French blades on Saharan Edged Weapons

[Jim McDougall]

Excellent evidence that the convention of marking the Legion's weapons did indeed exist, as per this obviously far later example than the period we are considering. Thank you for continuing the search!!

It does seem that the presumption has typically been that the military would mark their weapons, especially as most arms for rank and file are issued. Therefore in order to establish ownership and regulate issuance and inventory, such numbered markings would be necessary.

However in many conditions it seems there were cases were arms of certain types were not marked. In the case of the East India Company for example, I was told that the swords/hangers to the rank and file were never marked (officers of course had private purchase arms).
However, firearms were invariably marked with the EIC balemark and other markings. This apparently extended to bayonets which also had the EIC balemark as considered part of the firearms scope.

Clearly an analogy, it simply illustrates how circumstances might alter these well established conventions. The EIC was a privately held company, not a standing army of the government.
The Foreign Legion was a volunteer regiment basically although not directly attached to the French army, it was in degree under French government auspices.

[Jerseyman]

Not sure if this item fits the topic, but I've always assumed it was a European bayonet re-hilted for local use. I think it's camel bone, or at least the same bone as on a Sudanese Haladie in my collection. Not a great picture unfortunately as it's just an archive photo, so no stats to post. The pommel cap is brass if I remember correctly, and the underside of the blade is flat rather than concave.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Jerseyman

Not sure if this item fits the topic, but I've always assumed it was a European bayonet re-hilted for local use. I think it's camel bone, or at least the same bone as on a Sudanese Haladie in my collection. Not a great picture unfortunately as it's just an archive photo, so no stats to post. The pommel cap is brass if I remember correctly, and the underside of the blade is flat rather than concave.

Thank you so much for responding! This is it appears a bit of a difficult topic,
as most often the blades used on these Saharan weapons from the military sources I am considering are repurposed and altered. The section on this does seem to resemble certain bayonet blades, so plausibly indeed from one of these, actually it seems perhaps even an earlier socket type.

While with the volume of trade blades circulating in the Sahara was as previously noted, considerable, in these kinds of remote circumstances virtually nothing was disregarded as unusable.
As bayonets are not a field I am particularly familiar with, it will take some searching but I feel it is possible of a French type, though the section of the blade sounds British.