IMPERIAL AUSTRIAN PIONEER SWORD

Wagner #233. 15 ½” s.e. spear point wedge section blade with crowned ordnance mark. Heavy recurved iron guard and two piece shaped wood scale grips. Well used throughout. The blade back with some abrasions from hammering as these were used both as weapons and tool of the pioneers who were charged with engineering projects such as building temporary bridges, clearing roads and entrenching artillery. Their tasks put them ahead of the regular army and artillery and they often faced the enemy first. Austria, Germany and the Ottoman Empire fought the Allied Powers to defeat in 1918.