hilt material including grip, leather and wiring, with a lot of that counter weight as far back as is possible.
That is why the M1829 pommel is somewhat bigger and heavier than a generic M1822 Artillery Officers sabre pommel. Of course this also makes for a very good hand stop. The M1829 pommel including the cap weighs 94 grams and the M1822 pommel weighs 84 grams. That does not look like much of a difference, but remember that the M1829 does not have those extra two bars. The guard and knuckle bow of the M1829 weigh 216 grams and the grip 36 grams. So, according to my digital kitchen scales the total weight of the hilt parts is 346 grams. The missing grams may be accounted for in the saw cutting and drilling of the peen cap. Also kitchen scales are not 100% compared to lab equipment of course.
Anyway. With the numbers we have we can state that, in the M1829 case, one needs about 346 : 2.5 = 138.4 grams per cm to bring back the POB.
This may be handy to know for those who would like to turn a nekkid M1829 blade in say, a Turcael. That is what I am thinking about. Or using it for building a Sachka, although when looking here: www.palmira.net/arts/arms/sabres_18.html and clicking on the blue ,, Fig. 61c '' button, one sees a number of French Officers M1829, virtually unchanged as far as I can see, scabbard and all, as the Imperial Russian P1913 Infantry Officers sabre.
To get the hang of Imperial Russian designs, this is the site to explore.Bookmark it please.
For those interested in doing some work with an M1822 Artillery or Cavalry blade, the total weight of the hilt parts I get on my scales is a round 400 grams. This also underlines the fact that the build of the M1829 hilt is much sturdier. 361 grams of bronze and wood all in a single bow, pommel and small guard construction against the mere 400 grams for the M1822 hilt with a large plateau and the side bars. In comparison with the M1829 the M1822 hilt looks definitely undernourished.
Again, in my view, the designers of the M1829 should have taken a long and hard look at the much better designed pommel hook of the M1822. Say what you will, but that thick hook plus the thick end of the knuckle bow with the decoration working as an extra strengthener, really is much more secure.


Compare the M1829 (Left) with the M1822 (Right).

So. Having done exposing the inner workings of the peen capped sabres, we can now go over to do a review of the sabre itself.



The French Mounted Artillery Officers Sabre M1829.



Contrary to before I will start with the numbers to make clear that there is virtually no difference between the Troopers and the Officers version apart from the Officers version having some decorations and a light scabbard.
The Troopers scabbard was made using 1.5 mm steel and the Officers scabbard was made from slightly less than 1 mm steel sheet. It seems incredible, but this small difference in thickness results in a much more bulky, heavier and stronger scabbard for the Troopers. Also the ring mounts on the Trooper version are wider at 10 mm compared to the 6 mm width for the Officers mounts.
For aspirant buyers this difference is a thing to watch out for. Apart from me being suckered into buying an Officers sabre with a Troopers scabbard, when looking around a bit these last few weeks, I found quite a few instances where Officers sabres were offered for sale with Troopers scabbards. Even right now at our favourite and famous French site dealing in excellent replicas of all things Napoleonic.
Have look.



Naughty naughty Mr. G!
Why is he showing the sabre going from left to right?
Because the first ring mount is always marked on a Troopers scabbard and one would see this clearly when the sabre is turned the other way around.
Also if the lighting is done well, one will hardly detect the difference in the width of the ring mounts nor the stamps. That is why some of these scabbards have been blued too. That was the way I was fooled. Seeing Officers and Troopers scabbards side by side will make detection easy of course.







Since there is hardly any difference in the blades, a Troopers blade will fit into the Officers scabbard quite well.


Ebay. Officers scabbard with Troopers sabre.

All it takes is to file off the little pressure block in the scabbard mouth a bit to have the Troopers sabre go in smoothly and even without filing one has to use only the slightest force to push it in all the way. The Troopers blades tend to be fractional fatter right under the guard.
The Troopers scabbards do not fit into the recess in the guard of the Officers sabre guards because they are bulkier and quite often one sees in pictures of such an ensemble a gap at the upper end where the scabbard does not contact the guard.


Officers sabre with Troopers scabbard.

This is visible in the Mr. G. picture too. Some work with light and shadow may well hide this, so buyers beware.
Mr. G. knows what is going on and he does not hide, but he does not tell you either!
All he might say is : What do you expect for that low price?

And another important thing to watch out for and this one does include all French sabres, are the sabres marked with three punches in a row.
Here is an example of an M1829 with the three dots on the guard.



A very senior French expert, THE to go to source for French sabre information, has stated the following: Sabres marked with three dots on the blade, the hilt and / or the scabbard were build from leftover parts from the various forges for use in the cinema and theatre. These sabres are not bad by the way. They are fully functional, but just stuff assembled without regard for numbers or stamps. For collectors they are worthless, but sometimes what is created is more beautiful than the real thing.
I saw a sabre like that, a gobbled together and enhanced M1896 Cavalry and it really was a beauty. Theatre on a high level! And it cost a bunch too.

The numbers.

Weight total:..........1427 gram.
Weight sabre:..........916 gram.
Weight scabbard:....511 gram.
Weight of blade:......555 gram.

Length total:................97.5 cm.
Length sabre:.............95.5 cm.
Length of blade:.........81.5 cm.

Width of blade:...........32 mm.
Thickness:...................9.7 - 7 - 6 - 5.5 - 2.5 mm.
Length of inside grip: 9.5 cm.
Length of outside:....12.5 cm.
Length of foible:..........18 cm.

