The British saddle Poles called Canadian

 Salvete Omnes,

this is the first of three posts about the Polish military saddle patented in 1925 -  

When the Polish armies went to war for the Polish independence in 1918, the newly created Polish cavalry regiments and squadrons were using  various saddles of the neighbors and more distant allies.

Let me name a few:  The German cavalry saddle, Austro-Hungarian cavalry saddle,  Russian Imperial saddles, American McClellan saddle known in Poland as the Mexican, and the British cavalry saddle known in Poland as the Canadian. 

In the post-war period the General Staff and cavalry staff went to work on developing a national cavalry saddle, to meet the needs of the nation's standing army (saddle for soldiers, officers, artillery and wagon trains).

Two foreign saddles were used to guide the saddle planers and makers to develop the new Polish saddle:

the British (Canadian) saddle and Russian Imperial line cavalry saddle.
 The following images describe the British saddle: 

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next, the Russian imperial 

Valete

Polish Legion cavalryman & horse- Austro-Hungarian army circa 1916

Salvete Omnes,
a very interesting photo from the collections of Polish National Library - Polona:
a Polish Uhlan of the 1st Uhlan Regiment, Polish Legions, of circa 1916 with his horse saddled with the Austro-Hungarian saddle and tack according to the 1883 regulations. He has also an Austrian regulations sabre.
The young woman holding the horse and the woman with a small child  are  unknown.
A while ago I posted the horse tack regulations for the Polish cavalry published in 1919, that were almost the same to the ones made in 1916.


and in order to get more information on these 'Austrian' saddles and tack we can turn to this book by  William H. Carter, 6th US cavalry titled  Horses, Saddles and Bridles (1906) where one may find  practitioner's information on the Austro-Hungarian cavalry tack etc of he pre-Great War and Great War period.
 
 
 
 
 

 there are two books by Osprey that really do not address horse and cavalry equipment:
1.Polish Legions 1914-19 by Nigel Thomas  but I am not too fond of it. Johnny Shumate's work is decent but my authority for this period, Krzysztof Komaniecki,   says that not adequate for the subject matter.
2. The Austro-Hungarian Forces in World War I - 1914 by Peter Jung -  not a dissimilar sentiment, but illustrations by Darko Pavlovic are very interesting and appealing.
Valete