european blade Yataghan

[SERGIU]

here is what everybody calls a yat made out from a straight captured pallash blade at the typical size and style of a yataghan.
Now here s the question. Any chance to be a military Austrian issue for grenzer troops? rather a typical crnosapac (karakulak yataghan), isnt it?

[Gavin Nugent]

Bump for our new member

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Sergiu,
Thank you for posting this! and thanks Gav for the bump. Sorry nobody else has responded and I will hit the books and see what I can find so please dont leave OK. Actually I cannot see why your proposal would not apply, there are many hybrid forms of European/Balkan components which evolved from the pandour regiments of mid 18th century into the irregular units of Austrian and French armies as well as the German Freikorps.

All the best,
Jim

[Jim McDougall]

Sergiu, I think the closest I can come up with would be shown in Eduard Wagner's "Cut & Thrust Weapons" (Prague, 1967, plate 75, pp.366-67) which is a yataghan similar hilted and shown among the chapter on 'Austrian military swords'. It notes that these type yataghans were used by Serbian volunteer corps from around 1798, but these forces still part of Austrian auxiliary troops as late as 1848. They apparantly wore Serbo-Croat or Transylvanian attire and as mentioned, these forces evolved from Pandur units mid 18th century which served for the armies of Maria Theresa.

These of course would be part of the Grenz military you mentioned. It is hard to place what type pallasche the blade is from, but presumably one of the heavy cavalry officers swords of beginning 19th century, which have a similar hollow ground fuller but this block type ricasso seems unusual.

As mentioned there were units of these forces developed for Napoleon using men from these regions but officers which were from France and varying European allies. I have seen interesting European made yataghan blades of heavy cavalry length and European made with 18th century hirschfanger staghorn hilts, which suggest officers of these units. It seems quite plausible that a regulation blade would have been mounted for an officer of these units in this manner.
The forces of Baron von Trenck well established the use of 'oriental' appearance and weapons by West Europeans as well as the Balkan and East European components of these auxiliary troops. They were armed with both Euopean style 'couteau de chasse' as well as yataghans, and hybrid weapons were not at all unusual.

For further research I would suggest to those interested (though I dont have these titles, but can likely be found through interlibrary services, I did find Dolleczek that way once):

"Monographies der k.u.k. Osterr-Ungar Blanken und Handfeuer Waffen"
Anton Dolleczek , Vienna, 1896

"Die Osterreische Armee von 1700 bis 1867"
Ridolf von Ottenfeld & Oscar Teuber , Vienna, 1895

All the best,
Jim

[SERGIU]

thanks Jim, I checked out the Wagner book Hieb- und Stichwaffen, and you are right. Meanwhile I found informations in some osprey books, but about the pallash blade, maybe it is not a pallash, because the blade is too short for a pallash and the Blutrinne seem short to fit the blade.So chances are to be a blade ment for business as a yat.

[Jim McDougall]

Good call Sergiu, it very well might be a shorter heavy type blade used for the hanger type weapons used by auxiliary forces such as sappers, miners and also by artillery gunners. The yataghan term is of course often misapplied in the description of some weapons, and of course used with reference to the bifurcated or eared pommel hilt rather than the weapon overall. I wish I had some of the reference books on Austro-Hungarian and Polish swords with me here in the bookmobile I think some of the references might show this type of blade.
Its definitely a handsome sword in any case and maybe somebody out there might have more info.

All the best,
Jim