POB of intact sabre: 12 cm from blade shoulders.
POB of blade alone: 14.5 cm.
Apart from the scabbard weight, the Troopers sabres numbers will be very much the same. The difference sits in some 10ths of a mm here and there.



The spine of the blade is marked: Manuf. Royale de Klingenthal Avril 1830.

The poinçons:



B: Bish - Joseph - Ambroise. 23 February 1809 - 25 July 1834.
D: Dubocq - Jean - Thomas. Directeur 22 November 1823 - 27 March 1830. Here, officially that is, Colliot de la Hattais took over as Directeur.
As my blade is from April 1830 it seems that Monsieur Dubocq was still in charge however.
Both the B and D poinçons are Etat.
Now we come to the fun part.

Here are the poinçons on the hilt:

E under star: Unknown Inspecteur.
S under star: Charles Schmitt. 27 July 1821 - 11 March 1835. This is his Coulaux poinçon. His poinçon for the Coulaux commercial line. His Etat poinçon is S in shield.
B in circle: Bisch - Joseph - Ambroise. 7 December 1830 - 31 December 1834. Etat stamp.

All this leads us to some conclusions:
1. The hilts were cast at commercial Coulaux and signed by the Inspecteur from Coulaux and because this is a State order, also signed by the Inspecteur of State or Etat.
2. The blades were signed by the Etat, The State branch at Klingenthal.
3. The blade was signed off on April 1830 and the hilt after 7 December 1830. So it took six months at least for the sabre to be fitted.
4. The mix of Etat and Commercial line Coulaux poinçons means that M1829 Officers sabres were under Etat regulation. This leaves little room for fantasy sabres.
The only room for Officers Creep is to have some etching on the blade or, as some Officers did, go to Solingen. Why? Nobody knows. The Solingen M1829 just looks like any other French M1829, apart from the frosted etch that is. I think I would not have trusted an Officer who was so neurotic and vain that he had to go through all kinds of trouble just so he could sport a Solingnen blade. Instead of to focus on the job, his priorities seemed to lay elsewhere.
Never a good thing when one has to handle 10 ton cannon and heavy cumbersome carts pulled by idiot freaked out horses. Just saying.


Solingen M1829.

That the Officers sabres were regulated to a tee, leaving little room for Officers creep, means that only other place to stamp ones individuality on one tools, apart from some etching on the blade, is the peen cap.
The cap one my sabre is very fancy, though it may be a later addition.



Most however were quite sober. There is the French Lily on a Manceau sabre as seen here in the picture by Petart,



but the crossed cannon seems to be the emblem more common.
Of these I saw a few. Also the crossed cannon with a stack of balls seemed to  be a favourite.





The one above seems to be of later vintage. The peen is out in the open, just like on the Petart example.

Something completely new I found while hunting for info on the M1829.
In 1843 a bunch of M1829's were given to the French Garde Nationale it seems.
The difference with the regular Artillery sabre is that the Garde sabre hilts were silver plated.
Here is the French text. Note that it speaks of a nickel plated blade and chrome plated scabbard. This cannot be original since nickel plating came on the market on an industrial scale only after 1873 and chrome plate even later. So this lets me to believe someone is playing tricks here. With a weapon number as high as 3149 you'll need industrial scale plating facillities.
If you want a translation just copy the text and run it through Google Translate.

SABRE TROUPE DE CANONNIER MONTÉ DE LA GARDE NATIONALE, MODÈLE 1829, MONARCHIE DE JUILLET.

Monture en métal argenté, garde à une branche matriculée « 3149 », calotte à courte queue, pommeau sans décor, poignée en bois gainé de veau ciré noir filigrané. Lame nickelée, courbe à un pan creux (longueur 80,5 cm), dos de lame marqué « Manufacture de Klingenthal novembre 1843 ». Fourreau en acier chromé à deux bracelets de bélière.

Assez bon état.

France.

Monarchie de Juillet.

Note :
L'artillerie à cheval de la Garde Nationale est depuis le Premier Empire un corps important avec de nombreux effectifs. Ce sabre sur le modèle réglementaire mais avec une monture en métal argenté est une variante peu commune.







So, here ended my adventure with the French M1829. It was quite costly but it was  very much fun too.
I could wait for an Officers hilt to show up and remount the spare blade, but that would leave me still with a Troopers scabbard.
I think about doing a Turcael now. Much more fun and if I cover the Troopers scabbard in some fancy leather, all will be alright.
Luckily the all parts on these excellent sabres are interchangeable.
And did I say these are excellent sabres? Well I do now. Excellent build, apart from that iffy hook, excellent handling, excellent for indoor use where guns are a no no. Excellence as far as the eye can see.
The M1822 cannot beat it. No way!

Cheers.


Notes.

My earlier post on the Troopers sabre: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/47145/french-m1829-mounted-artillery-troopers

siege-of-sebastopol.blogspot.nl/2012/11/french-artillery-in-crimean-war.html

siege-of-sebastopol.blogspot.nl/2012/11/les-cantinieres.html

siege-of-sebastopol.blogspot.nl/2012/11/photographs-of-french-artillery.html

www.britishbattles.com/crimean-war/battle-of-the-alma/

I cannot stress this enough: You need to bookmark the Klingenthal site.
Without the info contained therein you'll be lost in the French sabre world.

www.klingenthal.fr/presentation_marquages.htm