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The pioneer saw, situated on the spine of a bayonet… Another Ersatz blog…
( Oh no! Friday already, and Gustaf “Gus” and Maggie are still on a cruise… Well, someone has to fill in, – here goes nothing..)

Few bayonet types are more popular with collectors, and as steeped in myth as the sawback bayonet, the German sawback to be precise.
And, I say the German one, as sawback bayonets are not a uniquely German thing, not even a German invention, though one could get that impression by reading the propaganda from WWI, and hearing the many myths surrounding them.

The fact is that the sawback bayonet was a British invention from the mid 1800s. The British sawback bayonets were in use for more than four decades and almost up to WWI. Many other nations saw the usefulness of the design and made their own sawback bayonets, the Germans, Swiss, Belgians, Norwegians and more.

Why make such a beastly weapon with a saw on it? Well, it was actually not intended to make the weapon more horrible. The fact is it was a useful tool for pioneer soldiers. On a sturdy sword bayonet it would replace both a Machete/Fascinemesser and a Saw. The pioneer would simply have two needed tools in one, that were also doubling as a weapon. Simple efficiency, reducing the weight a pioneer would have to carry. So, as such, a great invention.

In the German army about six percent of the bayonets were made with sawbacks. They were, as stated, given to Pioneer soldiers, also to NCOs so that every unit would have a saw available. Many different German bayonet types came with a sawback.
But, the saw was eventually removed on many bayonets? Why? And when? I will explain…

During WWI the British, appearing to conveniently forget that the Sawback bayonet was a British invention, made a huge propaganda point about the Germans barbarian weapons, highlighting the sawback. It appears a bit strange that they made such a point of this weapon, considering that this was a war with poison gas, flamethrowers, machine guns, and all sorts of artillery killing people in the nastiest of ways. But, of course the sawback bayonet is a visually nasty looking weapon, and I suppose it appealed to the understandable fear of cold steel and close quarters combat.

There is no doubt that it struck fear into the soldiers. I have read a few eyewitness accounts where the sawback bayonet is featured. Not as something actually encountered, but in situastions such as lying in a shell crater, fearing to be attacked by fierce Germans with saws on their bayonets. There is a myth that the sawback bayonet would rip the guts out of a man, but his is hardly true, as the sawteeth actually face the wrong way for that.

However, more sinister from the German point of view, was the idea that if you were taken prisoner with a sawback bayonet you would be executed on the spot. This story exists in many versions, that you would be tortured to death, killed with your own bayonet etc. Nowadays those stories circulate among collectors, are told from old collectors to new, and it has become truth. Everybody «knows» that that happened. However, the absence of actual documented examples is total, I have not found any documented instance of this happening, so though all know it to be so, it is most probably just another myth.

That is not to say that the rumors and the fear did not exist. Word spread among the Germans and soldiers feared to carry them, and some discarded them when they could.

In the end the Germans caved to the international pressure and decided to stop using sawback bayonets. In November 1917 the sawback bayonets started to be withdrawn from frontline use, and sent to armories where they had the saw ground off. This process continued all the way up to the armistice in November 1918. Thus one can encounter the «sawback removed» bayonets with the blade spines ground, they are easily identifiable. So, the sawbacks have become a bit scarce as a result of that.

These are fascinating bayonets, with quite a bit of history in them, and perhaps a myth or two too many surrounding them.