[Jim McDougall]

Hi Alex, welcome to the forum. I think your instincts are correct in the approximate Napoleonic assessment with this anomaly, and being stumped by these conundrums is pretty much to be expected. The main factor creating these kinds of dilemmas with these seemingly hybrid weapons in my opinion is production exports (commonly Solingen of course) coupled with diffusion into colonial regions.
Naturally all that can be offered in this situation is deductive reasoning and speculation based on facts at hand and comparitive analysis to known weapon forms.
At first glance this does seem like a French ANXI light cavalry sabre, the most compelling features the elliptical langet and the three bar guard. What steers away is that this has a plain 'birdhead' pommel rather than the 'capped' French style pommel. Also missing is the elliptical 'button' at grip center seen on the ANXI.
I cant tell if the metal is brass or iron, but appears to be iron .

Probably the most suggestive feature on this sword would of course be the inscriptions on the blade.It seems to me that motif running full or nearly full length of blade is sometimes the case on Napoleonic period officers swords.
Interestingly one that I recall used a crescent moon motif. The interesting panoplies of military motif, particularly what appears to be a lance with an elephant suggests to me India. The arrow pierced drum also seems related to Indian origin motif. The curious crescent with what appears blades extending recalls a number of Indian weapons with this blade configuration, coupled with the crescent, a key symbol in much of India's cosmology.

While obviously Great Britain is primarily associated with the colonization of India, other powers were represented there as well particularly Portugal (the original colonial power there); Denmark, and France. France maintained thier colonial presence in Pondicherry, Chandernagare, Yanam, Mahe and Karaikal.
Though this was interuppted for a period during Napoleonic Wars, these were returned to France in 1816.

Interestingly Chandanagore's (NE India, Bengal) name is in Bengali is Chandra (=moon) and nagar (=city). It was more commonly known in Bengali as Farasdanga (Beng. farasi =French; danga =city). Tenuously it is tempting to note the cosmological character in the motif along with the military elements and suppose that perhaps this might be a sword to an officer in French units here sometime toward mid 19th century.
Naturally it seems quite possible for the same attribution to other locations of French colonial presence in SE Asia such as French IndoChina (Viet Nam).

With the features of the sword, Germany produced swords with certain features common to French, British and Spanish (among others) weapons. Some were complete rather than being simply blades. Denmark also had hilts like these which were in brass like the French ANXI, Russia copied these and there were likely other European copies.

With these observations it would seem a fair assumption this may have been a German made officers sword to an officer in a French colonial unit in India about mid to later 19th century, or French holdings in SE Asia.

Incidentally, I have seen Solingen made sabres with this configuration hilt if recalling correctly as well as similar langets for Spanish colonial use in c.1820s.Seemed worthy of note.

All best regards,
Jim